Unicef worker jailed for 6 years over sex attacks on boy aged 12
A LEADING children’s rights campaigner who worked for Unicef has been jailed for a series of sex attacks on a boy.
Peter Newell, 77, also a former co-ordinator of the Association for the Protection of All Children charity, was sentenced to six years and eight months after admitting the offences.
They included three counts of indecent assault and two of sexual assault over a three-year period in the 1960s, starting when the victim was 12.
The attacks by Newell, who is also a former adviser to the National Council for Civil Liberties, came to light only after a Scotland Yard investigation started two years ago.
Last night a former head of the Met’s Paedophile Squad, Mike Hames, warned that Newell is likely to have committed further attacks on other underage boys.
He said: ‘His predilections are unlikely to have gone away since his offences in the 1960s. It is a great worry that paedophiles seek work in the charity sector, particularly ones which give them access to children.’
Mr Hames’s comments come amid warnings that predatory paedophiles are exploiting the aid sector to target vulnerable children. A report suggests 125 workers for the country’s leading charities were accused of sexual abuse in 2017. There have been calls for tighter vetting of prospective employees.
Newell, of North London, was sentenced at Blackfriars Crown Court on January 3. But the case attracted little publicity, with a Scotland Yard statement about it not revealing details of his extensive work as a campaigner against child abuse.
Newell worked as a Unicef consultant and helped prepare its ‘Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child’, launched in 1998.
The document is still used by governments all over the globe as well as various United Nations agencies, human rights institutions and academics.
A spokesman for Unicef said: ‘We are deeply shocked. We had no knowledge of this crime when he worked as a Unicef consultant over ten years ago.
‘Unicef has since set in place strong procedures to vet staff and consultants.’
More recently, Newell held a key role at the Association for the Protection of All Children, or Approach, which says its objectives are to prevent cruelty and maltreatment of children and advance public knowledge in the UK and abroad.
Approach operates through the Children Are Unbeatable! Alliance in the UK and the Glocase bal Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children.
Newell was listed as Approach’s co-ordinator in its accounts on the Charity Commission website, although the most recent document says he stood down from the role in May 2016.
According to the accounts, for the five years from 2012 to 2016, Approach received hundreds of thousands of pounds from the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, Save the Children and Unicef, as well as other organisations abroad and a private donor.
In a statement yesterday Approach said it was ‘deeply shocked and saddened by the relating to its former coordinator Peter Newell’. It added: ‘Until he resigned in May 2016 and the allegations came to light, the organisation, at both board and staff level, was completely unaware of his actions which took place 20 years before the charity was established.
‘Child abuse is a grave crime which has a lasting and damaging impact on its victims. We condemn all forms of abuse, and as an organisation we continue to work to eradicate all violence against children.’
A Charity Commission spokesman said: ‘The Association for the Protection of All Children Approach Limited informed the Commission in 2016 about an allegation against and subsequent trial of a former employee at the charity for non-recent sexual offences which occurred before the individual was employed at the charity.
‘Incidents of this nature are of serious concern to the Commission, and we have emphasised that charity trustees must make the safeguarding of beneficiaries and anyone that comes into contact with their charity a key governance priority. The public rightly expect charities to be safe and trusted environments where people are protected from harm.’
Newell’s victim was 12 when the offences began in May 1965. They continued until May 1968 at locations in London and the South-East.
He reported the abuse to the Met in March 2016 and Newell was interviewed by detectives in May last year before being charged in November.
Detective Constable Michael Lam-Hang said: ‘Newell committed a series of horrific sexual offences that have rightly resulted in a lengthy term of imprisonment. I would like to thank the victim for his courage in reporting these crimes to police and supporting this investigation.
‘I would appeal to anyone who has been a victim of a sexual offence to come forward and speak to police; specially trained officers are there to support you and bring the perpetrators of such crimes to justice.’
Newell has also been placed on the sex offenders register.
‘Shocked and saddened’