Sex abuse inquiry set to announce findings
THE findings of an explosive public hearing into historic sexual abuse in Rochdale are to be published next week.
Numerous claims the late Rochdale MP Cyril Smith, and others, repeatedly abused boys at Cambridge House Hostel and Knowl View school were heard during October’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
Now the inquiry panel has announced their report will be published at noon on Thursday, April 12.A number of former Knowl View pupils told the hearings how they were raped and sexually assaulted by Smith, who served as Rochdale MP from 1972 to 1992, and died aged 82 in 2010.
One told how a member of staff ‘pulled him out of bed’ and ‘frogmarched’ him to a flat, possibly a staff accommodation area, where 29 stone Smith was sitting on the bed.
He said Smith, a governor at the Bamford school, which closed in the mid-90s, made him take off his pyjamas and performed a sex act on him before raping him.
The report could also make uncomfortable reading for ex-council leader Richard Farnell who stood down in December following the hearings and former Rochdale MP Paul Rowen.
Evidence given by the pair was severely criticised by Laura Hoyano, counsel on behalf of the victims.
Coun Farnell, who was also council leader between 1986 and 1992 when boys were being abused at Knowl View, was accused of being involved in a ‘cover up’.
Ms Hoyano told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that it was ‘inconceivable’ Coun Farnell did not know about it at the time. But if he did not, she said, he was guilty of ‘wilful blindness’ pointing to ‘a cover up at the level of the leadership of the borough council’.
Ms Hoyano was also deeply critical of former Liberal Democrat leader Paul Rowen, who succeeded Coun Farnell as council leader in May 1992.
Mr Rowen, who was also Rochdale MP from 2005 to 2010, had appointed Smith to be governor at Knowl View in 1994 out of personal convenience, she said.
It has subsequently emerged that Smith had been abusing boys there for years.
A statement on the IICSA website says: “The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse will be publishing its report into the investigation into Cambridge House Boys’ Hostel, Knowl View School, and Rochdale Borough Council on April 12.
“The investigation examined the allegations made about the sexual abuse and exploitation of children at Cambridge House Boys’ Hostel and Knowl View School in Rochdale. Former Liberal Party MP, Cyril Smith, had been named as one of the alleged abusers.
“The Inquiry also considered the extent to which institutional failings may have allowed the sexual abuse and exploitation of vulnerable children. The report sets out the Inquiry Panel’s findings on this investigation.”