‘Mr Farnell must have known’ about abuse at Knowl View

‘SHAMEFUL’ former Rochdale council leader Richard Farnell lied under oath to the national child abuse inquiry last October when he claimed to have known nothing about the Knowl View abuse scandal 25 years ago, the investigation’s explosive first report has concluded.

Labour Coun Farnell is branded ‘shameful’ by the inquiry for refusing to take personal responsibility for the abuse - which happened under his watch when he was first town hall leader between 1986 and 1992 - as well as ‘bullish, self-opinionated and unyielding.’

The report also finds that former Liberal leader and ex-MP Paul Rowen, who led the council in the mid-1990s, ‘bore considerable responsibility’ for the school too, at best being ‘insufficiently inquisitive’ about it and at worst ‘turned a blind eye’ by choosing to give its problems a ‘low priority.’

The damning conclusions on Rochdale’s political accountability over a long period form part of the first report from the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

It finds that, over more than 30 years, children were being abused not only at Knowl View school - but in the town centre, the bus station, and the notorious Smith Street public toilet directly across the road from the council’s own offices.

Regarding Knowl View, it finds there was ‘no deliberate cover-up’ by institutions, but that they displayed a ‘careless and wholly inadequate response to the serious sexual abuse of children’ there.

However the report – the results of two weeks of hearings last autumn – is most scathing about Coun Farnell, who was leader during the abuse at council-run Knowl View and again for several years up to late 2017, when he was ousted following a local Labour backlash prompted by his evidence to the inquiry.

He had claimed at the hearings that despite the then-chair of education, Mary Moffatt, and head of social services, Diana Cavanagh, having been well aware at the time of the allegations, he was not.

Coun Farnell claimed he had only heard of those concerns in the last ‘two or three years’ - and said he had ‘no recollection’ of being told about them at the time by Mrs Moffatt.

His evidence was then undermined by fellow councillor Peter Joinson, who told the inquiry Coun Farnell had admitted in 2014 to having seen a copy of a report on the issue at the time, and by Mrs Cavanagh, who said she had ‘no doubt’ he would have seen a copy in 1992.

The inquiry now concludes Coun Farnell lied under oath.

“We concluded that Richard Farnell, who was leader of Rochdale council from 1986 until 1992, lied to the inquiry in the course of his evidence,” it finds.

“We preferred the evidence of Peter Joinson, who supported other evidence suggesting that Mr Farnell must have known at least about the generality, if not the detail, of issues about child sexual abuse at Knowl View.”

It notes that his version of events is also undermined by the fact Middleton’s ‘satanic abuse’ scandal was still recent and high profile at the time.

“In the light of everything we have heard and seen, it defies belief that Mr Farnell was unaware of the events involving Knowl View school, especially within the context of the public scandal involving children in the care of Rochdale council arising from the Middleton cases,” it adds.

The report also slams his refusal to take responsibility for the failures during the hearings, at which he pointed the finger at senior officials instead. “It was shameful that he refused to accept any personal responsibility for the young lives blighted by what happened at Knowl View while he was leader. Instead, he laid all blame for what occurred at the door of the senior

Turn to page 4