Boys were being abused in public toilets

BOYS from the dysfunctional Knowl View residential school were abused in public toilets visible from social services offices – yet little action was taken to protect them.

Child protection manager Janet Weeks told the inquiry how from her office ‘she would regularly see boys… following men inside the toilets’.

The report adds: ‘It was obvious to her and other staff who witnessed it that sexual activity was going on.’ It also reveals that ‘from at least 1989’ the authorities knew men were abusing children from Knowl View at the Smith Street public toilets, visible from Rochdale council’s then offices.

The neighbouring bus station was also a known location of abuse. However, the report says there was ‘no apparent follow-up’ from social services. It found police investigated the abuse in the toilets but despite obtaining abusers’ names, no one was prosecuted – for reasons unclear.

The report said both Knowl View staff and corrupted older residents preyed on younger ones at the school.

It also emerged the Knowl View dormitories were given the hideously inappropriate names Bliss, Nirvana, Valhalla and Lilliput. ‘It wasn’t heaven,’ a former resident said last night. ‘It was the closest thing to hell I can imagine.’