Jailed sex attacker was a Smith whistleblower

A‘TWISTED’ former social worker jailed for sexually abusing a young boy was one of the first people to raise concerns about disgraced MP Cyril Smith, the Observer can reveal.

James Peter Gavin, aged 82, was sentenced to 17 years in prison last month.

The ‘manipulative predator’ subjected his victim to a string of sickening assaults as he stayed at foster homes and Foxholes Children’s Home in Rochdale in the 1970s.

But the Observer can now reveal in late 1965 Gavin reported abuse carried out by the late Rochdale MP Smith at another institution, the notorious Cambridge House Boys Hostel. ●●Former social worker, James Gavin (left) now behind bars after being jailed for historic sexual abuse of a young boy was one of the first people to raise concerns about alleged abuse by the late former MP Cyril Smith in the 1960s

The Observer has had it confirmed, by senior sources in Rochdale at the time, that Mr Gavin was a named whistleblower in the sixties.

Gavin was a social worker at the time, having moved to Rochdale for a job. It is thought he was staying at the Cambridge House Hostel when he raised concerns about Smith. He told his boss how Smith had spanked the ‘bare buttocks’ of a 16-year-old resident as punishment.

Details of the incident were heard during last year’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse.

A statement given by Lyndon Price, senior children’s officer and then director of social services at Rochdale council from the 1960s through to the early 1980s, given to Lancashire Police during a 1970 investigation into Smith, was read out during the hearings.

It said: “Near the end of 1965, Mr James Gavin, a childcare officer in my department, informed me that he had received information from a 16-year-old boy who was under the care of our authority and supervised by Mr Gavin.

“This boy had told him that Mr Cyril Smith had asked him to remove his trousers and he had then spanked him on his bare buttocks.

“This was punishment for some wrong done by the boy but I am unable to say what this was.

“This had come to light during conversation with the boy and not in the form of a complaint. Mr Gavin was seeking my advice as head of the department.

“A few days later, I saw [the boy] in my office.

“He had come at my request. He then repeated, in substance, the statement which Mr Gavin had made to me. The boy was not complaining.”

Mr Price went on to tell the inquiry he reported the incident to the then Chief Constable of Rochdale, Patrick Ross, but after initial enquiries were made ‘no further action’ was taken.

The IICSA heard allegations that in the following decades Smith went on to rape and abuse boys at Knowl View, a residential school for boys with learning and behavioural difficulties.

Despite a number of police investigations into the claims the 29 stone politician was never prosecuted. He died in 2010.

Gavin, of College Bank Way, Rochdale, was sentenced at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court after he was found guilty of four counts of indecent assault and one count of an attempted serious sexual assault on a child.

The court heard how during the 1970s Gavin – who had access to the boy through his role as a social worker – sexually abused him on a number occasions.

The boy didn’t tell his carers at the time out of fear he’d get in trouble or that no one would believe him. Gavin also threatened him.

The victim bravely reported the abuse to police in 2015.

Speaking after the sentencing PC Karen Bancroft said: “Gavin preyed on a vulnerable boy who should have been cared for and supported during an unsettling time in his life. Instead, for his own sick sexual gratification, he sexually abused him knowing the distress it would cause.

“Not once did he care about the emotional damage he was inflicting on an innocent child who has had to carry this pain with him his entire life. Gavin is a twisted, manipulative predator and thanks to the courage of the victim, his patience and his strength, he is now where he belongs.”