Paedophile victim slams Savile police

Too much emphasis on dead paedophiles and not enough on what is still happening says victim.

The victim of a sex beast who preyed on vulnerable young boys is demanding a national public inquiry into institutionalised abuse.

Paul Burn believes too much emphasis has been placed on costly investigations into dead paedophiles like Jimmy Savile who will never be brought to justice.

And the 47-year-old father has bravely waived his right to anonymity to demand a full inquiry into the ‘forgotten victims’ of sex abuse in schools and children’s homes.

He said: “There has been millions spent on inquiries into Jimmy Savile, but we need to get into the real world. Child abuse is not only about Savile and Cyril Smith. What they did was terrible, but they are the big people with lots of money and the investigations have centred on them. However there are sex abuse scandals still going on.

“The Government should hold a national public inquiry into what has and is still happening at institutions across the country.”

He has written to the UK Government calling for an official inquiry.

Paul, of North Tyneside, is also backing calls for a law to compel doctors, teachers and social workers to report suspected abuse cases, or face imprisonment or fines. Similar systems already operate in Australia, the US and Ireland.

Campaigners including Childline founder Esther Rantzen want to add mandatory reporting to the Children and Families Bill.

Paul said: “People are hushed up and forced out of their jobs for speaking up. There should be a helpline and people should have a duty to pick up the phone and report the abuse of these forgotten victims.”

Paul was just 12 when paedophile social worker Kevin Brown abused him in his cramped flat in the grounds of Feversham Special School, Newcastle, in 1978.

Brown had been a senior residential child care officer trusted to look after boys with learning and emotional difficulties. But in a terrifying campaign of abuse over three decades, he groomed and attacked a series of youngsters. Paul was his first at the school.

In his first year working at Feversham, Brown, then 22, invited the youngster alone to do the washing up as a reward for being a ‘good boy’ before launching a sickening attack.

Paul ran out of the flat and complained to his mum. Brown was suspended but was reinstated by school governors who refused to believe Paul’s story.

During 18 years at the special school, Brown went on to attack nine more boys. He groomed them by buying gifts or taking them on trips.

Many of his perverted attacks happened while he was bathing the children in his care or reading them bedtime stories.

Paul, a bakery worker, only realised the extent of the abuse when police investigating Brown called him more than 30 years on.

Last week, a judge at Newcastle Crown Court sentenced Brown to six years for indecently assaulting young boys. He is already serving an eight-year sentence for the abuse of three youngsters, including Paul, at Feversham.

He was sentenced alongside his former colleague John ‘Les’ Duncan, 61, of Gateshead, who abused boys at Feversham and at Shotley Park, County Durham, run by Barnardo’s.

Judge Brian Forster QC sentenced Duncan to 15 years in jail, branding him a “predatory paedophile”.

Brown’s solicitor Toby Hedworth read a grovelling statement from his client, which said: “I’m truly sorry for the harm, damage and distress I’ve caused to so many people. I’m sorry to you all and I wish you all well in the future.”

But Paul, who was in court last week to see his tormentor jailed, said: “I am disgusted that the abuse happened for so long. As far as I am concerned, I hope both of them rot in hell.

“They deserve everything they’ve got.”

The investigation into historic sex crimes sparked by the death of Jimmy Savile has cost nearly £3 million.

Decisions to prosecute celebrity defendants were called into question after veteran DJ Dave Lee Travis was acquitted of 12 sexual assault charges brought under Operation Yewtree.

Last week, Travis appeared in court again and pleaded not guilty to a new allegation of indecently assaulting a woman almost 20 years ago.

His case followed the acquittal of Coronation Street actor Bill Roache, who was also cleared of allegations that went back decades.

Former pupils of an exclusive private school fear they may have been abused by convicted paedophile William Vahey.

Vahey, 64, a former teacher at Southbank International School in London, was found dead last month, after a pen drive containing sick child abuse images was discovered.

Now former pupils have come forward fearing they were abused by Vahey, who had been convicted of child molestation in his native America. One recounted how he believed he was given a sleeping pill during a school trip and Vahey escorted him back to his room alone.