Council preparing a package of redress for those who suffered abuse at Shirley Oaks children’s home and others in borough

Lambeth council is to pay tens of millions of pounds in compensation to children abused in its care homes, after a report by survivors of the Shirley Oaks home in the borough detailed systematic abuse by 60 paedophiles against thousands of young people.

The payouts, which are understood to total around £40m, are likely to far exceed the average payments of around £13,000 awarded in court to abuse victims. Lambeth’s decision to accept liability and set up what it said was a “far reaching redress system” is being seen as a radical blueprint for other institutions to follow when sexual and physical abuse on such a systematic scale is uncovered.

The report by the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (SOSA), which interviewed 400 former residents of the children’s home, identifies 27 suspected paedophiles by name, and gives details of 60 who have had multiple allegations of abuse made against them.

The report identifies links between some staff at Shirley Oaks and at Islington council homes, where there was a child abuse scandal in 1992.

Raymond Stevenson, a former resident of Shirley Oaks who began investigating two years ago when a survivor came forward to him to describe his ordeal, said: “Shirley Oaks children were brave beyond their years. The compensation was a small part of why we started this.

“It is really about the legacy. It is about putting this on record, it is about shining a light on it. We hope that other survivors groups will look at this and take their destiny in their own hands like this.”

The report says:



• Sixty paedophiles operated at Shirley Oaks or were linked to it.

• Forty-eight children died in the care of the council between 1970 and 1989, 20 of whom were linked to Shirley Oaks.

• “Corrupt” policing in south London allowed the abusers to escape justice.

• There is evidence that a 15-year-old boy, Peter Davis, who was found hanged in 1977 at Shirley Oaks, had been sexually abused by at least two staff who went on to abuse other children.

Lib Peck, the leader of Lambeth council, made an unreserved apology on Thursday to the thousands of people who were placed in Shirley Oaks – one of the biggest children’s homes in the UK – from the 1950s until it closed in 1983.

She said the council had admitted liability and accepted that every child who passed through the home had been put at risk. The council has agreed to pay every person who was a child in the home, and relatives of children who died, an ex gratia payment as part of its compensation package because it acknowledges that they were all put at risk.

Peck said: “This is an incredibly powerful report. It is very, very distressing to hear about their suffering, which continues today. The report shines a light on a very, very dark period in Lambeth’s history which I feel ashamed to be in any way associated with. As the leader of the council it falls to me to apologise to all of you for the abuse you suffered because of the failings of the care system.



“The proposed scheme is expected to pay tens of millions of pounds to children in Shirley Oaks until it closed in the 1980s.”

Michael Mansfield QC is to represent the survivors as the compensation with Lambeth council is finalised.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Raymond Stevenson holds a copy of the SOSA report, Looking for a Place Called Home. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP for Streatham, who has worked closely with SOSA, said it should not just fall upon Lambeth to take responsibility and pay compensation because all agencies of state were responsible in some way.



He said the Home Office, which until the 1970s was responsible for appointing superintendents at homes such as Shirley Oaks, should be made to provide money towards the compensation.

“Whether it is the Home Office, the CPS, the police or other agencies, they need to take this report and act and do what they have failed to do for decade after decade,” he said.

“The Home Office, social services, the police, the judiciary are culpable. It is not just Lambeth council, it is all agencies of government and they need to step up and provide the funding necessary to properly compensate the survivors. That is my message to government: pay up.”

Six fresh police investigations into abuse at Shirley Oaks are ongoing after Stevenson and SOSA passed information to detectives about alleged paedophiles who operated there. Umunna said the survivors needed justice. To date two members of staff from Shirley Oaks have been convicted.

Among the individuals identified as abusers by former residents in the report was Geoff Clarke, a football coach described as a “social uncle” to children in one of the 38 cottage-style houses in Shirley Oaks, which was set in 70 acres of land in Croydon.

The report says Clarke was given unfettered access to children by senior managers at Shirley Oaks. Clarke killed himself in 2003 while on trial for child abuse offences. He had been convicted in 1998 of child abuse.

Eddie Heath, a football scout for Millwall at the time, who died in the 1980s, has also been identified by some former residents as an abuser. Heath is the subject of further allegations in the latest revelations surrounding child abuse in football.



The report, Looking for a Place called Home, draws on official documents kept secret under the 100-year rule but which SOSA has obtained, and contains details of how closely the Home Office was involved in monitoring staff, according to Stevenson.

He said recording the testimonies and shedding light on the horrific abuse was a way of the survivors reclaiming their childhood because Shirley Oaks – despite the abuse that went on there – had been the only home they had known.

Adrian Batley, 71, said he had come forward after seeing a TV programme that mentioned SOSA. He had been at Shirley Oaks with his two brothers and two sisters, and says he was abused by a primary school teacher on the site.

“It took me back 60 years to all the feelings I had repressed,” he said. “I rang the number and talked to Raymond and Lucia. The thing that has helped me was being asked to write a statement of the abuse that I had gone through. This I did. It helped me a great deal.”

As well as sexual abuse, beatings by bamboo, belts and fists were common, residents said, as was putting children into coal bunkers for punishment, sometimes without clothes.

Stevenson and SOSA have pulled out of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse because they say they do not have confidence in the process.

Victims’ stories

Child 24

Abused between 1970 and 1984 by William Hook, a swimming instructor. Hook was convicted in 2001 of 26 charges of sexual abuse at four south London homes between 1970 and 1978.

I suffered sexual abuse from Mr Mark [Hook] when I was in house 18, aged around seven to eight. This abuse happened on many occasions. In the study where Hook had a camp bed, I would be in my PJs and Mr Mark would play a game where he would touch my penis through the opening of the front of my PJs and fondle me. In 1980 in house 18, I attempted to commit suicide from the window sill. This is on my file. My brother saved me.

Victim of Geoff Clarke

Clarke killed himself in 2003 while on trial for child abuse offences. He had been convicted in 1998 of child abuse.