UK abuse scandal ‘ignored because victims were working-class boys from north’, minister says

Boys were raped and tortured over three decades at Medomsley detention centre in County Durham. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Boys were raped and tortured over three decades at Medomsley detention centre in County Durham. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images UK abuse scandal ‘ignored because victims were working-class boys from north’, minister says Jake Richards announces measures to prevent abuse like that at Medomsley detention centre in County Durham One of the UK’s most horrific and shocking child custody scandals was collectively ignored for decades because the victims were working-class boys from the north of England , a government minister has said. The sentencing and youth justice minister, Jake Richards, has announced he is implementing a number of recommendations to prevent abuse such as that which took place between 1961 and 1987 at Medomsley detention centre in County Durham from ever happening again. It was at Medomsley that the paedophile Neville Husband, one of Britain’s worst ever sex offenders , raped and tortured boys over three decades. His reign of terror was revealed in a number of Guardian reports from 2011 by the late prisons correspondent Eric Allison and the feature writer Simon Hattenstone. The revelations led to a six-year investigation by Durham Constabulary, which identified more than 2,000 victims. In November last year the grim conclusions of an inquiry carried out by the prisons and probation ombudsman, Adrian Usher, were published. View image in fullscreen Neville Husband. Photograph: Durham Constabulary That led to a government apology to victims and the setting up of a review into safeguarding arrangements across the youth custody estate in England and Wales. Richards recalled Usher’s draft Medomsley report being one of the first things that landed on his desk after being appointed a minister. “I read it twice and I remember exactly where I was,” he said. “I read it twice over a Saturday evening and was just completely taken aback and horrified by the scale, but also the nature of the offending. This was industrial sexual abuse and rape of some of the most vulnerable boys in our society.” Medomsley, which closed in the late 80s, is one of the UK’s biggest abuse scandals but, observers say, it has not had the national attention it deserves. Richards said that socially and culturally there had been “an apathy” towards this type of offending and one reason was because the victims were seen as “bad” working-class boys from the north. He said: “I think it is important that as a country we face up to the horrors of the past but also, more importantly, that we make sure it never happens again. “If you look at the offending, what was happening in the 60s, 70s and 80s and then the response to it, I’m completely convinced that this has been overlooked collectively by people in power, whether that is politicians, parts of the media, or whatever, because the victims here are working-class boys f