Carer James McCann in court over Shefford St Francis' Children's Home abuse allegations, Bedfordshire on Sunday (September 13, 2016)

Carer James McCann in court over Shefford St Francis' Children's Home abuse allegations

A CARER at a Catholic children's home carried out a campaign of sexual and physical abuse against 26 boys in his care in the 1960s and 1970s, a court has heard.

James McCann, 80, allegedly tortured some of the lads by clapping his hands over their ears, causing excruciating pain and nausea.

McCann is said to have abused the youngsters while working at the St Francis Children's Home, in Shefford, Bedfordshire.

He joined the school at the age of 29 in 1965 and worked there until it closed in 1974, the Old Bailey heard yesterday (September 12).

McCann lived in the home and had his own room, but was not a priest himself unlike most of the other staff who worked there.

McCann suffered a stroke last week, and although he survived he has been deemed unfit to stand trial.

Instead, a trial of the facts is being held to determine whether he 'committed the act' in respect of 34 charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, 14 counts of indecent assault and four counts of indecency with a child.

McCann, who is wheel chair bound and requires an intermediary, is not present in court.

Prosecutor John Price QC said: "The prosecution alleges that during his nine years at the home and on very many occasions he violently assaulted and indecently assaulted or sexually abused many of the children for whose care he shared responsibility."

Jurors heard how McCann invented a 'sadistic and violent' torture known as 'the clappers' where young children would be clapped violently over the ears.

Mr Price said: "The defendant would routinely and seemingly at his whim, assault children by 'clapping' the flat of his hands simultaneously over each of their ears.

"Usually they would be required by him to stand still, hands down by their sides whilst he stood behind them, out of their sight - the child made to wait for the agony they knew was coming."

Victims of 'the clappers' reported the excruciating pain, as well nausea, dizziness, disorientation and loss of balance that came with the punishment.

One victim remembers he was once 'clapped' so hard it caused his nose to bleed, while another remembers receiving the beating during a meal.

He said: "I can only describe it as like an explosion of pain in my head and ears.

"The pain was searing, I saw stars, there was a loud ringing in my head and I was disorientated and dizzy. And then I had to stay there and wait for him to do it again."

His oldest victim is now 67, while the youngest is now 53, jurors were told.

"We are now concerned with things that happened to these children between 53 and no less than 42 years ago," Mr Price said.

The majority of McCann's victims were between 8 and 12 at the time of the alleged abuse.

Nineteen of them accuse him of just violent assault, three allege that they suffered both physical and sexual abuse, while four alleged victims claim they were only sexually abused by him.

McCann was interviewed about the abuse between December 2013 and February 2015, when he was in much better health, and denied all the allegations against him.

The abuse was all conducted while the home was being run by a priest called Father John Ryan, who died in 2008.

One boy was punished by 'the clappers' for playing badly in a football match, while another recalls almost blacking out from the pain, the court heard.

Some of the victims suffered long-term damage to their inner ear as a result of McCann's signature punishment, jurors heard.

Other boys recalled being beaten with a belt, sometimes until they bled, while another boy remembers being hit to the face with the strap.

Two others boys were beaten on the buttocks with a piece of rolled up linoleum causing them bruising, the court heard, while another was hit with a stick.

McCann is accused of punching one child to the face, leaving him concussed, and ramming another's face into the wall.

As well as the frequent assaults, McCann allegedly regularly sexually abused the young boys at the home, it is said.

Several of his alleged victims remember him fondling their genitals while they were bathing, while others claim he abuse them while they lay in their dormitories.

Mr Price said: "The majority of the allegations speak of overt acts of an inherently indecent kind and plainly done for the sexual gratification of Mr McCann - some of then are assaults of the gravest kind involving penetrative acts."

McCann was one of many staff members who were physically cruel or sexually abusive to the children, the court heard, with the abuse being led by Father Ryan.

Mr Price said: "On [the victims'] accounts, this is not the case of a rogue violent and abusive carer operating secretly in an otherwise benign and caring environment. Quite the reverse.

"This is a truly shocking story of a cruel and vindictive regime, the tone it seems being set by Father Ryan who himself often behaved towards them in much the same way as is alleged by them against Mr McCann.

"The nuns joined in. Members of staff appear routinely to have brutalised many of the children in a gratuitous fashion."

He said that several nuns and Father Ryan himself would be facing prosecution if they were still alive today.

"When Mr McCann moved into and started to work at the home in 1965, he was arriving in a place in which behaviour towards its children of the type he is alleged to have engaged in was already deeply ingrained and part of an established culture.

"This was a corrupt and a corrupting environment."

One man, scoutmaster Christopher Cahill, 73, ran a scout troop specifically for boys at the home between 1965 and 1966, when he was aged 23 and 24.

He pleaded guilty to offences of indecent assault relating to four boys at the home earlier this year, jurors were told.

Mr Price said: "The fact [of his pleas] lends support, it is submitted, to what is said about the truth of life at the St Francis Home for Boys in Shefford."

McCann, of Suffield Court, Swaffham, Norfolk, faces 34 counts of ABH, 15 counts of indecency with a male person and four counts of indecency with a child.

The trial of issue, expected to last a month, continues.