UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by TIM WYATT 07 JULY 2017

AN INTERVIEW with the Anglican priest who ran Kent Social Services at the time of the Kendall House children’s-home scandal shines a light on the culture that allowed children to be mistreated and abused in the 1970s and ‘80s.

The priest, the Revd Nick Stacey, who died earlier this year (News, 12 May), was the director of Kent County Council’s social services from 1974 to 1985.

At that time, staff at Kendall House, Gravesend, a Church of England-run children’s home in Kent, were drugging, straitjacketing, and physically and sexually abusing vulnerable girls. The ordeals of dozens of young women came to light last year after an independent report found that Kendall House had “normalised” cruelty (News, 15 July 2016).

A recorded interview that Mr Stacey gave for an oral-history project in 2006 is now held by the British Library. In it, he explains how his policy was never to report staff who had been accused of abuse to the police, because he believed that children could be “incredibly manipulative” and make such stories up.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by TIM WYATT 07 JULY 2017

AN INTERVIEW with the Anglican priest who ran Kent Social Services at the time of the Kendall House children’s-home scandal shines a light on the culture that allowed children to be mistreated and abused in the 1970s and ‘80s.

The priest, the Revd Nick Stacey, who died earlier this year (News, 12 May), was the director of Kent County Council’s social services from 1974 to 1985.

At that time, staff at Kendall House, Gravesend, a Church of England-run children’s home in Kent, were drugging, straitjacketing, and physically and sexually abusing vulnerable girls. The ordeals of dozens of young women came to light last year after an independent report found that Kendall House had “normalised” cruelty (News, 15 July 2016).

A recorded interview that Mr Stacey gave for an oral-history project in 2006 is now held by the British Library. In it, he explains how his policy was never to report staff who had been accused of abuse to the police, because he believed that children could be “incredibly manipulative” and make such stories up.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.