ENGLAND
Kent Online
November 6, 2017
By Tom Acres
New details have emerged of the horrific abuse inflicted upon young girls at a Church of England children’s home during a callous regime lasting more than three decades.
Dozens of harrowing accounts from Kendall House in Gravesend were told in an independent review published last year and in a follow-up report, which both featured stories of how girls as young as nine were injected with drugs, kept in straitjackets and raped.
Most reports were based on interviews with women kept at the home in Pelham Road as children and teenagers, but now a former member of staff has spoken openly.
In an exclusive interview with the Messenger, the 62-year-old man, who asked to be referred to as L Simpson, said recalling his time at Kendall House brought back “terrible memories” which made him “feel sick”.
He worked there during the summer of 1975, between years of study at Kingston University, where he was working on a sociology dissertation. He was offered work there through his flatmate, whose father was a vicar with connections to Kendall House.
Mr Simpson, who was 20, soon realised it was not the placement he was expecting.
“I started on the same day as another chap called Ron. He had very little experience, and I had only done some volunteering at a short stay unit in Putney over Christmas,” he said. “We were asked to wait in the garden and this young guy came up to me and said, ‘I would ask to leave here. What goes on here isn’t right’.”
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