A man who worked as a prison and detention officer in a youth detention center was able to rape and abuse men while the abuse “was fired”, according to one of Britain’s worst sex offenders.
Neville Husband carried out at least 368 sexual offenses against young men and boys between 1969 and 1985 while working at Medomsley detention center in County Durham, but is believed to have committed hundreds more crimes, taking the total past the 450 committed by Jimmy Savile.
Adrian Merher, the prisons and provisions Ombudsman for England and Wales, put together a 202-page report on Medivey staff who were “probably the worst offenders in British history”.
The husband, a church troop leader and Scout troop who died in 2010, was thought to have a fiancé and attacked hundreds of medical trainees in Medomsley, where he worked.
Boys and men aged 17 to 21 convicted of relatively minor crimes are sent to Medomsley where the ethos of “shight shock” Usher says the policy is to create a situation “so bad they don’t want to come back”.
Usher said there was evidence that abuse continued at Medomsley “from the day the prison doors were closed, the police, the police, the police and other authority organizations were ignored and dismissed”.
He said that based on the evidence from the investigation, the center wards “either the complication or the inability” to deal with the allegations of his crimes.
Usher said: “It is likely that his offending did not begin and end with his work at Portland and Dismolt Churnical Center.”
He described the husband as “strongly built man and an arch manipulator who” who “physically intimidated, and in other cases attacked, other cases attacked, other cases attacked, other staff as well as trainees”.
Usher said that the husband told his victims that they would be made to “disappear” if they took advantage of the businessmen’s place “what is the” compound in the minds of the trainees “How to escape.
The report found that detainees and their families who reported Medomsley’s physical and sexual abuse to Durham Police were largely dismissed when they pressed their claims when they pressed their claims when they pressed their claims when they pressed their claims when they pressed their claims when they pressed their claims when they pressed their claims when they pressed their claims if they push their claims if they push their claims. In the two instances where reports were recorded, Medomsley simply passed them on to investigate themselves, without consequence.
The husband entered the prison service in 1963, working at HMP Franklin until 1964, when he was transferred to Portland Ansttal.
In 1969 he transferred to Medomsley where he managed the kitchens, a position he used to exert his influence. Usher says that his “ability to give up or withhold food gives him opportunities to be punished and rewarded”. Of the 549 documented cases of abuse in Medomsley, 388 were committed by the husband, most without the assistance of others.
The husband left Medomsley in 1985, returning to HMP Frankland to work as a senior baker before abusing prisoners in 1987. He continued to abuse prisoners during both of these spells.
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The husband retired from the prison service in 1990 and was awarded the imperial service medal for meritorious service. He began training as a minister at Waddington Street United Reformed Church and was officially ordained as one in June 1994.
The husband spent the next few years unnoticed until 1999 when he was arrested as part of an investigation into the distribution of child sexual abuse.
The husband was arrested, charged and suspended from his ministerial duties in the Church. However, the case was later thrown out of court and he was reinstated as a minister in June 2000.
Investigations began in 2002, and in 2003 he was convicted of 10 counts of aggravated assault and one count of defrauding five MedoSley teenagers, initially sentenced to eight years in prison.
He was subsequently charged with four more offenses in 2005 and his sentence was extended to 10 years. The true horror of the husband’s crimes only became apparent at this time.
David Greenwood, the lawyer who has represented many victims of medomsley since 2001, described the report as “a milestone on the road to the country’s detentions” but said it was not answered”.
He called for a public inquiry to look at the “Scale of Spact-Sponsored Sigewado in Detainse, the endless opportunities to prevent it, and its consequences for a generation of boys”.
Usher dismissed the need for such an inquiry but said victims had been failed at multiple levels of authority, allowing the abuse to “ruin lives”. He said that for many young men “a short sentence becomes a life sentence”.