By Ashley Young -
A paedophile who ran a Cardiff children’s home has been jailed for 8 years after assaulting a teenage boy under his charge.
Evil Patrick Grant was convicted of three counts of indecently assaulting the boy in the late 1980s when his victim was just 13.Grant was also found guilty of three counts of indecently assaulting two other boys One of his victims was a man now a man in his 50s, between 1976 and 1977 at a children’s home in South Norwood London called Rowan House, a Shirley Oaks Children’s Home in South Norwood, and another, now also in his 50s, at Fircroft Children’s Home in Surbiton between 1977 and 1978.
The oddball carried out a campaign of abuse on victims as young as 11 at the council-run facilities between 1976 and 1989. One victim, who was repeatedly molested in a bathroom, was slapped when he begged for the abuse to stop and told he would be “made to disappear” if he said anything.
During sentencing yesterday, Inner London Crown Court heard the victims had suffered “nightmares and deep despair”.
Patrick Grant was the superintendent at the Walker’s House Children’s Home. He repeatedly crept into the teenage boy’s bedroom at the Walker House Children’s Home In Llanishen in the late 80’s, abusing him before threatening to “make him disappear”. Cops who were made aware of the abuse strangely did nothing. Grant was accused of child abuse in the late 1970s but after being cleared of the charges he faces was allowed to return to the profession. He went on to abuse three more youngsters
Grant, 69, of Partridge Road, Roath, was the superintendent at Walker House Children’s Home and would sneak into a young boy’s room at night and molest him under the bedclothes, Inner London Crown Court heard.
His victim, now in his 40’s spent decades on the street as a homeless man, and became an addict of glue and petrol before turning to cannabis and heroin. The court heard that his eventual drug addiction sparked by the abuse was also aggravated by an unfortunate historical background of rejection by his mother. In a victim impact statement he said he often fled from the Cardiff home. “Each time I ran away from the home I was picked up by the police and told them what was happening but they did nothing,” he said.
“Patrick Grant always said to me he would make me disappear – words that have always haunted me.Grant was convicted of three counts of indecently assaulting the boy in the late 1980s when his victim was just 13.
Grant was also found guilty of three counts of indecently assaulting two other boys – one, now a man in his 50s, between 1976 and 1977 at Rowan House, a Shirley Oaks Children’s Home in South Norwood, London, and another, now also in his 50s, at Fircroft Children’s Home in Surbiton between 1977 and 1978.
TRAUMATISED
Sentencing Grant tp eight years imprisonment, Judge Usha Karu said: “The distress and trauma the victims have suffered is quite apparent. [The abuse] has caused deep anguish and upset.”
“Each of these three victims have been severely traumatised by what happened to them,” added the judge.
“This was undoubtedly a gross abuse of trust and use of threats – telling a child you would make them disappear and that nobody would believe them.
“Each suffered severe psychological harm that they will carry for the rest of their lives.”
Regarding his acquittal in the 1970s the judge told Grant: “It could be said there was a shot passed across your bows but you continued to offend.”
The court heard the 11-year-old victim at the Shirley Oaks home in South Norwood was often subjected to bare-bottomed corporal punishment beatings carried out by Collins, who also molested him in his own living quarters.
“You, Patrick Grant, would enter the bathroom when he was having a bath and wash his private parts and you masturbated yourself at the same time,” the judge said.
“Once you slapped him in the face and pushed his head under the water. You told [him] no-one would believe him and there was no one for him to complain to.”
Image: UK Law News