An Invaluable Placement

An Invaluable Placement

"After his brief spell of remand at Tŷr Felin, Laverty spent several months at two other homes in Gwynedd, returning in between to two placements with his family. Then in September 1981, at the age of 14, he was sent to Bryn Estyn.

It was perhaps not entirely surprising that this intelligent but unruly child, finding himself surrounded by other boys, and by an almost entirely male staff, appears rapidly to have arrived at the conclusion that toughness was a virtue and that 'might was right'.

Effectively schooled in a culture of bullying, the kind of culture which inevitably grows up amongst boys in male-dominated boarding schools (which in effect Bryn Estyn was), Darren Laverty soon emerged as one of the shrewdest and toughest of all Bryn Estyn residents.

In a note written during the period of Alison Taylor's placement, Matt Arnold recorded his impression of the boy.

"Laverty" he wrote, "certainly is becoming one of the most unpopular children in Bryn Estyn both amongst his peers and staff. This unpopularity is centred largely around his verbal abuse of all, coupled with threatening and belligerent attitudes to younger children and to such staff as he feels he can comfortably threaten."

To this assessment he added a single, seemingly gratuitous observation.

'Alison Taylor has a working relationship with Darren Laverty'.'