The Grey-Haired Man

THE PERSON WHO MADE one of the most revealing allegations in the entire North Wales investigation was a 25-year old Wrexham man named Brendan Randles. In December 1982, when he was fifteen, Randles, a likeable and happy-go-lucky youth, had appeared before Wrexham magistrates on a charge of burglary. He had been remanded into custody at Bryn Estyn where he spent a total of four nights.

In the years that followed, Randles made no complaints about his brief spell at the home. However, around. Christmas 1988, he found himself living in the same part of Wrexham as Darren Laverty and for a brief period he drank with him and his friends. Later, in the autumn of 1991, Laverty had given Randles's name to the North Wales police as somebody who had once been at Bryn Estyn. Laverty recalls that he had bumped into Brendan in Wrexham soon afterwards. 'I remember. Brendan saying to me "What the fuck are you doing talking to the police about me at Bryn Estyn?" I said, "Well, you were there weren't you?"

Laverty gives no details of what else he says to Randles on this occasion. In January 1992, however, the police took a statement from Randles, in which he claims that when he arrived at Bryn Estyn he was introduced to a stockily-built, grey-haired man who appeared to be in charge, but whose name he could not remember.

He then claims that, while he was having a shower, Laverty came in and accused him of going out with his girlfriend. He says that, with two other lads ('whom I can't remember'), Laverty had beaten him up. 

The grey-haired man is said to have watched this without attempting to intervene. The next day the man took him to the secure unit, placed his hand on Randles's penis and testicles, and tried to kiss him. Randles says he pushed him away and ran out the door. 'As I drew near to the door I saw Darren Laverty walking towards the building. I didn't stop to talk to him.'

He says that he ran into the pool room but that the grey-haired man followed him and said, in a whisper, 'I'm going to fuck you tonight.'

Later that evening the grey-haired man supposedly repeated these words to him several times when. Randles had seen him through the door of his first-floor flat. Randles, however, says he returned to his dormitory where he spent the night without further incident. He goes on to say that in the morning he was taken to court where he told his mother what had happened to him. He was then bailed and says that the next day he told his girlfriend 'exactly what had happened'. 

He ends his statement with the following words: 'I couldn't sleep after what that man had said to me because I honestly believed that he was going was going to do to me what he said.' From Randles's first statement it is therefore clear that the threat which the grey-haired man supposedly made was NOT carried out.

The complaint was one of indecent assault only.

The police took this statement from Randles on Friday 22 January.

The following Wednesday they interviewed Laverty. 

His version of events corresponded in some respects to that given by Randles but some details were different. Nowhere in his statement did Laverty mention that he had been in contact with Randles since they had left Bryn Estyn. Randles, similarly, gave no indication in his statement that he knew Laverty.

In that Randles had been unable to identify the grey-haired man by name, it was highly improbable that his allegation of indecent assault could have formed part of any prosecution. However, within the next few weeks, Randles met Laverty and they spent the evening talking about Bryn Estyn. About two months after this, Randles made another statement to the police in which he revised the account he had given three months earlier.

Without offering any explanation of how he has identified him, he now refers to the grey-haired man as 'Mr Howarth'. Whereas previously he described encountering him in three locations - the secure unit, the pool room and the first-floor flat - the second and third of these alleged meetings now disappear. Randles claims that in the secure unit, 'Mr Howarth' actually carried out his whispered threat. He supposedly did so by stripping Randles, punching him in the stomach, and then, as he bent over in pain, anally raping him.

At this point a strikingly new element is introduced into the allegation. Randles says that, as he was being buggered, another man came into the room: "I then heard the door open and then shut and I heard Mr Howarth speak to another man and say words to the effect "It's your turn."

Randles then claims that, without any preliminaries, the second man raped him anally while Howarth raped him orally. At this point it became evident 'that someone was coming down to the secure room, I think it was Darren Laverty although I'm not sure.'

The identity of the second man is left veiled in mystery. 'To this day,' says Randles enigmatically, 'I do not know who this man was, however I think he must have something to do with Bryn Estyn although I didn't see this person when I was there.' 

This second statement was taken from Randles at the beginning of May. Three days later the police visited Laverty once again. On this occasion they apparently asked him specifically whether he had been in contact with Randles. The history of the contact between Randles and Laverty (or part of it) now emerged. About three weeks after he had made his first statement, Randles, who had been drinking, came round to Laverty's flat with a bottle of Sherry. They talked about Bryn Estyn and and Laverty says he asked Randles to tell him what had happened there: 

'I tried to convince Brendan that whatever his problem was, he was not the only one and others had made complaints. Brendan told me the police had asked him questions and Brendan said "What do you want me to say, that he's fucked my arse?" I then asked gentler questions about what happened.'

It would appear that Laverty had actually discussed with Randles, complaints which had been made by others, and that he felt he was being put under pressure to go further than his original complaint and make an allegation of buggery. The reason why Randles's highly significant words had been preserved was that Laverty had actually taped part of the conversation: 'Brendan also knew that I was taping the conversation. I did this because I wanted to play it back to Brendan at a later date. If he should deny anything happened and also to assist the police in their investigation.'

The grey-haired man had not at this stage been identified. However Laverty evidently met up with Randles again and on this occasion he had shown Randles a photograph of Howarth: 'At a later stage I showed Brendan a copy of the Independent newspaper which had a photograph of Peter Howarth on the front page. Brendan told me that it was Howarth who had sexually assaulted him in the secure unit at Bryn Estyn.'

In the light of Laverty's police statement of 8 May, and of his subsequent evidence to the tribunal, it would appear that he not only encouraged Randles to make a more serious allegation against the 'grey-haired man' at a time when he was drunk, but that he was himself responsible for bringing about the belated identification of this man as Howarth.

There is no clear evidence that Laverty, however reckless and ill-advised his conduct, had deliberately set out to manufacture a false allegation.

On this occasion, as on others, it seems plausible to suggest that he was motivated by a kind of misguided idealism and that he may genuinely have believed that he was helping Randles to retrieve memories which had become buried, and that by doing so he was helping the police.

On any view, though, Randles's allegations were remarkable. 

His eventual claim that, before he had even spent 24 hours at Bryn Estyn, he had been viciously raped by two men, that he had remained silent about the assaults for nine years, and that he had been able to retrieve the memories only after drinking from a bottle of Sherry at Darren Laverty's flat, was one of the most far-fetched in the entire Bryn Estyn investigation.

One question, however, remains.

This concerns the identity of the second man - the shadowy figure who was supposed suddenly to have appeared in the secure unit and, as if by some prior arrangement, to have joined in the alleged sexual assault on Randles.

Who was this man, and why had he been belatedly introduced into a complaint in which he had originally played no role at all?