Skircoat Lodge Halifax children’s home sex abuse trial begins

A former manager at a children’s home in West Yorkshire “used his power to isolate children” for him to abuse, a jury has heard.

Malcolm Phillips, 92, is charged with rape, indecent assault and indecency with a child at Skircoat Lodge in Halifax between 1976 and 1994.

His assistant Linda Brunning, 66, denies indecent assault and aiding and abetting sexual offences at the home in the 1980s and 90s.

A trial for Brunning, and a trial of facts for Phillips, who has been deemed unfit to stand trial, opened on Monday at Bradford Crown Court.

The court was told that Phillips, of Birmingham, is accused of “using children for his sexual gratification” and that Brunning, of Sowerby Bridge, helped him carry out his abuse and indecently assaulted one boy herself.

The allegations related to six victims, four female and two male, over almost two decades.

Jurors heard how female complainants, who were told to wear nighties for bed, described Phillips coming into their bedrooms at night and indecently assaulting them.

Prosecutor Michelle Colborne KC said Phillips was the manager at Skircoat Lodge from when it opened in 1976 as a residential temporary home for children who were the subject of care orders.

She told jurors the young people there were vulnerable, many having suffered previous physical or sexual abuse, while some were “simply unwanted, marked as troublemakers in the system”.

Ms Colborne said Phillips controlled Skircoat Lodge and lived in a flat leading to the girls’ bedrooms, which gave him “unfettered access”.

“During the course of almost two decades Malcolm Phillips used his power to isolate specific children to use for his sexual gratification, and he wasn’t the only one,” she told jurors.

The court heard Brunning, who worked alongside Phillips for 16 years, was also “adept at isolating and manipulating children”.

Ms Colborne said Brunning was “a large and domineering woman who took pleasure in humiliating children” and “facilitated sexual assaults by Malcolm Phillips on a small, defenceless child”.

The prosecutor said the children “were chosen carefully by the defendants”, who had access to their files and “knew which children could be manipulated”.

“They chose them carefully, they told them no-one cared about them, they told them no-one would believe them,” Ms Colborne said.

Jurors heard Phillips and Brunning would threaten to withhold the children’s pocket money, or told them their family visits would be taken away.

Ms Colborne said: “If they ran away from Skircoat Lodge they were taken straight back by police, accused of being troublemakers.”

The court heard the first complainant, who was sent to Skircoat Lodge as a teenager in the late 1970s, remembered that girls were told to “wear nighties to bed”.

“While in bed, while the lights were out, she would hear Phillips enter the bedroom, he would approach her bed and touch her under her nightie”, Ms Colborne said.

The court heard the girl started running away but was always taken back by police, with the home branding her “an accomplished liar”, in contrast to her school records, which said: “Incredible such a damaged personality causes so little concern.”

Ms Colborne said the second complainant, who was 10 years old at the time, accused Phillips of sexually assaulting her on at least 10 occasions while she was in bed.

The court heard Phillips “seemed to have taken her under his wing and referred to her as one of his special girls”.

Phillips is charred with three counts of indecent assault, two counts of indecency with a child, three counts of indecent assault on a male person, two counts of buggery and two of rape.

Brunning is charged with one count of indecent assault on a male person, two counts of aiding and abetting indecent assault and two of aiding and abetting buggery.

The trial continues.