Wrongly accused couple’s lives ‘shattered’ by child cruelty allegations

A couple have told how their lives have been shattered after they were wrongly accused of historical child cruelty allegations dating back more than 40 years.

A jury this month cleared Denis and Aideen Jones, 63, of all charges of child cruelty against two boys between the mid-1970s and 1980 while working at a care home.

It was claimed Mr Jones, 66, had taken one boy into an office and threw chairs at him while encouraged by Mrs Jones at a facility linked to the privately-owned Bryn Alyn Community care homes in North Wales.

But a jury at Chester Crown Court unanimously cleared the couple who had spent more than two-and-half years on bail since being arrested in August 2013 under Operation Pallial.

Led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), Operation Pallial has been investigating dozens of historical allegations of child abuse in the North Wales care system.

Mr and Mrs Jones – who was awarded an OBE in 2014 for her services to people with learning disabilities – said the false claims by their accusers, now aged in their 50s, had devastated them.

The couple said the main allegation against them related to 1973 and 1974 when the accuser was aged nine or 10, but during the nine-day trial, jurors heard they did not start working in North Wales until 1975.

Mrs Jones, who was chief executive of Southdown Housing Association in Sussex at the time of her arrest, said: “We spent two-and-a-half years of not being able to clear our names and not being able to talk about it.

“This is all when stuff has been put on the internet and in newspapers. On alleged victims’ sites on Facebook and Twitter, people seem to feel they can talk about anything even if it’s not factual or just. That was quite distressing.”

The couple, from Seaford, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, both lost their jobs and have had their life savings wiped out after having to spend more than £100,000 on legal costs which they cannot reclaim.

They have been threatened on social media and at times had to leave their home amid the damaging accusations. And now they will never return to the careers they loved.

Mr Jones called for a limit to the length of time people spend on bail, insisting they should never have languished for more than two years before being put in the clear.

He also said people accused of crimes should be given anonymity until proven guilty, and a time limit imposed on when compensation can be paid in such cases.

Mrs Jones said: “Financially it has had a huge impact. We spent £106,000 on legal bills and that’s not a criticism of our legal team who put a phenomenal amount of work into our case.

“But in 2012 the Government changed the defendants’ cost order. If we had been tried and found not guilty before then, we would have been able to have got the costs awarded and the money back.

“We have basically lost two-and-a-half years of earnings at the height of our careers and we have used up our savings to pay for our defence.

“It’s had an impact on our health, with the worry and stress of it all. We have been surrounded by friends, family and neighbours who have had total belief in us.”

She added: “We have seen celebrities, including Paul Gambaccini, falsely accused but there are hundreds of people in our position who have been falsely accused.

“Thankfully, we were at an age when were near retirement, but one of our colleagues was aged in his 50s and needing to work for the next 10 to 15 years.”

Their case raises lots of political and policy issues, she said. Mrs Jones said it is wrong for investigators to start from a position of believing accusers.

“If you go in on a position of believing one side, why bother having a trial?” she said.

“I think it was right and proper that we were interviewed about the allegations. We have no problem with that. What happened from that point onwards was not proper.”

Mrs Jones described the case as a “waste of public money”. And she voiced concerns that genuine victims could suffer from damaging false allegations.

She added: “The other impact is what does this do to people wanting to enter teaching, or running a Scout or Girl Guides group? I think it will put people off from jobs working with children.”

As for their accusers, Mrs Jones said they feel “very angry” towards the main one. They believe the secondary “vulnerable” accuser was “manipulated”.

“For our accusers, what have they lost?

“They have no money, they didn’t pay to bring us to court and they could even get compensation.”

Reflecting on their arrest, Mr Jones, who at the time was the national research officer for Children And Family Court Advisory And Support Service, said it came as a “total shock”.

He said: “We just kept thinking, is this a dream and will it go away?”

Now their ordeal is finally over, Mr Jones said it will be hard to return to normality.

“We have got to accept that we are going to go through a post-traumatic stress phase,” he said.

“It has felt like two-and-a-half years of our lives have been put on hold and our plans for the future destroyed.”

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