The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association are calling for the Met Police to investigate the case after commissioner Sir Mark Rowley demanded secret society cops reveal their membership
A children’s home worker who raped a 15-year-old boy later found hanged was protected by fellow Freemasons in the justice system, a survivors campaign has claimed.
The youngster was found dead in a bathroom of the notorious Shirley Oaks children’s home in Croydon in 1977, two years after the man he had accused of abuse walked free. Donald Hosegood, a confirmed Freemason, went on trial in 1975 for 11 counts of rape and indecent assault involving four children, but the case collapsed.
Further allegations of sexual abuse were made against Hosegood in 1998 to the Operation Middleton inquiry in Lambeth, south london, but officers falsely claimed he had died. He finally passed away in 2011 without facing justice.
Now the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association are calling for the Met Police to investigate the case after commissioner Sir Mark Rowley demanded secret society cops reveal their membership. Sir Mark spoke out after the discovery that three of five Met officers arrested on suspicion of covering up a sex assault are Freemasons.
Masonic links between a detective sergeant accused of molesting a female colleague and two other cops alleged to have suppressed the case are being investigated.
SOSA founder Raymond Stevenson, who was a friend of the dead boy, said: “During Operation Middleton hundreds of paedophiles got off and thousands of victims had their cases dismissed. “SOSA has evidence to show the failure to follow up leads was a deliberate strategy to protect fellow police officers who were in the clan. It’s an archaic system, an old boys club whose existence discriminates against women. It has increasingly been used to protect wrongdoers and encourages them to commit crimes knowing them have the protection of senior Masons.”
It comes after a long-running investigation by the SOSA, led by Mr Stevenson and Lucia Hinton uncovered one of the worst child abuse scandals in British history. The scale only began to emerge in 2014 when the group was set up to represent children who had been sent to live in Shirley Oaks.
In SOSA’s report, Justice Is Above The Law, they name police officers who were allegedly either abusing children or covering it up due to their affiliation with secret societies, including the Masons and the Catenians, a Catholic association for men only.
Mr Stevenson said he would be sharing it with MPs and relevant organisations. SOSA’s work led to Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that found hundreds of children in Lambeth’s care were subjected to prolonged sexual, racial, and physical abuse.
The inquiry, which SOSA refused to participate in, found Hosegood had waved a Masonic handbook at the officers who arrested him. Mr Stevenson said he suspects his friend, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was murdered by the house father who allegedly threatened to kill other children. He said: “When I heard about his death I made a promise that I would get justice . I always believed Hosegood was involved in his murder because he had attacked me.”
Compensation has been paid by Lambeth Council to five survivors who were found to have been abused by Hosegood. Among them was a man who at primary school age was repeatedly sexually assaulted by the paedophile over a two year period. The survivor said Hosegood threatened him with a knife after he caught him abusing a little girl.
Other former Shirley Oaks residents said that Hosegood was part of a network of abusers that included swimming instructor William Hook and Fred Cummins, a deputy superintendent at the home. Lambeth has paid compensation to over 100 former residents for the abuse they suffered at the hands of the trio.
Shayne Donnelly, 54, was in Shirley Oaks from April 1968, at a year old, until it shut in 1983. He was subjected to sexual, physical and racial abuse over a nine-year period, including attacks by Hook who was later jailed for ten years.
Waiving his right to anonymity, Shayne said: “”I was abused by Hook who was best friends with Hosegood. It all makes sense learning that Hosegood was a Freemason and I believe that they were responsible for the death of the boy in Shirley Oaks. All of this was covered up by the police because of their masonic connections.”
Former resident Tony Brown was also attacked by Hook and gave evidence at his trial. Tony said: “What shocked me was that Hook had so much unchecked power for someone who wasn’t even an official member of staff. I am not surprised he was connected to Hosegood and the other management paedophiles.”
Former Shirley Oaks resident Bill Maloney’s late brother Steven first reported being sexually abused by Cummins in 1970 but he was never charged. Cummins, who SOSA say sexually abused 30 children, died in the early 1980s without facing justice.
Bill said: “I have always known the police covered up the abuse that happened to my brother and learning that Freemasons and Catenians were involved explains how they got away with their crimes.”
SOSA said they believe members of the Catenian Association, a Catholic “Freemasons” organisation, also interfered with investigations including into notorious paedophile John Carroll. Ex-detective Clive Driscoll said he found evidence Carroll was a member of the organisation before he was booted off the case in 1997.
Mr Driscoll said: “I always felt that there were senior officers that belonged to the same organisation as John Carroll. It makes sense that if a police officer belongs to any organisation, and there are many in the Metropolitan Police Service, that may cause victims and witnesses to worry about you, that they declare it immediately as a potential conflict of interest. That seems to be common sense.”
Carroll kept his job as a house father at the Angell Road children’s home in Brixton despite a 1986 child sex abuse conviction coming to light. He was later sacked over another matter and jailed for 10 years in 1999 for sex attacks after a probe by Merseyside Police.
A special report by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee in 1999 highlighted fears that members of the Catenian Association, which was thought to include top-ranking police officers and judges, were using their influence to pervert the course of justice. The role of the Association came to light during a two-year investigation into Freemasonry conducted by the Committee.
