Woman jailed for 25 years for abuse at Halifax children's home - but former manager walks free
Linda Brunning has been sentenced alongside former manager 93 year old Malcolm Phillips - who faced a trial of the facts due to his health
Furious victims of a 93-year-old paedophile children’s home manager who abused vulnerable youngsters for almost two decades raged as he walked free after being found unfit to stand trial.
Malcolm Phillips sexually abused boys and girls in his care during an 18-year regime of fear at Skircoat Lodge Care Home in Halifax, West Yorkshire.
Last year, a jury at Bradford Crown Court found that Phillips had committed sexual offences against six victims – four female and two male – between 1976 and 1994.
But he could not be jailed after he was found unfit to stand trial because of his health, so a trial-of-facts was held in which jurors were asked to determine whether or not he had committed the acts alleged.
On Monday, Judge Kirstie Watson said the only sentence available to her was an absolute discharge, adding: “I do that with great reluctance given the seriousness of the offences for which you have been convicted.”
She said: “There will be those who ask ‘what is the point?’…(For the victims) this trial process has given them a voice, it has allowed them to speak. They have been listened to.”
The court heard the only other sentencing options available to a judge after a trial of facts are committal to hospital or a supervision order.
A pre-sentence report found that as Phillips has no mental disorder, and his issues came from physical illness and age-related cognitive decline, he was not suitable for a hospital order and a supervision order would be of “limited practical value”.
His assistant at Skircoat Lodge, Linda Brunning, 66, who was found guilty of restraining one boy while Phillips sexually assaulted him and indecently assaulting another herself while drying him after a shower, was jailed for 25 years.
Kelly Lees, 43, who was indecently assaulted by Phillips between the ages of 11 and 12, said he had “abused so many children and practically got away with it”.
Ms Lees, who has waived her right to anonymity, told the trial that Phillips abused her after inviting her into his office to do homework and would give her a lollipop afterwards.
Before the sentencing hearing, she told the Press Association she was “furious” at learning Phillips had been unfit to stand trial.
She said: “He should have been sent to prison. Prisons are full of shoplifters and begging and victims – women’s prisons are full of victims.
“Why is someone who’s abused children and been found guilty sitting at home, comfortable? I can’t comprehend it.
“He had control at Skircoat Lodge and he’s still got control now.
“He’s abused so many children and practically got away with it. That’s not justice.”
Phillips attended the sentencing on a video link from his home and sat in an armchair, occasionally leaning his head back, as statements from the six victims were read in court.
Ms Lees and two other victims attended court together and comforted each other after reading their statements.
One of the women, who was indecently assaulted by Phillips after being sent to Skircoat Lodge as a teenager in the late 1970s, said the girls were told to wear nighties to bed “so he could have easy access to us”.
She told the court: “When I received the verdict I felt, ‘finally I am believed’. However, what will happen to Malcolm Phillips?
“He’s abused children through the decades and yet he’s walking free.
“I think he should die in prison … He may have a big red ‘guilty’ stamp over his head but he’s still free to live his life.”
The fourth female victim, who was sexually assaulted by Phillips on at least 10 occasions while she was in bed, said he “would take it in turns as to who he was going to abuse that night”.
She said her brother struggled to have contact with her because it brought back memories of their time at Skircoat Lodge.
Her statement read: “Malcolm Phillips, I believe, should go to prison for what he’s done
“He should not be able to die with his family around him when I can’t even see my brother.”
Another victim, who was raped twice by Phillips as a teenager, said she was “the one living a life sentence,” adding that the decision on his fitness meant: “I had to speak about the most painful parts of my life in a court where the man responsible was not present.”
One of the male victims, who was indecently assaulted by Phillips and Brunning while drying him after a shower on at least two occasions, said Skircoat Lodge was “a horrible and cruel environment with sexual predators”.
His statement read: “I know (Phillips) is a very old man now, but he still needs to be held accountable for what I and others went through as a kid.
“Linda Brunning is a horrible woman and deserves what she gets.”
The other male complainant, who was restrained by Brunning while Phillips sexually assaulted him on numerous occasions, said: “Every day I relive it. I’m frightened to go to bed and struggle to be on my own.”
It was Phillips’s second prosecution over abuse at Skircoat Lodge after he was jailed in 2001 for sexual offences against eight female residents.
Prosecutors said abuse at the home went “unfettered and unreported against a backdrop of legitimacy” for almost 20 years.
A statement from a former member of staff read during the trial said Phillips and Brunning ran the home “more like a prison”.
The jury found Phillips, of Tyseley, Birmingham, had committed 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, of Sowerby Bridge, near Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of aiding and abetting indecent assault, two of aiding and abetting buggery and one of indecent assault.