Former Halifax care home manager and deputy guilty of decades of abuse against children

A children's home manager used his "unfettered access" to vulnerable youngsters to sexually abuse boys and girls in his care for almost two decades, a jury has found.

Malcolm Phillips used children "for his own sexual gratification" during his 18-year regime of fear at Skircoat Lodge Care Home in Halifax, West Yorkshire.

On Monday, 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.

Phillips, who is now 93 years old, was found unfit to stand trial, so a trial-of-facts was held in which jurors were asked to determine whether or not he had committed the acts alleged.

His assistant, Linda Brunning, 66, was found guilty of restraining one boy while Phillips sexually assaulted him and indecently assaulting another herself while drying him after a shower.

Brunning put her head in her hands and started to sob when the verdicts were read out. Phillips was not in court.

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".

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.

Opening the trial in January, prosecutor Michelle Colborne KC 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 physically hurting and humiliating children".

"At times she would perform sexual assaults on them, at her worst she facilitated the abuse by Malcolm Phillips upon a small defenceless child," she told the court.

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 told them no-one cared about them, they told them no-one would believe them," 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".

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".

Both Phillips and Brunning were found to have indecently assaulted the third complainant, a 14-year-old boy, while drying him after a shower on at least two occasions.

Brunning was also found guilty of restraining the fourth complainant, a boy aged between nine and 13, while Phillips sexually assaulted him in the bathroom, on numerous occasions.

The court heard the boy started to run away because of the abuse he suffered from Phillips and Brunning, but was taken back every time and punished by the two defendants, who dunked him in a bath of cold water.

Jurors found Phillips raped the fifth complainant twice. They heard she was placed at Skircoat Lodge as a teenager and "couldn't believe she had been raped in the place she was sent to for safety".

He was also found to have indecently assaulted the sixth complainant, a girl aged between 11 and 12, on at least three occasions, after inviting her into his office to do homework.

Ms Colborne said Phillips would give the girl a lollipop afterwards.

The court heard Phillips's "regime of fear" at the home came to an end when he was suspended in 1994 after an investigation.

In a statement to police in 2019, he said the victims were liars and that he had been the victim of a high-profile media campaign to discredit him.

Giving evidence during the trial, Brunning denied having a sexual interest in children and said she felt "sick" when she was told about the allegations against her.

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.

Brunning was remanded in custody until sentencing on April 27, when Judge Kirstie Watson said she would "inevitably" receive a jail sentence.

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