My name's Kevin Raymond Young and I'm 52 years old." There's something desperate about the way Young says it, as if he's clinging to the wreckage of his identity. Young was 17 when he was sent to Medomsley detention centre in County Durham. He'd already had a tough life – taken into care at two, sexually and physically abused by those who were meant to look after him – but this was something different. As soon as he starts to tell his story, he's in tears.
His experience of Medomsley in 1977 has shaped, or disfigured, his life ever since. He was convicted of receiving stolen property – a watch his brother had given him; the first he had owned. The police asked if he knew where it had come from. No, he said. Could it possibly have been stolen, they asked. He thought about it – well, yes, possibly. He was sentenced to three months' detention.
The morning after he arrived at Medomsley, Young was lining up for breakfast when he was picked out of the queue by Neville Husband, the officer who ran the kitchen. Young later discovered that Husband had asked for his file – he wanted to know everything about him; most importantly, whether he had family who were likely to visit him. Young was one of a handful of new inmates sent to work in the kitchen with Husband.
"There are two things that are important to successfully sexually abuse somebody," Young says. "By successful, I mean without being prosecuted. One, anonymity or silence – if you can't carry out your act without people knowing, you're not going to be at it very long. The second thing you need is a victim who's 'reliable'; a reliable victim is someone who's already been abused to the point where, if they do speak out, who on Earth is going to believe them? And who on Earth is going to believe Kevin Young, the pauper's son, who has been in and out of care, who's a knife-wielding thug, a bully?" That is how a number of care home reports described Young, but he insists he was a quiet, over-obedient boy. "The truth is, nobody would have believed me."
Abuse might be too mild a word for what Husband did to Young over the next two months. "I was raped repeatedly, tied up and ligatured [around the neck]. It was the worst of the worst." That day after Young arrived, Husband took him to a storeroom above the kitchens that he had converted into a lounge. He locked the door, took out the key and stuffed the keyhole with tissues. "I thought I was going to be killed," Young says. "I was told by Husband that you could easily be found hanged at Medomsley, and that that year, six boys had already hanged themselves."
Young insists there wasn't just the one man abusing him. "He was so sure of himself that he was able to take me out of the prison against my will and to his private house just outside the prison gates. He was married with one child. In his house I was blindfolded, ligatured and made to lie on the stairs. Then three or four others raped me as well. I could see them from the bottom of the blindfold. A rope was put round my neck and turned till I passed out. Husband was an expert at it. He was a big, stocky, powerful man."
Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the Neville Husband story is that the detention centre, the prison service and the police all knew of his interest in boys. In 1969, eight years before Young was jailed, Husband was arrested at Portland borstal in Dorset and charged with importing pornography. The material seized included sado-masochistic images involving teenage boys.
Astonishingly, the charges were dropped. Husband admitted showing the material to boys in his care, but argued that he was interested in child pornography only because he was conducting research into homosexuality. Details of that arrest were written on top of his employment record and went with him throughout his career. He moved to Medomsley, the smallest detention centre in the country, where he abused boys aged between 16 and 19 until he was moved 16 years later. From accounts given by victims and former staff, he may have abused boys every day of his tenure there.
Dr Elie Godsi, a former senior psychologist for the Home Office, gave evidence in the civil action brought by Young and other victims. "This is one of the worst cases of sexual abuse I have come across in 17 years of working for the Home Office, and with some of the most prolific sex offenders in the country," he said.
Today, more than 40 years since Husband started abusing teenage boys, more and more damaged men are coming forward to reveal how he ruined their lives. Some have been paid compensation, but they say that's not enough. They want to know how he was allowed to get away with it for so many years, and why the police and colleagues in the prison system failed to notice his abuse or act on their suspicions.......so next chpt will be uploaded soon.....so stay cool ...!!!!!!!
