Children's home run like prison, abuse trial told

A care home was run "like a prison" by a manager and his assistant who are accused of sexually abusing children, a court has heard.

Malcolm Phillips, 92, is charged with offences against six victims, including rape, indecent assault and indecency with a child at Skircoat Lodge in Halifax between 1976 and 1994.

He faces a trial of facts at Bradford Crown Court as he was deemed unfit to stand trial.

His assistant, Linda Brunning, 66, denies indecent assault and aiding and abetting sexual offences at the home in the 1980s and 90s.

Previously, the court heard Phillips was the manager at Skircoat Lodge from its opening in 1976 as a residential temporary home for children who were the subject of care orders.

Prosecutors said abuse went "unfettered and unreported against a backdrop of legitimacy" for almost 20 years.

In a statement read in court earlier, support teacher Jacqueline Tetley said she left the home in 1990 because she was frustrated by the way children were treated.

She said Phillips was an outwardly "intelligent and pleasant man" who became "a very strict and dominant person who ruled by fear" when no visitors were around.

Tetley said he "intimidated residents and staff alike" and that many of the children were in fear of him.

"I have seen Malcolm Phillips manhandling children on many occasions, I have seen him 'wall children up' by grabbing them and pushing them against a wall. He would sometimes slap them around the face."

Tetley said she saw Phillips attack a girl who had run away from Skircoat Lodge and was returned by police.

She said Phillips slapped the girl, forced her arm up behind her back and pushed her against a wardrobe door, leaving her crying and with a bloodied nose.

Tetley said Brunning was "a very large lady who used her size to her advantage" by sitting on the children.

"She was a bully to the children, manhandled them regularly, she would often push them against the wall and slap them around the face," she said.

The statement said Brunning was "particularly strict at night" and would make children stand on the landing in their bare feet, sometimes until the early hours, if she heard the slightest noise from the bedrooms.

Tetley said Brunning was once suspended after an incident when she made a boy eat his tea off the floor, and would sometimes punch the children or block their home visits.

"I would say children were treated cruelly at Skircoat Lodge, particularly by Malcolm Phillips and Linda Brunning. They ran the home more like a prison," she said.

Phillips, of Tyseley, Birmingham, is charged with 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, is charged with one count of indecent assault on a male person, two counts of aiding and abetting indecent assault and two of aiding and abetting buggery.

The trial continues.

Additional reporting by PA Media

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