Ex-care worker denies offences at children's home

A former care worker has denied committing sexual offences at a children's home.

Linda Brunning, 66, is accused of indecently assaulting a boy at Skircoat Lodge in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and helping the home's manager, Malcolm Phillips, 93, abuse another boy in the 1980s and 90s.

A trial of facts is being held for Phillips, after he was deemed not fit to face a full trial over allegations of sexual abuse involving six victims, dating back to the 1970s.

At her trial at Bradford Crown Court, Brunning repeatedly denied the allegations and when asked by her barrister, Kitty Colley, if she had carried out the offences, she responded, "no, none of them".

Brunning denied prosecution claims that she "took pleasure from physically hurting children" and that she would sit on them to restrain them.

She said she would "straddle" them to prevent them hurting themselves or others, and would sometimes restrain them on the floor, but would "never sit on them".

She denied accusations that she had restrained a boy so Phillips could sexually assault him, and said she did not have a sexual interest in children.

Brunning told the court she had "always wanted to look after children" but was "quite naïve" and "didn't understand that the children would be as damaged and disturbed as they were".

She said they "generally came from terrible, awful backgrounds" and "you just wanted to make it better for them".

Brunning, of Sowerby Bridge, said that she had started working at Skircoat Lodge as a residential social worker in 1978 at age 19, and had no previoustraining or experience of social work or working with children.

Malcolm Phillips, now of Birmingham, who hired Brunning, denied sexual abuse allegations during police interviews between 2019 and 2021, the court previously heard.

He is accused of 12 sexual offences against six victims between 1976 and 1994, including rape and indecent assault.

The jury has been told the details of Phillips' previous convictions for sexual offences against children at Skircoat Lodge.

They heard he had been found guilty in November 2001 of 18 sexual offences against eight girls at the children's home in the 1970s and 1980s.

Prosecutor Michelle Colborne KC said that in a statement by Phillips, he claimed there had been a "high profile media campaign to discredit" him with "false allegations".

Phillips has been charged with three counts of indecent assault, two counts of indecency with a child, three counts of indecent assault, two counts of buggery and two of rape.

Brunning has been charged with indecent assault and four counts of aiding and abetting sexual offences.

The trial continues.

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