News

by Hilary White
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  PONTEFRACT, UK, May 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Two homosexual men who volunteered to be foster parents to troubled children were convicted of multiple counts of sexual molestation of their charges. Ian Wathey, 40, and Craig Faunch, 32 were convicted of molesting and filming eight-year-old twins and two 14 year-old boys placed in their care by the Wakefield council.
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  The council is being criticized for having failed to act after accusations of abuse were made against the two men. The twin boys mother, identified only as “Mrs X,” complained when she found suggestive photographs of her sons. An inquiry by social workers, however, cleared the now-convicted paedophiles and police were not called in.
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  The Telegraph quotes Kitty Ferris, speaking for the council, who said the men’s applications had been approved “in accordance with statutory requirements and council policy.”
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  The mother of one of the boys is suing the Wakefield Council and Hemsworth MP Jon Trickett has joined calls for an investigation. A total of 19 boys were placed with Wathey and Faunch since they were approved in 2003.
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  Mrs. X said she was shocked that social services failed to respond to the warning signs. “You just don’t do that,” she said. “You just don’t take pictures of kids with no clothes on. Why would they want a picture of my son like that unless it’s for something mucky.”

Police found homosexual pornography featuring young adolescents in the men’s house that they shared with the foster boys. One film featured a group of older men performing sex acts with young males. One of the couple’s teenage victims claims he was made to watch one of these films while Wathey sexually abused him.

Describing the abuse, one of the victims said, “It hurt. Afterwards, I said ‘Pack it in now,’ and then I went to bed. I was gutted. I didn’t want anything to do with anyone else. All I could do was sit there and cry.”

On the application to become foster “carers” the two men specified that they wanted boys aged five to twelve but only two of the boys they cared for were in that age group, the rest were teenagers.
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  Social services in Wakefield were identified in a recent report as being among the worst in the country in a scathing report published in 2001. The Joint Review by the Audit Commission and the Social Services Inspectorate said the department was failing the city’s most vulnerable people.

David Holmes, Chief Executive of The British Association for Adoption and Fostering, said it was important not to confuse the sexuality of the carers with committing sex crimes against children.

In Britain, as in Canada, anti-discrimination laws prevent social workers or parents from objecting to potential foster parents on the basis of their sexual ‘orientation.’