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Campaigners claim that former staff in children's homes are being convicted of crimes involving the abuse of children that they did not commit. Rachel Downey reports.

Three weeks ago former care worker Roy Shuttleworth left prison after spending five-and-a-half years behind bars for abusing children. Throughout his sentence he maintained he did not commit the crimes of which he was convicted.

He is not the only one protesting his innocence after being convicted of abuse carried out in institutions. Derek Brushett, Mike Lawson, Barry Strettle and Brian Ely all claim they did not abuse. Campaigners claim that about 25 men are serving, or have completed, prison terms for crimes they did not commit.

Since allegations of abuse at children's homes in north Wales first emerged in 1993, hundreds of staff in children's homes have been arrested, charged, acquitted or convicted of abuse, both sexual and physical. Police officers have interviewed thousands of former residents and at least 200 former staff have been convicted. An Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) survey covering 1997 to 1999 found that 32 forces had held, or were involved in, 96 investigations. A total of 5,616 victims were identified. These led to 543 arrests, 193 successful prosecutions and 40 acquittals.

Campaign groups have formed to support individuals. Members point to the risks involved in prosecuting historic abuse cases and the potential for wrongful convictions. There is no forensic evidence and convictions are dependent on complainants' testimony. Prosecutions are notoriously difficult to obtain in these cases and the police and courts rely on "similar fact" evidence, whereby if more than one person makes the same accusations, without other evidence, a person can be convicted. Campaigners maintain that the police have used unethical trawling methods to find witnesses. They believe that former care home residents have lied about their experiences to obtain compensation payments.

Solicitor Chris Saltrese spends about 60 per cent of his time representing former care home staff who claim they have been wrongly accused of abuse. He has a personal interest in these cases, as his father ran a former care home in Merseyside that was investigated as part of one of the large institutional abuse inquiries - Cheshire Police's Operation Granite.

"These investigations have led to the greatest miscarriages of justice in British legal history," he says. "Care workers are being sent to prison for something they have not done. Every month someone gets 10 to 15 years." He estimates that between 30 and 40 wrongful convictions have been made following the inquiries in north Wales, Cheshire and Merseyside.

Saltrese believes juries are overwhelmed by the fact that in most cases there are a number of complainants saying they were abused by one worker and are therefore unable to deliver correct verdicts. "These cases do not bear any scrutiny - people are being convicted because they are facing evidence from many complainants. The evidence by itself is very weak, but the juries believe there is no smoke without fire."

In many historic cases of abuse one care worker in a home has pleaded guilty. Juries read about the conviction or guilty plea in one establishment and then assume former colleagues were also involved. It is extremely difficult for both juries and the police to accept that children were being abused without care workers knowing.

"It's impossible for anyone accused by more than one person to be found not guilty because juries cannot cope with it," says Rory O'Brien, chairperson of campaign group Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers (Fact). "Juries believe they can't all make it up." O'Brien was convicted of abuse but freed on appeal after spending just seven weeks in prison. "The police - and I understand why - are hoping they will get more allegations during the investigation. But there's a crusading element by the senior investigating officers. And the longer the investigation runs, the more expensive it is, and the more they have to justify it."

But why would a former resident lie? Financial compensation is key, according to Saltrese. "The vast majority of false allegations are prompted by the desire for undeserved compensation. I don't blame them for making a buck." He estimates the average pay out in the north Wales cases was between £80,000 and £90,000. Then there are further, smaller payments from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. The largest award via the courts was £94,000 to a young man who was abused by two men - one was deputy head teacher Peter Howarth, who was sentenced to 10 years for abuse at the Bryn Estyn care home in north Wales.

"Former residents do not only make false allegations to obtain compensation," says Saltrese. "There are others suffering from psychological illness or bearing a grudge - the main targets are head teachers in approved schools, as they were allowed to use a cane." O'Brien believes many complainants are confused and genuinely believe they were abused by the defendant when it was someone else.

Concerns over convictions have led to action in the Houses of Parliament. An all-party group on false allegations, with a wider remit than just examining institutional abuse, was formed last year. In January the home affairs select committee launched an inquiry into the investigations of past cases of abuse in children's homes, including possible miscarriages of justice. It will examine the police methods of "trawling" for evidence and whether these are a disproportionate use of resources and produce unreliable evidence for prosecution, whether the Crown Prosecution Service is drawing a sensible line about which cases should be prosecuted, whether there should be time limits on making allegations, whether compensation awards encourage people to make false allegations, and the use of "similar fact" evidence.

Announcing the inquiry, committee chairperson Chris Mullin, who was a leading campaigner for the release of the Birmingham Six, explained why the committee had decided on this review: "It has been suggested that a whole new genre of miscarriages of justice has arisen from the over-enthusiastic pursuit of allegations about abuse of children in institutions many years ago."

The police have already begun to react to the growing concerns. Discussions last year between the Home Office, Acpo and the Police Inspectorate "about what more can be done to ensure that the procedures in place for conducting these very difficult investigations are fair and robust" resulted in a new manual for senior investigating officers, which covers tracing potential witnesses and obtaining corroborative evidence. And new guidance for police and social services on how to conduct complex abuse investigations is imminent. Such guidance was recommended by the Waterhouse inquiry report into children's homes in north Wales but has become imperative because of the growing concerns about the possibility of wrongful convictions.

A week before the select committee inquiry announcement, the police established a new UK-wide research team to improve their investigation of these difficult cases. Terry Grange, chief constable of Dyfed Powys police and spokesperson for Acpo on sexual crime, set up the unit. He admits that although there is a lengthy and robust process before someone is convicted, some of the inquiries into abuse at care homes could have made mistakes and some of those who have been jailed could have been innocent.

But the inquiry has come too late for Terry Hoskin, a head teacher at the former approved school St Aidan's in Widnes, Cheshire, who has served just over four years in prison for crimes he claims he did not commit. He was sentenced to eight years after being convicted of 12 counts of assault causing actual bodily harm, eight of indecent assault and one of buggery. His appeal was turned down in November 1999. His initial request for parole was turned down - he had refused to go on the sex offenders programme. But just after his parole was refused, his lawyer Chris Saltrese sent in letters of support and two weeks later parole was granted. Just before his trial, Colin Dick, a housemaster whom he had appointed, had pleaded guilty to indecency and received a five-year sentence. One of the men who made complaints against Dick also made a complaint against Hoskin and this, says Hoskin, was brought into his trial. He struggles to answer why 19 men made allegations against him. "I do not believe every single person was motivated by compensation. Some were. I'm damn sure some were. I think the othersÉ I do not know. They appreciated the attention. They were quite pleased to have a reasonable relationship with a couple of policemen who would go and see them. Some were seeking revenge maybe.

"I'm not bitter towards them. They were rogues, vagabonds, twisters, 25 years ago. I'm more annoyed that it wasn't obvious to any reasonable individual they were lying. They didn't all sit down in a room and say 'this is the plan'. The investigation is the collusion."

However, the police are robust in their defence. They argue that only a small percentage of child abusers are caught, that it is very difficult to obtain convictions in historic abuse cases, and that the process from arrest to trial contains many safeguards for the defendant. Nine out of 10 investigations are discontinued at an early stage. The Acpo survey shows that between 1997 and 1999, the CPS took no further action in 940 of the 1,197 referrals made by the police.

In its submission to the home affairs select committee inquiry, Acpo states: "No allegation is taken at face value and all are thoroughly investigated and the account probed to gain all available evidence to corroborate it. Despite claims to the contrary, many of the apparent victims and witnesses are neither career criminals nor seeking compensation, as court records would testify. To date from all the institutional abuse enquiries there are two known cases of fabricated allegations; both individuals were prosecuted."

Acpo says the policy on compensation is clear - officers will not raise the issue. Where the apparent victim raises it, the police will disclose this to the CPS. And the list of those who seek Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority compensation is disclosed to the defence.

Peter Garsden, who is co-ordinating the compensation claims in the north west, describes the home affairs select committee inquiry as "a waste of public money". He says: "Child abuse is no different in terms of false allegations. Statistically there must be false allegations but I have no direct evidence that people are telling lies. That's not to say that we should not leave the courts to weed out the liars. There's no need to have a select committee to push its nose into the running of the judiciary."

Garsden maintains there is no incentive for former residents to make false allegations. Those who have been abused take great risks in becoming witnesses in trials and some end up turning to drugs or self-harm. They risk isolation from their families, some of whom believe abused people are bound to become abusers. They are ashamed because of the suggestion they are homosexual, particularly if they are in prison, he says. And the financial rewards are not large compared with medical negligence claims.

"You may get some hysterical policeman trying to push cases through" but there are plenty of safeguards before and after a defendant is convicted, he says. "I have difficulty believing that this is anything other than the clever manipulation of MPs by a group of rightly convicted, well-orchestrated individuals."

Ascertaining what actually took place in isolated institutions decades ago is a difficult task. Discovering whether mistakes have been made and innocent men imprisoned is even more difficult - a fact Chris Mullin acknowledged when announcing the home affairs select committee's inquiry: "We shall be looking at the methods by which convictions have been achieved and whether there were adequate safeguards. We shall bear in mind, however, that people convicted of sexually abusing children are more likely to continue protesting their innocence than any other category of prisoner."