Frank Beck (sex offender)
Encyclopedia
Frank Beck was a convicted child sex offender
in the United Kingdom. He was employed by the Leicestershire County Council
as the officer-in-charge of several Children's Homes in Leicestershire
, between 1973 and 1986. Though holding only a 'middle management' grade within the heirarchy of Leicestershire Social Services, Beck quickly established an esteemed reputation among his professional peers as an innovative, dynamic and extraordinarily effective practitioner in dealing with the emotional and behavioural complexities of troubled young people placed in his charge. Beck was later at the centre of Britain's biggest investigation into institutional child abuse, between 1989 and 1991.
, Beck was raised in Thornton Heath
, South London, the son of a train driver and the youngest of five children. Leaving secondary modern school without any qualifications, Beck then spent three years working on a farm before suddenly announcing that he was joining the Royal Marines
.
Beck spent nine years as a marine, serving in Borneo
and Aden
and attaining the rank of sergeant. Emerging with an honourable discharge and campaign medals, Beck apparently turned down officer training and chose instead to train as a social worker.
Beck subsequently obtained employment with Northampton
Social Services and went into a training course at the Stevenage
College of Further Education, where he acquired a Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW) and a Home Office Letter of Recognition in Child Care. Beck then gained employment with Leicestershire Social Services in 1973 and served as Officer-in-Charge of three local authority children's homes until his resignation in March 1986. The children's homes concerned were The Poplars Children's Home, Market Harborough
(1973 - 75); Ratcliffe Road Children's Home, Leicester
(1975 - 78) and The Beeches Children's Home, Leicester Forest East
(1978 - 1986)
In addition to his physical strength and fitness, Beck also seems to have exuded extraordinary charisma and despite a limited educational background he possessed a sharp intellect, eloquence and critical ability which, combined with the outstanding success he seemed to have in bringing the most wayward and behaviourally challenging children to order, led many to believe he was gifted. Dorothy Edwards, the Director of Social Services (1973 - 80) reportedly told a friend, "I don't know quite what he's doing, but he's doing it very well."Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Beck was also successful as a local politician, winning a seat on the Blaby
District Council as a Liberal Democrat
in 1983, and which he successfully defended in 1987.
Beck also believed that emotions should not be 'bottled up' and it is said that children were deliberately provoked into temper tantrums, thereby creating opportunities to excercise violent physical restraint.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 29.
Care assistants (or 'residential social workers' as they were known) were often hand-picked by Beck and were required to support his methods and philosophy without question. Several of his staff were also paedophiles and sadists, including Colin Fiddaman, who was to commit suicide in Amsterdam, whilst 'on the run', in 1991. Beck is also said to have physically and sexually abused male members of staff, sustaining 'a regime of terror' for thirteen years.
Beck's seemingly 'bomb-proof' invincibility saw him fend off a continued escalation of complaints, until finally, in March 1986, his career in Leicestershire was ended by a complaint of sexual abuse made by two male residential social workers at The Beeches, who claimed that Beck had made advances toward them during staff supervision sessions. This time, Beck was suspended from duty and he subsequently handed in his resignation rather than subject himself to investigations under the council's protracted disciplinary procedures and risk dismissal.
Beck's resignation letter implicitly admitted the truth of the complaints (while at the same time calling them 'overstated'). "I cannot say how sorry I am", he wrote.
Following temporary menial employment as a security guard, Beck later attempted to resurrect his social work career with 'Reliance Social Care', an agency supplying staff to social services departments in London. A reference was supplied to them by Brian Rice, the Director of Leicestershire Social Services who had replaced Dorothy Edwards in 1980 and which gave a positive appraisal of Beck's abilities in working with young people, with only a suggestion that the agency might wish to discuss with him the exact reasons for his resignation.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 121. The same reference enabled him to gain a post at the Woodcock Hill Children's Home in Brent and he later moved on to Hertfordshire
, where he was accused of sexual rerlationships with two clients, one an adolescent boy. D'Arcy and Gosling, page 121/2.
The complaint that finally led to Beck's last arrest came from a young mother that had formerly been in Beck's care at the Ratcliffe Road Children's Home. In 1989, she made disclosures of historic abuse suffered under the Beck regime, whilst attending parent-craft meetings run by her social worker at the Regent Street Nursery in Loughborough
, Leicestershire. The social worker took these allegations to the police and helped pave the way for Britain's largest investigation into institutionalised child abuse. It led to police taking statements from nearly four hundred children in an operation which lasted for two and a half years, conducted by more than thirty police officers. Under the direction of the Leicestershire Constabulary
, various other police authorities traced and interviewed former children in care across four continents.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 124.
At approximately 7.35 am, on the morning of Saturday, April 14 1990, police officers executed a warrant of arrest at Beck's home and informed him that he was being arrested after an investigation into sexual misconduct in Leicestershire children's homes during the 1970s and 1980s. Beck is said to have repied, "Oh Jesus ... No!", and spent the next eighteen months of his life on remand in prison, and, after his conviction, the rest of his life.D'Arcy and Gosling, pages 126- 127.
The case led to The Leicestershire Inquiry of 1992, chaired by Andrew Kirkwood QC, whose report was strongly critical of the management of Leicestershire Social Services during the 1970s and 1980s and of the conduct of several key managers.
The authors state that other children living in the home at that time have since given evidence to say that the injuries allegedly caused to O'Donnell were consistent with the system of physical restraint used by Beck and Fiddaman, which entailed wrapping a towel around the neck of a child during the course of abuse.
In 1998, a former resident, Peter Bastin, stated that he witnessed Beck and Fiddaman removing what he believed to be O'Donnell's body from the home on the night before the child was found dead in a local factory.
In the same year, Bastin was awarded a rumoured £50,000 compensation for the abuse and suffering he received from Beck, which, he claimed, helped turn him into a child abuser, Bastin himself having been convicted in 1979 of raping and murdering ten year old boy. Bastin was apparently one of four Beck victims who went on to become murderers, "lending credence to experts who believe that victims of child abuse are more likely to become abusers themselves".Paul Gosling, The Independent, 12 April 1999
The claim of D'Arcy and Gosling, that "there is strong evidence" that Beck was a murderer, received harsh criticism from the author Richard Webster, who points out that Bastin gave his evidence some twenty-one years after the death of O'Donnell, during the course of a compensation hearing from which he stood to derive massive financial gain.Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Bastin also claimed that the ten-year old victim he himself had murdered had died as a result of throttling techniques he had copied from Beck.Paul Gosling, The Independent, 12 April 1999
in Cambridgeshire
. He was aged fifty two. Beck's body was cremated on 9 June 1994, at a private ceremony at the Gilroes Crematorium in Leicester, attended by a small number of family members. The then eighty-eight year old Labour peer, Lord Longford, caused great controversy by sending flowers to the funeral. Longford had befriended Beck in prison and was convinced of his innocence.Catholic Herald, 17 June 1994
Unsurprisingly, his sudden death after such a relatively short period of incarceration led to speculation that he had been murdered. D'Arcy and Gosling, in their book, 'Abuse of Trust", claim that fellow prisoners (some of whom had allegedly been his victims) attributed his death to speed
, which had supposedly been surreptiously added to his food over a period of months.
and Michael Manning are said to have shown an interest in taking his case.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 159
One of his most high profile supporters was the Labour peer, Lord Longford, who had for many years courted controversy in the tabloid press due to his long-standing campaign for the release of 'Moors murderer' Myra Hindley. "Personally I am convinced that not only did Frank Beck act throughout as an idealist, but that he did not exceed the bounds of propriety and certainly did not commit any criminal act," wrote Longford in his autobiography, Avowed Intent. "Those that spoke against him were usually, it would seem, likely to gain financially if he were convicted." However, Longford seems to have based this belief, not as a result of having seen any evidence, but as a result of his befriending of Beck as a prison visitor.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 158.
Longford was not alone in his belief that Beck was innocent and it is evident that for many, Beck's charisma, charm and power of persusion was undiminished, despite the crushing intensity of his circumstances.
Beck's solicitor, Oliver D'Sa, was also someone who had come to fully believe in his innocence and who acted not merely as a paid lawyer "just doing his job", but as someone absolutely committed to his case. Following Beck's conviction, D'Sa continued to argue his innocence and affirm his belief that there had been a monumental miscarriage of justice, even writing to the local evening newspaper, The Leicester Mercury
, complaining about the way it had covered the trial and pleading for a more enlightened attitude, one that recognised that Beck might, after all, be not guilty. "The catalogue of miscarriages of justice evident in the cases of 'the Guildford Four
', 'the Birmingham Six
', 'the Maguire Seven' and 'the Tottenham Three' have shown the fallibility of the system of criminal justice," wrote D'Sa. He continued, "... I have received during the course of the case many testimonials and references from children who have been in the care of Mr Beck and fellow social workers, who testify to the help, kindness and devotion to his work."D'Arcy and Gosling, page 158 - 159.
However, though D'Sa was convinced of Beck's innocence at the time he represented him and immediately afterward, he has since revised his stance and later said: "I don't know where the truth lies. It is one of those cases that has been a conundrum to me. I think Frank Beck was a mesmeric character and very intelligent. Since then I have represented a number of his victims in the local magistrates' courts. The victims have given their accounts with such clarity that I think it unlikely that all those complainants could have lied. The spread of victims, in terms of timescale and geography, makes it impossible to have collaboration on that scale. I think Frank Beck believed in his own lies - he believed that he was innocent."D'Arcy and Gosling, page 159
The front cover of this publication depicts the image of Frank Beck, appearing gaunt and emaciated, as captured by a newspaper photographer during his police conveyance from a trial appearance at Leicester Crown Court. It bears little resemblance to the photograph of Beck within the book, which shows him as a burly and confident much younger man, depicted outside the Beeches Children's Home at Leicester Forest East during the 1980s.
, a writer who suggested that hysteria lay behind some abuse scandals, particularly in the case of Frank Beck.
Webster did not seek to advocate the innocence of Beck, nor his guilt, but was strongly critical of what he perceived as the inherent bias of D'Arcy and Gosling in setting out to create a work that was fervently determined from the outset to portary him as "a proven monster" and disregarding any evidence to suggest that prosecution evidence against him may have been tainted.
Webster wrote: "Beck always maintained that he had never sexually abused anyone in his care. Far more importantly, he had convinced two key members of his legal team of his innocence. One of these was Ian Henning, a gifted legal executive (and former policeman) who had taken charge of Beck’s defence. The other was Bernard Greaves, the former policy adviser to the Liberal Party
. When Greaves first met Beck, he did not believe his denials. But wherever documentary evidence was available, he found it confirmed what Beck had said – that he could not have committed the offences in question. The more they worked on the case, the more Henning and Greaves became convinced that Beck had become the victim of an unprecedented trawling operation in which police officers, in their anxiety to gain a conviction, had inadvertently suggested allegations to the witness they were interviewing. Largely as a result of the work done by his defence team, Beck was acquitted on half the charges he faced. Henning and Greaves were preparing his appeal when Beck died of a heart attack in prison".Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Webster continued: "To say this is not to endorse the view that Beck was completely innocent. Now that both Beck and Henning are dead, it will probably never be possible to establish the true facts about the case. But there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the kind of police investigation mounted into Frank Beck was intrinsically unsafe. The alarming thing is the way in which this evidence has been conjured into virtual invisibility by D’Arcy and Gosling".Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Webster was also highly critical of the suggestion by D'Arcy and Gosling that Beck had murdered Simon O'Donnell, an adolescent boy formerly in his care. Webster pointed out that the only evidence D'Arcy and Gosling have for making this claim was that produced by Peter Bastin, himself a convicted rapist and murderer. Moreover, Webster points out that Bastin's evidence was produced during a lucrative compensation hearing. "Twenty-one years after a verdict of suicide was returned on a thirteen-year-old boy who had been in Beck’s care, this man claimed that he had looked out of the window on the night in question and seen Beck and Fiddaman carrying ‘something wrapped in a blanket’, which he now, in 1998, believes was the body of the boy," wrote Webster. "Although it bears many of the marks of being an opportunistic fabrication, D’Arcy and Gosling treat it with respect.... The handling of Bastin’s story should in itself be sufficient to undermine the reader’s faith in the authors’ judgment".Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Sex offender
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and by legal jurisdiction. Most jurisdictions compile their laws into sections such as traffic, assault, sexual, etc. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a...
in the United Kingdom. He was employed by the Leicestershire County Council
Leicestershire County Council
Leicestershire County Council is the county council for the English non-metropolitan county of Leicestershire. It was originally formed in 1889 by the Local Government Act 1888. The county is divided into 52 electoral divisions, which return a total of 55 councillors. The council is controlled by...
as the officer-in-charge of several Children's Homes in Leicestershire
Leicestershire
Leicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
, between 1973 and 1986. Though holding only a 'middle management' grade within the heirarchy of Leicestershire Social Services, Beck quickly established an esteemed reputation among his professional peers as an innovative, dynamic and extraordinarily effective practitioner in dealing with the emotional and behavioural complexities of troubled young people placed in his charge. Beck was later at the centre of Britain's biggest investigation into institutional child abuse, between 1989 and 1991.
Background and route into social work
Born in SalisburySalisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...
, Beck was raised in Thornton Heath
Thornton Heath
Thornton Heath is a district of south London, England, in the London Borough of Croydon. It is situated south-southeast of Charing Cross.-Geography:...
, South London, the son of a train driver and the youngest of five children. Leaving secondary modern school without any qualifications, Beck then spent three years working on a farm before suddenly announcing that he was joining the Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
.
Beck spent nine years as a marine, serving in Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
and Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
and attaining the rank of sergeant. Emerging with an honourable discharge and campaign medals, Beck apparently turned down officer training and chose instead to train as a social worker.
Beck subsequently obtained employment with Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
Social Services and went into a training course at the Stevenage
Stevenage
Stevenage is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England. It is situated to the east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1, and is between Letchworth Garden City to the north, and Welwyn Garden City to the south....
College of Further Education, where he acquired a Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW) and a Home Office Letter of Recognition in Child Care. Beck then gained employment with Leicestershire Social Services in 1973 and served as Officer-in-Charge of three local authority children's homes until his resignation in March 1986. The children's homes concerned were The Poplars Children's Home, Market Harborough
Market Harborough
Market Harborough is a market town within the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England.It has a population of 20,785 and is the administrative headquarters of Harborough District Council. It sits on the Northamptonshire-Leicestershire border...
(1973 - 75); Ratcliffe Road Children's Home, Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
(1975 - 78) and The Beeches Children's Home, Leicester Forest East
Leicester Forest East
Leicester Forest East or LFE is a settlement in Leicestershire, England, west of Leicester, straddling the M1 motorway. It is part of the Blaby district.LFE is a popular location among commuters and young families...
(1978 - 1986)
Character and attributes
Beck was still in his early thirties when he commenced working in the Leicestershire children's homes. An ex Royal Marine Sergeant, he was described as "tough, uncompromising and very, very strong", with arms ".. as thick as the thighs of the children in his care". 'Abuse of Trust: Frank Beck and the Leicestershire Children's Homes Scandal', by Mark D'Arcy and Paul Gosling, Bowerdean Publishing Co, 1998, page 12.In addition to his physical strength and fitness, Beck also seems to have exuded extraordinary charisma and despite a limited educational background he possessed a sharp intellect, eloquence and critical ability which, combined with the outstanding success he seemed to have in bringing the most wayward and behaviourally challenging children to order, led many to believe he was gifted. Dorothy Edwards, the Director of Social Services (1973 - 80) reportedly told a friend, "I don't know quite what he's doing, but he's doing it very well."Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Beck was also successful as a local politician, winning a seat on the Blaby
Blaby
Blaby is a village in central Leicestershire, England, some five miles south of Leicester city centre. It has population of around 6,240 , and its proximity to the city causes it to form part of the Leicester Urban Area....
District Council as a Liberal Democrat
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
in 1983, and which he successfully defended in 1987.
System of abuse
Beck is said to have used his own brand of 'regression therapy' as a cover for sexually abusing children in his care - supposedly a method of digging down to the roots of children's emotional problems, by returning them to a state of infancy. Children were dressed in pyjamas and given bottles and dummies; some of the younger children were dressed in nappies. At meal times, staff would sometimes cut up the food on the plates of residents, as if feeding infants; children would be given toys designed for much younger children and sometimes bathed by staff members and Beck encouraged a culture of cuddling and bodily contact.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 28.Beck also believed that emotions should not be 'bottled up' and it is said that children were deliberately provoked into temper tantrums, thereby creating opportunities to excercise violent physical restraint.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 29.
Care assistants (or 'residential social workers' as they were known) were often hand-picked by Beck and were required to support his methods and philosophy without question. Several of his staff were also paedophiles and sadists, including Colin Fiddaman, who was to commit suicide in Amsterdam, whilst 'on the run', in 1991. Beck is also said to have physically and sexually abused male members of staff, sustaining 'a regime of terror' for thirteen years.
Allegations, investigation and arrest
During the early 1980s, the number of complaints made about Beck's deployment of sexual and physical abuse and the unconventional methods he used as a child-care practitioner began to escalate. Complaints and concerns were aired not just by the young people in his 'care', but also by other members of staff and visiting professional agencies. In 1983, Beck was charged with actual bodily harm against a ten year old boy who had been severely bruised across the buttocks after Beck had 'spanked' him. The boy had stayed at The Beeches Children's Home in Leicester for weekend respite care and Beck was subsequently arrested after the child's mother reported matters to the police. Beck was duly acquitted at the ensuing trial and benefited from adulatory testimonials of support elicited from other members of staff; such was the belief in Beck's professional integrity among senior managers of Leicestershire Social Services that it was not even deemed necessary to suspend him from duty, pending the outcome of the allegation.Beck's seemingly 'bomb-proof' invincibility saw him fend off a continued escalation of complaints, until finally, in March 1986, his career in Leicestershire was ended by a complaint of sexual abuse made by two male residential social workers at The Beeches, who claimed that Beck had made advances toward them during staff supervision sessions. This time, Beck was suspended from duty and he subsequently handed in his resignation rather than subject himself to investigations under the council's protracted disciplinary procedures and risk dismissal.
Beck's resignation letter implicitly admitted the truth of the complaints (while at the same time calling them 'overstated'). "I cannot say how sorry I am", he wrote.
Following temporary menial employment as a security guard, Beck later attempted to resurrect his social work career with 'Reliance Social Care', an agency supplying staff to social services departments in London. A reference was supplied to them by Brian Rice, the Director of Leicestershire Social Services who had replaced Dorothy Edwards in 1980 and which gave a positive appraisal of Beck's abilities in working with young people, with only a suggestion that the agency might wish to discuss with him the exact reasons for his resignation.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 121. The same reference enabled him to gain a post at the Woodcock Hill Children's Home in Brent and he later moved on to Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, where he was accused of sexual rerlationships with two clients, one an adolescent boy. D'Arcy and Gosling, page 121/2.
The complaint that finally led to Beck's last arrest came from a young mother that had formerly been in Beck's care at the Ratcliffe Road Children's Home. In 1989, she made disclosures of historic abuse suffered under the Beck regime, whilst attending parent-craft meetings run by her social worker at the Regent Street Nursery in Loughborough
Loughborough
Loughborough is a town within the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. It is the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and is home to Loughborough University...
, Leicestershire. The social worker took these allegations to the police and helped pave the way for Britain's largest investigation into institutionalised child abuse. It led to police taking statements from nearly four hundred children in an operation which lasted for two and a half years, conducted by more than thirty police officers. Under the direction of the Leicestershire Constabulary
Leicestershire Constabulary
Leicestershire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland in England. Its headquarters are at Enderby, Leicestershire.The current Chief Constable is Simon Cole.-History:...
, various other police authorities traced and interviewed former children in care across four continents.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 124.
At approximately 7.35 am, on the morning of Saturday, April 14 1990, police officers executed a warrant of arrest at Beck's home and informed him that he was being arrested after an investigation into sexual misconduct in Leicestershire children's homes during the 1970s and 1980s. Beck is said to have repied, "Oh Jesus ... No!", and spent the next eighteen months of his life on remand in prison, and, after his conviction, the rest of his life.D'Arcy and Gosling, pages 126- 127.
Trial and conviction
On 29 November 1991, following an eleven week trial at the Leicester Crown Court, Beck was sentenced to five life terms for sexual and physical assaults against more than one hundred children in his care. He was sentenced to a further twenty four years on seventeen charges of abuse, including rape. The term of five life sentences remains as one of the most severe in British judicial history since the ending of the death penalty for murder.The case led to The Leicestershire Inquiry of 1992, chaired by Andrew Kirkwood QC, whose report was strongly critical of the management of Leicestershire Social Services during the 1970s and 1980s and of the conduct of several key managers.
Alleged murder of Simon O'Donnell
In their book, Abuse of Trust, Mark D'Arcy and Paul Gosling suggest that in 1977, Beck and a co-worker, Colin Fiddaman, killed a twelve-year-old boy, Simon O'Donnell, by throttling him whilst he was being sexually abused, though the subsequent inquest into O'Donnell's death concluded that the boy had committed suicide after running away from a children's home run by Beck.The authors state that other children living in the home at that time have since given evidence to say that the injuries allegedly caused to O'Donnell were consistent with the system of physical restraint used by Beck and Fiddaman, which entailed wrapping a towel around the neck of a child during the course of abuse.
In 1998, a former resident, Peter Bastin, stated that he witnessed Beck and Fiddaman removing what he believed to be O'Donnell's body from the home on the night before the child was found dead in a local factory.
In the same year, Bastin was awarded a rumoured £50,000 compensation for the abuse and suffering he received from Beck, which, he claimed, helped turn him into a child abuser, Bastin himself having been convicted in 1979 of raping and murdering ten year old boy. Bastin was apparently one of four Beck victims who went on to become murderers, "lending credence to experts who believe that victims of child abuse are more likely to become abusers themselves".Paul Gosling, The Independent, 12 April 1999
The claim of D'Arcy and Gosling, that "there is strong evidence" that Beck was a murderer, received harsh criticism from the author Richard Webster, who points out that Bastin gave his evidence some twenty-one years after the death of O'Donnell, during the course of a compensation hearing from which he stood to derive massive financial gain.Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Bastin also claimed that the ten-year old victim he himself had murdered had died as a result of throttling techniques he had copied from Beck.Paul Gosling, The Independent, 12 April 1999
Death and conspiracy theories
Frank Beck died on 31 May 1994, two and a half years after his imprisonment, apparently as a result of a heart attack whilst playing badminton at Whitemoor PrisonWhitemoor (HM Prison)
HM Prison Whitemoor is a Category A men's prison, located near the town of March in Cambridgeshire, England. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.-History:...
in Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
. He was aged fifty two. Beck's body was cremated on 9 June 1994, at a private ceremony at the Gilroes Crematorium in Leicester, attended by a small number of family members. The then eighty-eight year old Labour peer, Lord Longford, caused great controversy by sending flowers to the funeral. Longford had befriended Beck in prison and was convinced of his innocence.Catholic Herald, 17 June 1994
Unsurprisingly, his sudden death after such a relatively short period of incarceration led to speculation that he had been murdered. D'Arcy and Gosling, in their book, 'Abuse of Trust", claim that fellow prisoners (some of whom had allegedly been his victims) attributed his death to speed
Amphetamine
Amphetamine or amfetamine is a psychostimulant drug of the phenethylamine class which produces increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.Brand names of medications that contain, or metabolize into, amphetamine include Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat,...
, which had supposedly been surreptiously added to his food over a period of months.
Intended appeal and post-trial support
Throughout the trial and up until his death, Beck emphatically protested his innocence as a victim of mass conspiracy and sought to launch an appeal to secure his release and clear his name. Beck spent much of his time in Whitemoor prison vigorously planning his appeal and such eminent barristers as Anthony ScrivenerAnthony Scrivener
Anthony Scrivener QC is a British barrister. His notable work includes the defence of Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer convicted in 2001 of the shooting and murder of a burglar and in 2005, the defence of Saddam Hussein against mass murder charges....
and Michael Manning are said to have shown an interest in taking his case.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 159
One of his most high profile supporters was the Labour peer, Lord Longford, who had for many years courted controversy in the tabloid press due to his long-standing campaign for the release of 'Moors murderer' Myra Hindley. "Personally I am convinced that not only did Frank Beck act throughout as an idealist, but that he did not exceed the bounds of propriety and certainly did not commit any criminal act," wrote Longford in his autobiography, Avowed Intent. "Those that spoke against him were usually, it would seem, likely to gain financially if he were convicted." However, Longford seems to have based this belief, not as a result of having seen any evidence, but as a result of his befriending of Beck as a prison visitor.D'Arcy and Gosling, page 158.
Longford was not alone in his belief that Beck was innocent and it is evident that for many, Beck's charisma, charm and power of persusion was undiminished, despite the crushing intensity of his circumstances.
Beck's solicitor, Oliver D'Sa, was also someone who had come to fully believe in his innocence and who acted not merely as a paid lawyer "just doing his job", but as someone absolutely committed to his case. Following Beck's conviction, D'Sa continued to argue his innocence and affirm his belief that there had been a monumental miscarriage of justice, even writing to the local evening newspaper, The Leicester Mercury
Leicester Mercury
The Leicester Mercury is a British regional newspaper, owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust, for the city of Leicester and the counties of Leicestershire and Rutland...
, complaining about the way it had covered the trial and pleading for a more enlightened attitude, one that recognised that Beck might, after all, be not guilty. "The catalogue of miscarriages of justice evident in the cases of 'the Guildford Four
Guildford Four
The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven were two sets of people whose convictions in English courts for the Guildford pub bombings in the 1970s were eventually quashed...
', 'the Birmingham Six
Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six men—Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 in the United Kingdom for the Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and quashed by the Court of...
', 'the Maguire Seven' and 'the Tottenham Three' have shown the fallibility of the system of criminal justice," wrote D'Sa. He continued, "... I have received during the course of the case many testimonials and references from children who have been in the care of Mr Beck and fellow social workers, who testify to the help, kindness and devotion to his work."D'Arcy and Gosling, page 158 - 159.
However, though D'Sa was convinced of Beck's innocence at the time he represented him and immediately afterward, he has since revised his stance and later said: "I don't know where the truth lies. It is one of those cases that has been a conundrum to me. I think Frank Beck was a mesmeric character and very intelligent. Since then I have represented a number of his victims in the local magistrates' courts. The victims have given their accounts with such clarity that I think it unlikely that all those complainants could have lied. The spread of victims, in terms of timescale and geography, makes it impossible to have collaboration on that scale. I think Frank Beck believed in his own lies - he believed that he was innocent."D'Arcy and Gosling, page 159
Victim compensation claims
More than 100 of Beck's victims fought for compensation from Leicestershire County Council in 1995. Two victims were awarded £225,000 in damages in 1996.'Community Care' magazine, 17 April 2000.Study by D'Arcy and Gosling, 1998
Abuse of Trust: Frank Beck and the Leicestershire Children's Homes Scandal, published by Bowerdean and Co., London in 1998, is a paperback work of two hundred and twenty four pages written by journalists, Mark D'Arcy and Paul Gosling and remains the definitive, semi-biographical account of the Frank Beck story.The front cover of this publication depicts the image of Frank Beck, appearing gaunt and emaciated, as captured by a newspaper photographer during his police conveyance from a trial appearance at Leicester Crown Court. It bears little resemblance to the photograph of Beck within the book, which shows him as a burly and confident much younger man, depicted outside the Beeches Children's Home at Leicester Forest East during the 1980s.
Richard Webster: criticism of D'Arcy and Gosling
Abuse of Trust was heavily criticised by Richard WebsterRichard Webster (author)
Richard Webster was a British cultural historian, and the author of five published books, dealing with subjects such as the controversy over Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, and the investigation of sexual abuse in Britain...
, a writer who suggested that hysteria lay behind some abuse scandals, particularly in the case of Frank Beck.
Webster did not seek to advocate the innocence of Beck, nor his guilt, but was strongly critical of what he perceived as the inherent bias of D'Arcy and Gosling in setting out to create a work that was fervently determined from the outset to portary him as "a proven monster" and disregarding any evidence to suggest that prosecution evidence against him may have been tainted.
Webster wrote: "Beck always maintained that he had never sexually abused anyone in his care. Far more importantly, he had convinced two key members of his legal team of his innocence. One of these was Ian Henning, a gifted legal executive (and former policeman) who had taken charge of Beck’s defence. The other was Bernard Greaves, the former policy adviser to the Liberal Party
Liberal Party
Liberal Party is the name for dozens of political parties around the world. Liberal parties can be center-left, centrist, or center-right depending on their location...
. When Greaves first met Beck, he did not believe his denials. But wherever documentary evidence was available, he found it confirmed what Beck had said – that he could not have committed the offences in question. The more they worked on the case, the more Henning and Greaves became convinced that Beck had become the victim of an unprecedented trawling operation in which police officers, in their anxiety to gain a conviction, had inadvertently suggested allegations to the witness they were interviewing. Largely as a result of the work done by his defence team, Beck was acquitted on half the charges he faced. Henning and Greaves were preparing his appeal when Beck died of a heart attack in prison".Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Webster continued: "To say this is not to endorse the view that Beck was completely innocent. Now that both Beck and Henning are dead, it will probably never be possible to establish the true facts about the case. But there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the kind of police investigation mounted into Frank Beck was intrinsically unsafe. The alarming thing is the way in which this evidence has been conjured into virtual invisibility by D’Arcy and Gosling".Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.
Webster was also highly critical of the suggestion by D'Arcy and Gosling that Beck had murdered Simon O'Donnell, an adolescent boy formerly in his care. Webster pointed out that the only evidence D'Arcy and Gosling have for making this claim was that produced by Peter Bastin, himself a convicted rapist and murderer. Moreover, Webster points out that Bastin's evidence was produced during a lucrative compensation hearing. "Twenty-one years after a verdict of suicide was returned on a thirteen-year-old boy who had been in Beck’s care, this man claimed that he had looked out of the window on the night in question and seen Beck and Fiddaman carrying ‘something wrapped in a blanket’, which he now, in 1998, believes was the body of the boy," wrote Webster. "Although it bears many of the marks of being an opportunistic fabrication, D’Arcy and Gosling treat it with respect.... The handling of Bastin’s story should in itself be sufficient to undermine the reader’s faith in the authors’ judgment".Richard Webster, Times Literary Supplement, 22 January 1999.