November 5, 1986: A teenage girl tells the staff of a Merseyside children’s home she was raped by two men in Salford.
June 15, 2006: The Court Of Appeal quashes the convictions of John Siddall and Ian Brooke. Click here for the judgment.
According to NewsBank, this judgment was reported by the Hull Daily Mail the same day, which is odd. More significantly, there appears to be at least one error in the transcript because both JF and RW are said to have been born December 7, 1971. RW appears to have been slightly younger.
John Stephen Siddall and Ian Christopher Brooke were victims of Operation Clyde – not to be confused with the 2017 investigation into the murder of Stephen Frith in Worthing, which at the time of writing (July 2024) remains unsolved.
This Operation Clyde was a massive investigation (read trawl) of care homes which resulted in 42 arrests and 3 convictions. The girl known as RW (who claimed to have been raped in Salford) was the catalyst for it. The NSPCC worked with the police, always a bad sign.
I have not included Wilfrid Jolley (apparently the correct spelling of his surname) who is mentioned in the judgment. He was tried and acquitted. Nor have I mentioned any of the other false allegations she made.
It is sad that this little monster made proven lies in 1986, then appears to have been believed uncritically when she embellished and fabricated her claims a decade later, was paid compensation for doing so, and destroyed the lives of two decent men into the bargain.
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