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A TOUCH OF FROST
This documentary tells the story of how journalists were censored and an important witness prevented from giving evidence. He could have changed one of the Tribunal's most important findings...
SILENT WITNESS
The article on which the TV documentary is based.
THE TRIALS OF GORDON ANGLESEA
Why are there so many differences in the evidence given by a former North Wales police superintendent in a famous libel trial and what he told the Child Abuse Tribunal?
WHO FIXED THE TRIBUNAL?
This editorial considers the implications of the REBECCA investigation.
Related articles, already published and in the public access area
A MASON-FREE ZONE?
Freemasonry became a non-issue in the Tribunal hearings. But many questions remain.
BROTHERS IN SILK
The influence of Wales' most important masonic lodge.
BROTHERS IN THE SHADOWS
A  documentary showing that freemasonry and child abuse are still causing problems for the North Wales Police.
THE CASE OF THE FLAWED TRIBUNAL
IT WAS the biggest child abuse inquiry in British legal history. The North Wales Child Abuse Tribunal cost £14m and took five years to complete. But a major REBECCA investigation reveals that some of its conclusions are suspect.

flawed_fade_300.jpgThis is a tale of censorship, of a key witness never being called — and of a police force that, even today, refuses to answer questions about its role in the affair.

It asks a series of questions:
  • why did the Tribunal threaten journalists with contempt proceedings if they broadcast new allegations from a key witness?

  • why did the Tribunal not call the witness to hear what he had to say?

  • why did North Wales Police interview the witness days after the reporters had been gagged?

  • why won't the chief constable answer questions about this interview?
The Tribunal cleared the force of any criticism that it had not investigated allegations of child abuse early enough.

The TV programme A Touch of Frost screens the interview that broadcasters were prevented from broadcasting back in 1997. This documentary is based on the article Silent Witness, also released today.

A separate article, The Trials of Gordon Anglesea, examines the role of one of the central characters in the whole child abuse saga in North Wales. By the time he retired as a superintendent in 1991, Gordon Anglesea was already being accused of abusing children at one of the homes near Wrexham.

He won a celebrated libel action in the High Court and the North Wales Child Abuse Tribunal found no evidence that might have produced a different verdict.

But questions have been raised about the evidence he gave in the libel action — and also when he appeared before the Tribunal. 

The comment piece Who Fixed The Tribunal? asks who was responsible — and why…