Operation Orarian Investigation Into North Wales Police

 

Orarian – From Latin orarius, from ora coast. Adjective – Of or pertaining to a coast. Noun – An inhabitant of a coast.

Which is a suitable name given that the source of this information is Darren Laverty who spends his down time beach combing the Angelsey coast for driftwood. It might be worth following him on Twitter if you’re not already.

Operation Orarian is a new police investigation into North Wales Police (NWP) and others which is investigating allegations that past investigations by NWP into child abuse at North Wales care homes during the 1980s and early 1990s were illegally perverted.

It is separate and distinct from another investigation into the conduct of three police forces, including NWP, in relation to Operation Spade which is more recent. You can find information on that HERE

Darren Laverty released a statement on his blog on Wednesday. It would seem that as a former resident of Bryn Estyn, Darren would likely have been asked about issues regarding the investigation. I’m sure others were asked also.

I can confirm that IPCC have launched a criminal investigation into the potential actions of North Wales Police during the investigations into child abuse in the late 1980’s early 1990’s. Serving and non serving officers are under scrutiny. In addition they will investigate the potential criminal activities of a number of senior council officials who ruled the roost at Gwynedd county council/social services. It’s been estimated to take a minimum of 6 months.

Operation Orarian will be overseen by the IPCC and will have its own Head of Review, thought to be Martin Lloyd Evans. DI Tim Evans will head the team from SOUTH WALES.

Darren Laverty

Anyone who has looked at past investigations into child abuse in care homes will have been left with an extremely uncomfortable feeling. At the least that investigations were not as thorough as the general public might reasonably have expected, at worst, that there might have been some form of collusion or corruption which prevented these police investigations from getting to the truth.

The very fact that, in the case of North Wales care homes, so many new charges have been made by Operation Pallial against suspects, and that so many witnesses have come forward to Pallial alleging unresolved crimes, bears out the need for this new  independent criminal investigation.

I personally consider Operation Orarian to be an extremely significant police investigation and I’ll be watching developments very closely.

The message should be clear. It doesn’t matter who you are or how protected you thought you were, there will be no hiding place.