FIND WHO PROTECTED CARE HOME PREDATOR

Victim group wants police to examine 1977 case of hanged teen

- TOM PETTIFOR

A CHILDREN'S home worker who raped a 15-year-old boy later found hanged was protected by fellow Freemasons in the justice system, a survivors' campaign has claimed.

The youngster's body was discovered in a bathroom of the notorious Shirley Oaks children's home in Croydon, South London, in 1977, two years after the man he accused of abuse walked free.

Donald Hosegood, a confirmed Freemason, went on trial in 1975 for 11 counts of rape and indecent assault on four children but the case collapsed.

Further allegations of sexual abuse were made against Hosegood in 1998 to the Operation Middleton inquiry in Lambeth, South London, but officers falsely claimed he had died. He finally died in 2011 without facing justice.

Now the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association is calling for the Met Police to investigate the case, after commissioner Sir Mark Rowley demanded officers reveal if they are masons.

SOSA founder Raymond Stevenson, who was a friend of the dead boy, said: "During Operation Middleton hundreds of paedophiles got off and thousands of victims had their cases dismissed.

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"SOSA has evidence to show the failure to follow up leads was a deliberate strategy to protect fellow police officers who were in the clan.

"It's an archaic system, an old boys' club whose existence discriminates against women.

"It has been used to protect wrong doers and encourages them to commit crimes knowing they have the protection of senior Masons." A long-running investigation by SOSA, led by Mr Stevenson and Lucia Hinton, has uncovered one of the worst child abuse scandals in British history.