Sexual abuse at St Vincents Community Home

St Vincents Community Home at Ravenmeols Lane Formby, Merseyside was initially an approved school which then became a controlled community home providing education on the premises until it closed in 1989. It was owned and managed by a Roman Catholic organisation Catholic Social Services and then Nugent Care Society.

An approved school or community home was a residential institution where young people as young as 11 could be sent by the court system after committing relatively minor criminal offences. Others were sent there simply because they were considered to be beyond the control of their parents or because their home life was unstable. 

The school/home was intended “to achieve the re-adjustment and social re-education of boys in preparation for their rehabilitation into the community” but reports of sexual abuse at the school and general brutality have been in the public domain for some years. There have been criminal convictions against staff who worked at the home. 

Alan Langshaw had worked at the home as Officer in Charge and then Deputy Principal. In December 1994 he was imprisoned for 10 years for sexual offences between 1977 and 1974 involving boys between age 10 and 20 when he worked at Greystone Heath, St Vincents Community Home and Halton College. 

In 1996, Edward Angelo Stanton who was a Housemaster/Team Leader at the home between 1976 and 1985 was convicted of 11 offences sexual offences against boys aged between 10 and 13. He was imprisoned for 13 years. 

In February 2013, he was imprisoned for a further 16 months for possessing the indecent images of children and again in July 2016 for another 2 years for similar offences.

He was imprisoned again for 2 years in January 2018 for a breach of his sexual Offences Prevention order and possessing further indecent images.

Finally, he was convicted again in May 2021 when he was found guilty of indecently assaulting a 13 year old boy in the early 1980’s. 

Jordans solicitors have a long history of acting for the victims and survivors of sexual abuse and have been involved in landmark court decisions for Claimants. We continue to act for victims and survivors of abuse at St Vincents Community Home. The sexual abuse has often had a significant impact on their adult life and their mental health. They also want an acknowledgement of what happened to them at the home and some closure. 

In a lot of these claims there are good arguments that the claim should be allowed to proceed out of time in particular if they have been involved in the criminal prosecutions of the alleged abusers. Social care records are often still available which help prove that the person was placed at Stanhope. The victims and survivors of the abuse often refer to the same alleged abusers which help corroborate other’s accounts of abuse and there is often evidence that the alleged abusers were employed at the school.