A police commissioner has told a jury that he used to drive a senior officer accused of sexually abusing boys to a children’s home.
Arfon Jones, the police and crime commissioner for north Wales, said he drove Gordon Anglesea to the Bryn Estyn children’s home in Wrexham.
Anglesea, 78, a former police officer with North Wales police, denies four charges of sexual assault against two boys between 1982 and 1987, when they were 14 or 15.
One of the alleged victims has claimed he was assaulted by Anglesea in the showers and changing room at an attendance centre for young offenders in Wrexham. The second alleges that he was handed around “like a handbag” by a convicted paedophile called John Allen, who owned a children’s home in Wrexham.
Called by the prosecution, Jones told the jury at Mold crown court that he used to be a police officer until his retirement in 2008. He said he came across Anglesea professionally in 1982 when he himself was a constable and the defendant was an inspector.
Jones said he used to give Anglesea lifts in a police vehicle when asked. He said: “The only place I recall taking him was to Bryn Estyn children’s home. If he wanted to go to Bryn Estyn he would ask me and I would take him.”
The commissioner said Anglesea would be in uniform and he was under the impression that he went to administer cautions to the children. Jones said he would not go into the home with Anglesea but just drop him off and carry on with the other duties that he had. He did not know how or when Anglesea would leave.
“I have no idea. I have no recollection of collecting him,” he said when questioned by Eleanor Laws QC, prosecuting.
Cross-examined by Tania Griffiths QC, defending, he said that he did not know if Anglesea had the consent of the chief inspector at the time to go to the home. Jones agreed that he was a junior officer simply taking him there at the time.
The trial continues.
