More than 50 missed opportunities to stop paedophile head, report finds

There were more than 50 "missed opportunities" to intervene and stop a school head teacher who was able to sexually abuse girls for years, a report has found.

A Child Practice Review (CPR), led by prominent expert Jan Pickles, has looked into the crimes of 68-year-old Neil Foden, from Conwy county in north Wales, who was jailed for 17 years after being convicted of 19 charges involving four girls.

The review said Foden was a "prolific sex offender who harmed many children".

A total of 52 concerns about safeguarding and other issues were found to have been raised and not acted on by Cyngor Gwynedd council and other agencies as early as 2018, continuing until his arrest in 2023.

The "ambitious" recommendations the report makes are "designed to bring about the most significant change in safeguarding in schools in Wales in a generation," Ms Pickles said.

The review was unique in its size and scale, analysing 10 times the volume of information that is usually looked at in a CPR, and took more than a year to complete.

It also highlights an historical allegation dating back to 1979, not long after Foden qualified as a teacher.

The highly critical 108-page report said he was a "powerful figure" within the education community in Wales who had a "wide-ranging reputation as a bully" and also used excessive force on boys.

It said repeated warnings about Foden, who it describes as "opportunistic and determined", were either ignored or inadequately addressed.

He was arrested in September 2023 after one of his victims showed an adult a photo of themselves with Foden and screenshots of sexually explicit text messages.

Ms Pickles paid tribute to the bravery of the victims and described Foden as "a sophisticated and controlling paedophile" who "created a culture which enabled his offending in plain sight".

She said safeguarding was a "multi-agency responsibility", requiring all agencies to contribute to keep children safe and follow agreed legislation, guidance and policies, adding: "In this case, those arrangements failed."

Commissioned by the North Wales Safeguarding Board following Foden's conviction in 2024, the report had been due to be published in September but was postponed just hours before it was due to be released.

A statement at the time cited the need for the board to consider "its legal obligations and information sharing further".

Foden had been the long-standing headteacher at Ysgol Friars in Bangor, Gwynedd, and for a time a strategic head at another school in the county.

The report examined a time period from January 2017 to 30 September 2023, and highlights numerous instances when individuals and agencies reported concerns about Neil Foden's inappropriate contact with female pupils.

It includes times he was seen alone with them, giving them lifts and accompanying them to medical appointments.

It says they were all "missed opportunities" for action to have been taken against Foden.

The review cites one meeting when four senior Cyngor Gwynedd officers from education, children and family services and legal departments came together to discuss issues about two vulnerable children.

The children were said to have been seen by themselves with Foden for long periods of time, had been driven home alone by him, and that one girl was seen with her head on Foden's shoulder.

But the discussion was one of professional conduct, not child protection, and there was no connection made to one of the children having already been the subject of concerns raised about Foden the year before.

On another occasion, the report states that Foden accompanied a child to a hospital gynaecological appointment without the child's parent's knowledge.

He later took the child to a further hospital appointment, leading the clinician to consult with a health safeguarding team.

A letter was sent by the clinician saying that they understood that the child "spends a lot of time with Foden in his room".

It was sent to the child via the school but was addressed to Foden, and was later found in what had been his office, more than five years later.

The report states that the risk to this child was not considered, and that this was a missed opportunity.

On more than one occasion the NSPCC raised concerns over Foden's "inappropriate professional boundaries", with one complaint about his relationship with a child in 2020 being dismissed by Cyngor Gwynedd as "not meeting the threshold" for child protection.

The review compared the failings in safeguarding it found in the Foden case to the Clywch Inquiry, which was published into the crimes of paedophile teacher and author John Owen at Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen in Pontypridd more than 20 years ago.

It said it was "appalling" that the same issues identified in that inquiry, about failures to follow recommendations about monitoring staff conduct and safeguarding policies persisted today.