Senior councillor apologises after U-turn over ‘insensitive’ plan to name street after leader who lied to child abuse inquiry

A senior Rochdale councillor has apologised after the authority was forced to U-turn over ‘insensitive’ plans to name a street after Richard Farnell – the late former leader found to have lied to the child sex abuse inquiry.

There was an outcry after locals spotted a sign for ‘Richard Farnell Avenue’ on the site of the old working men’s club in Kirkholt – the area the two-time Labour council chief represented for several years.
 

Read more: Plans to name street after council leader who lied to child sex abuse inquiry ditched after outcryPublished: 09 March 2023

It was removed after Richard Scorer – the lawyer who represented victims at the national inquiry – hit out, saying the council’s ‘past failings cannot be airbrushed in that way’ if the borough is to change for the better.

Bosses said the intention was to ‘recognise the contribution’ he made to the ward but the decision was reversed due to the ‘sensitivity around this issue’. It is understood the process of renaming the street is now underway.

Councillor Danny Meredith, portfolio holder for highways and housing, has now apologised and taken responsibility for the mistake.

He said in a statement: “Ultimately, responsibility for this rests with me as the cabinet member for highways and for that reason I would like to personally apologise for any upset that has been caused.”

Councillor John Taylor, leader of the council’s Conservative group, welcomed the U-turn over what he branded an ‘insensitive blunder by the council’.

“The reputation of the late councillor was tarnished during the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and as such it was wrong to celebrate his achievements in this way,” he said.

“If lessons of the past are to be learned from, we must always take a victim-focused approach and in my opinion those victims and the impact such a decision would have on them ought to have been the leading and most pressing priority.”

 

Councillor Taylor, a retired GMP chief inspector, added: “Those are the people who ought to have been considered and consulted first, either directly or via their representatives. The last thing those victims need is an unnecessary and constant reminder of the trauma they were subjected to.”

Published in April 2018, the first IICSA report concluded that Richard Farnell ‘lied to the inquiry in the course of his evidence’.

It stated: “In the light of everything we have heard and seen, it defies belief that Mr Farnell was unaware of the events involving Knowl View school, especially within the context of the public scandal involving children in the care of Rochdale council arising from the Middleton cases.”

 

 

The report also slammed his refusal to take responsibility for the failures during the hearings.

“It was shameful that he refused to accept any personal responsibility for the young lives blighted by what happened at Knowl View while he was leader,” it added.

“Instead, he laid all blame for what occurred at the door of the senior officials in education and in social services.”

The late Councillor Farnell – who died in 2021, aged 62 – always strongly denied misleading the inquiry and police found there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to take any criminal action against him.

Nick Statham, Local Democracy Reporting Service