A woman who lived with a childrens home carer accu
A woman who lived with a childrens home carer accused of horrific sexual abuse recalled today (Wed) how she informed social services about two childrens’ complaints but never heard any more about it.
She claimed to have told a worker from Tower Hamlets Council about Bill Starling’s alleged activities a year before she left St Leonards in Hornchurch, Essex.
The woman, who is now 39, was never abused by Starling, 74, but revealed they had a mutual dislike for each other.
She told the long-running sex abuse trial: ‘I went up to bed and they were crying.
I asked them what was wrong and one said that Bill was doing things to her when she was sitting on his lap in the TV room.
‘The social worker took me out in the car, I was about 15.
It was weeks or months later.
I told her that the little girls in the cottage complained.
‘I think I told her because I was doing my mock exams at school and chose a topic on child abuse.
She said she would look into it.
‘I never asked her about it again.
I just assumed she would do what she was supposed to do.
‘
The court heard that no records have been found relating to her meetings with the social worker during her time at St Leonards.
She told how Starling would make sexual innuendos and described him as rude, physically violent and cruel.
‘He was horrible to everybody, even his nieces.
Everybody except his nephew and young baby son.
It was just something that I accepted.
I didn’t know you could ask to leave the cottage.
‘I also resented having to hang my underwear where everybody could see it in the kitchen.
‘Bill would look at my underwear drying.
He would look into the crotch of the knickers and check if they were soiled or not.
‘After we had gone to bed he used to have this habit of taking a newspaper upstairs to the toilet and would be in there for a while.
It seemed to me he was gone for hours.
‘
Starling allegedly preyed on twelve children at two childrens homes in Essex between 1965 and 1984.
Seven girls and two boys were targeted at St Leonards’ Childrens Home in Hornchurch, Essex and two girls were residents at The Greensteads in Basildon.
One girl became Starling’s victim at her own home, it was claimed.
Starling, of Falbere, School Lane, Surlingham, Norfolk, denies all 25 sexual allegations against him and claims they have all been invented by the children involved in the case.
The first victim was allegedly indecently assaulted twice between 1965 and 1976.
A second girl was allegedly indecently assaulted between 1968 and 1972 and raped twice between 1972 and 1976.
A third was indecently assaulted between 1975 and 1978.
A boy was allegedly buggered twice and indecently assaulted between 1977 and 1984.
A second boy was indecently assaulted and buggered between 1969 and 1973.
A fourth girl under the age of 16 was indecently assaulted between 1970 and 1971, a fifth twice between 1971 and 1973, a sixth three times between 1973 and 1982 and a seventh three times between 1974 and 1978.
Starling allegedly committed indecency with another girl indecently assaulted her between 1977 and 1983.
The ninth girl was indecently assaulted and buggered between 1984 and 1986.
His final victim was indecently assaulted and raped between 1983 and 1987.
The trial continues.
ends
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