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My Petition:

The purpose of my petition is to ask your government to establish a special task force to investigate EVERY cold child abuse complaint where survivors suffered the additional humiliation of abuse of process, cover-ups and corruption. 

 

Why:

ONLY when seeking the truth in every child abuse case hidden under the carpet will we uncover the criminal intent and actions of those who sought to pervert the course of justice.

ONLY when criminalising those responsible for hampering investigations or perverting the course of justice will we finally weed-out public officials who enabled a culture of child abuse.

 

My point:

It is a tragic mistake to ignore any case where an abuse of process or a significant injustice has taken place:

           Failure of a police investigation

            Issues with social services

            Miscarriages of justice

Child Abuse Survivors believe our government merely seeks to appease public outrage while failing to deal with a serious and widespread problem within our public institutions which attacks the very fabric of future society.

  

Melania’s Story

20-year long battle for TRUTH & JUSTICE

 

(1) Summary of Abuse

From the moment Phelim O’Neill laid eyes on us, photographed us in Argentina, we became his victims.

He pestered our mother, wooing her with false promises until she joined him in the UK.

Suddenly, my siblings Valentina, Luciano and Florencia and I had to leave school.  We went to London to live with a complete stranger who made us call him Dad. He changed our surnames illegally to O’Neill and threatened our real father with jail if he set foot in the United Kingdom.

Within days, Phelim O’Neill started physically and mentally abusing us at every opportunity. He shouted at us calling us names, referring to us as ‘deigos’ because of our darker skin; he told us we were inferior to white people, cut us off from the outside world and each other; school friends weren’t allowed to know where we lived and he forbade us to speak in Spanish.

Our brother Luciano was the first to be sexually humiliated. O’Neill made us watch him pull down his pants and whip him. After that, he regularly stripped us, beating us with his belt or a special whip which he kept on the mantelpiece.

He first sexually abused me in his car when he took me for a driving lesson.  The car did not move but I did; he forced me into his lap rubbing me on his hard penis until he cried out. 

To punish us, he would bite our bottoms (until they scarred) or force us to wrestle naked while he cheered. He frequently masturbated on us and said filthy things. He once sent my mother away to Spain to replace her with me in their bed.  I felt so guilty, he preferred me.

At thirteen, he sent me back to Argentina and threatened to harm my mother if I told anyone about his abuse. He convinced my family in Argentina that I was a problem child and cut off all contact - even returning my letters.

At fifteen, I was allowed to return to the UK to join my family.  The sexual and mental abuse started immediately. On one occasion, he kicked my head with his boot leaving me deaf in one ear for almost a week which causes me pain and a clicking jaw to this day.

When his children Glenn and Kerry O’Neill came to live with us (following Glenn’s suicide attempt aged thirteen), it became them and us as he used Kerry as an excuse to punish us throwing us out on the street late at night.

His sexual abuse, lies and manipulation destroyed my family.

In June 1991, I lodged an official complaint with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) because O’Neill had been harassing me at work. The MPS advised me there was nothing they could do, as it was a civil matter.

Two years later, my mother reported the sexual abuse to Barnet Social Services. At the time, I was studying in Lisbon and the MPS summoned me to the UK to give a witness statement. I had to wait over two weeks to see WPC Janine George and Detective Sergeant Donald Barrell. During the interview, I felt so uncomfortable talking about the sexual abuse that I broke down crying.

The MPS took seven witness statements from (1) Anabella Pellens (our mother); (2) Christine O’Neill (the abuser’s wife); (3) Christine O’Neill’s sister Jackie; (4) Kerry O’Neill; (5) Florenica Vicario; (6) Valentina Vicario; and (7) me that confirmed Phelim O’Neill a paedophile.

We have sought copies of the statements taken by the police many times.

During the investigations, O’Neill was not restrained from contacting us. Furthermore, the MPS asked me to take part in the investigation and contact two sisters (Samantha and Ayesha) who were also suspected victims of sexual abuse. When my sister Valentina and I questioned them about O’Neill, they were too nervous to speaking.

Despite overwhelming evidence, the MPS decided to close the case on the grounds of our ‘interests’. My mother told them she had tape recordings of O’Neill confessing to the sexual abuse, but they never came for the evidence ignoring all our calls. I attended a number of meetings at Harrow Social Services and one psychotherapy session with my entire family at Gayton Child and Family Services but received no further psychological support.

Our family fell apart. My mother seemed to lose her mind.  All support, including housing and welfare, seemed to vanish overnight leaving my mother homeless. The MPS arrested Luciano for possessing a flick-knife given to him by O’Neill. The court relocated my brother to a bail hostel, I became homeless in London, Valentina went into care and Florencia escaped to Portugal.

Recently, my mother broke her 20-year silence.  She stated to an investigator that O’Neill’s legal representative threatened and coerced her into dropping charges. Helen Grant of Fayers & Co described our family misfortunes as interventions by O’Neill’s powerful friends. They blamed our mother for a deeply flawed police investigation.  We never saw her as a victim until recently. 

Later, they suspiciously dropped care proceedings to protect my youngest sister. She returned to our abuser. Whenever she tried to run away, the MPS intervened and returned her to O’Neill. 

In the years that followed, Luciano attempted suicide several times and was sectioned at the Maudsley Mental Hospital. He finally committed suicide on 28 November 2000. We were devastated and so Valentina and I reported the sexual abuse again, this time to Detective Constable Gareth Reid who submitted the file for re-investigation.

Valentina also reached out to Mayor of London Ken Livingston in February 2001 who referred us to the Metropolitan Police Authority. The MPS Child Protection Team in Edgware who tried to offload the case to other MPS districts finally contacted us, saying that the evidence from 1993 had been destroyed.

In 2002, the MPS took a second round of witness statements from (1) our mother; (2) Silvia Alvarez De Toledo; (3) Florencia Vicario; (4) Valentina Vicario; and (5) me. The CPS subsequently charged O’Neill with thirteen counts of child cruelty and indecent assault. However no further witnesses were called and the case went to court with substantially less evidence.

Croydon Crown Court spent over a week debating the case in private. HHJ Pollock concluded that there had been an abuse of process. He permitted a self-confessed paedophile to walk free. DS Jacquie Lucas informed us that our only course of action was to sue the MPS. We consulted solicitor Harriet Wistrich who instead advised us to sue our mentally ill mother!

 

(2) Summary of police incompetence/complicity in protecting Phelim O’Neill

During both investigations, the MPS failed to follow standard enquiry procedures. They never interviewed key witness Luciano Vicario nor Glenn O’Neill, Susie Preston, Angela Roberts nor Tammy Camillieri who we now strongly believe are also O’NeilI’s victims. Instead, they used witnesses to pursue lines of enquiry, knowing such evidence is flawed.

The witness statements the police did take were incomplete and were never backed up by forensic medical evidence. The MPS also blatantly ignored key allegations against O’Neill such as the existence of the tape-recorded confessions.

Helen Grant who acted for O’Neill moved from defence lawyer to representing my mother and her abused child, undermining Florencia’s care proceedings with a simple move to another borough. Helen Grant now an MP represented our abuser and cleverly manoeuvred to represent our mother and a child victim simultaneously.

 

(3) Summary of legal process

On 3 September 2002 at Croydon Crown Court, his Honour Judge P B Pollock ruled that the case was an abuse of process due to the passage of time. He determined that the MPS officers had given conflicting accounts of events and the papers had never been sent to the CPS.

The judge also ruled that O’Neill was at an unfair disadvantage as he had lost evidence, which he claimed would clear his name. There was never any explanation of this evidence.

Civil action against the MPS began on 11 October 2005. The first hearing took place before District Judge Ian Avent in the Central London County Court on 23 June 2006. He acknowledged that the Criminal Justice System had abandoned Melania Vicario and that the MPS were not immune from claims of negligence. He struck out the claims of police negligence in investigation and allowed the remainder of the claim which related to the decision not to prosecute O’Neill in 1993.

The MPS appealed the decision. Circuit Judge Collins stated that the MPS decision was not in accordance with the Attorney General or CPS guidelines and concluded that he was not in a position to say whether Judge Avent had been wrong to classify the case in the margin of the Hill principle. Melania Vicario represented herself during these deliberations due to the withdrawal of legal representation by Patrick Roche.

The MPS took the case to the Court of Appeal on 28 November 2007. Lady Justice Mary Arden stated that the MPS had acted in the best interests of the victims. Judge Jacob stated that the MPS were entitled to take into account the interests of the victims.

Melania Vicario subsequently appealed to the House of Lords on 21 May 2008 who advised her she had six months to apply to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. She submitted an application on 14 October 2008 stating that the UK had failed to secure her rights as defined in section one of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950.

The European Court ruled on 7 January 2014 that Melania Vicario’s application was invalid because there was a six-month time limit. The European Court additionally ruled that the application was ill-founded, because the domestic courts should first test abuse allegations and therefore there was no violation of the rights set out in the Convention.

I fight on and recently, I instructed a team of investigators.

 

(4) Why is a public enquiry necessary?

The government must investigate every complaint about child abuse and/or paedophilia which have collapsed due to the failure of public officials and public institutions to weed-out incompetence and criminality which then led to child abuse and paedophilia.

Many child abuse victims tell similar stories. In my case, a self-confessed sex offender who is responsible for a series of shocking abuses has been on the loose for over thirty years.

Despite numerous investigations by countless authorities and my complaint moving through every tier of the English justice system, I saw little truth and no justice.

We recently discovered that O’Neill was an IRA activist and as a ‘’union man’’, he worked with and reported on the loony left whom he despised. Why does his status as a protected person remain a secret?  Equally worrying is the fact that Helen Grant who was involved in a clear breach of professional ethics to support a child abuser is now a government minister.

All evidence and actions in my case and many others clearly point to shocking deceptions, cover-ups and misrepresentations by numerous parties deemed as actions for the common good.  

Prime Minister Cameron and Home Secretary Teresa May, we will be heard and we demand you listen and launch an public investigation which is clearly seen to be honest and honourable.