Richmond child abuse victim criticises Thames Valley Police

Keith Hinchliffe said he found his abuser, who targeted him as a teen in Twickenham, in “a couple of hours”.

Yet police had just closed his case, claiming months of investigations had failed to trace him.

He now knows his abuser was already a convicted paedophile and registered sex offender, meaning he should have been on police databases all along.

Thanks to Keith’s own detective work, Philip John Saunders was convicted of seven sex offences and jailed for six years.

Keith, who now lives in Monmouthshire, Wales, has waived his right to anonymity to tell the Richmond and Twickenham Times about his concerns over the police investigation.

His case was first reported by decorated investigative journalist David Hencke.

Keith’s Story

Keith was sexually abused by Saunders – his older sister’s boyfriend – between 1982 and 1985, between the ages of 13 and 15.

The judge at Saunders’s trial last year said the seven convictions were representative of the “innumerable” instances of abuse which had actually occurred.

The court heard Saunders had threatened and assaulted Keith to keep him quiet.

Keith reacted to the abuse by becoming “erratic” and missing school, the trial was told.

Keith Hinchliffe said his childhood abuse had left him with lifelong depression and anxiety (Image: Keith Hinchliffe)

He was removed from his family home and placed in Grafton Close children’s home, Hanworth, Hounslow.

But Saunders simply started showing up there, taking Keith out and continued abusing him.

On one occasion, Keith was abused in Saunders’ car at Wembley Stadium after a sports event.

“Smashed into pieces”

Keith finally reported Saunders’ crimes after the Jimmy Savile revelations triggered high-profile investigations and he slowly realised the impact of his own abuse.

“It’s personality-changing,” he explained. “It affects your decisions. I didn’t go to school. I didn’t get any qualifications.  I’ve had depression and anxiety my whole life. I’ve had to have lots of counselling.

“It’s been incredibly difficult, coming to terms with myself and trying to build back at least a part of who I was. Because it completely crushed me – smashed me into pieces as a person.”

The abuse occurred while Keith lived in Fielding Avenue, Twickenham, then Grafton Close, but the case was handed to Thames Valley Police as Saunders lived in Slough in the 1980s.

In a letter seen by this newspaper, the force initially told Keith it was closing his case.

“We have not been able to identify [the correct] Mr Saunders,” a detective inspector wrote.

But, said Keith, he found Saunders within “a couple of hours on the internet.”

“I forwarded that information and they opened the case again,” he said – but it was another “excruciating” year for Saunders to be charged.

Paedophile Philip John Saunders, 67, of Queens Road in Aylesham, Canterbury, was convicted at Reading Crown Court last year (Image: NQ)

Justice

Saunders, 67, of Queens Road in Aylesham, Canterbury, was convicted at Reading Crown Court in October of four counts of indecent assault, two counts of indecency with a child and one count of attempted buggery.

The judge called Keith “an immensely impressive witness; honest, reasonable and composed… insightful and measured in expression.”

He had lost a period of his childhood thanks to Saunders, the judge said, and the “trauma and fear and shame shaped his personality” in adulthood.

At the sentencing, it was revealed that in May 1990, Saunders had been jailed for two-and-a-half years in The Netherlands for sexually abusing two boys.

Then, in 2005, he was jailed for four years for sexually abusing a girl in Kent.

When Keith discovered Saunders had been on the sex offenders register all along, he filed a formal complaint over the previous investigators’ failure to locate him.

Thames Valley Police said: “A formal complaint has been made in relation to this and we are in the process of updating the victim with our findings of the investigation.”

Richmond Council, which ran the Grafton Close children’s home, said it couldn’t comment on “ongoing individual claims”.

But Keith said he has not filed any legal claim against the council.