August 2015 Care worker jailed for sex attacks at former children’s home A care worker has been jailed for 12 years for sex attacks at a former children’s home in Cardiff. Kenneth McEwan, 51, isolated his boy victim from other children by putting him in a room on his own – so he could abuse him. Cardiff Crown Court heard the boy would often wake up in his bed to find a drunken McEwan hugging and touching him. The court heard the attacks happened at the Taff Vale care home in Whitchurch, Cardiff, which has since closed. But the court heard McEwan also took the child away “on holiday” to a London care home where he raped him in a swimming pool. The victim came to police last year – 30 years after the original abuse took place. Scottish-born McEwan was arrested last year after moving to another home in London. He was found found guilty by a Cardiff Crown Court jury of indecent assault and committing acts of gross indecency. Jailing him for 12 years, Judge David Aubrey said it was a gross breach of trust. July 2015 Care worker found guilty of raping young boy at a children’s home A care worker is behind bars today after being convicted of raping a young boy from a Cardiff children’s home three decades ago. Kenneth McEwan, now 51, screamed at the jurors “God Forgive You!” as the guilty verdict by a majority of 11 to one was read out by the foreman. He had shortly before been unanimously found guilty of indecently assaulting the same boy and committing acts of gross indecency with him. Prosecuting counsel Michael Jones said those charges were “specimen counts” of a course of behaviour against the “vulnerable” child who was in care at the Taff Vale Children’s Home in Whitchurch. “The grooming and abuse (that followed) was a disturbing and gross breach of trust”, Mr Jones said. “The defendant should have been there to care for and protect him.” The rape was a single act which took place in an empty boarding school outside London where Scottish-born McEwan found work after Taff Vale closed. He kept in touch with the child in his new children’s home and then went to collect him “for a holiday”. The victim was approached by South Wales Police in 1998 as part of Operation Goldfinch into child abuse institutions but said he was too embarrassed then to reveal what happened to him. He told the jury his rape, which happened in a swimming pool, was actually something he remembered all too clearly. He said: “I was crying and he just came up behind me and raped me.” When he got back to Cardiff, he “scrubbed” himself for “ages and ages and ages”. “Now I can see – I was his property”, he told the court. McEwan said he was jobless and unqualified when he moved to south Wales and the job centre found him a work placement at Headlands home in Penarth. From there he had full time work not long after as senior residential social worker in Taff Vale where he believed he had “done a good job”. He said he never singled out the boy for attention or got into bed with him and only took him on the short holiday with permission from social services because he was “having problems” in his new home. The rape allegation was “made up”, he claimed, possibly “for compensation”. He admitted being convicted in 1995 of indecent assault, criminal damage and taking a child without lawful authority after smashing a window at Walker House children’s home in Cardiff and getting into bed with a boy and the following night, returning and persuading a second boy to sleep in a field with him. But he said he was under stress then and drinking because he couldn’t cope and it was just a “moment of madness”. He was remanded in custody for a month until sentencing takes place.