92-YEAR-OLD CARE HOME MANAGER AND FEMALE ASSISTANT ACCUSED OF DECADES OF CHILD ABUSE
Update 08/06/2026: Linda Brunning, aged 67, of Sowerby Bridge, Calderdale, appeared at Bradford Crown Court today (Monday 8 June) for sentencing after being found guilty in February of one count of indecent assault on a male child and four further offences of aiding and abetting serious sexual abuse carried out by the former manager of the home.Brunning was sentenced to 25 years for her role in the abuse, which took place between the 1970s and 1990s.
She was also made subject to the Sex Offenders Register requirements indefinitely.
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Update 23/02/2026: Linda Brunning, aged 66, of Sowerby Bridge, Calderdale, stood trial at Bradford Crown Court facing five charges, one count of indecent assault on a male person, two counts of aiding and abetting indecent assault and two counts of aiding and abetting buggery.
On Monday 23 February, she was found guilty of all five charges.
Linda will be sentenced in April.
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A CARE home manager sexually abused young children for almost 20 years with the help of his female assistant, a court heard.
Malcolm Phillips, 92, is accused of “using children for his sexual gratification” at Skircoat Lodge Care Home in Halifax, West Yorkshire, between 1976 and 1994.
He was allegedly helped by assistant Linda Brunning, 66, who indecently assaulted one young boy herself, jurors heard.
Bradford Crown Court heard the allegations relate to six victims, four female and two male, over almost two decades.
At the time, Phillips was the manager of the home, which opened in 1976 as a residential temporary home for children who were the subject of care orders.
Jurors were told the youngsters were vulnerable – with many suffering previous physical or sexual abuse.
Ms Colborne added: “During the course of almost two decades Malcolm Phillips used his power to isolate specific children to use for his sexual gratification, and he wasn’t the only one.” The prosecutor said Brunning, who worked alongside Phillips for 16 years, was also “adept at isolating and manipulating children”.
She described the defendant as a “large and domineering woman who took pleasure in humiliating children”.
Brunning also allegedly “facilitated sexual assaults by Malcolm Phillips on a small, defenceless child”.
The prosecutor said the children “were chosen carefully by the defendants,” who had access to their files and “knew which children could be manipulated”.
“They chose them carefully, they told them no-one cared about them, they told them no-one would believe them,” Ms Colborne added.
The female complainants alleged that Phillips would come into their bedrooms at night and indecently assault them.
If they tried to resist, Phillips and Brunning would threaten to withhold their pocket money or told them their family visits would be taken away jurors heard.
Ms Colborne added: “If they ran away from Skircoat Lodge they were taken straight back by police, accused of being troublemakers.” The court heard the first complainant, who was sent to Skircoat Lodge as a teenager in the late 1970s, remembered that girls were told to “wear nighties to bed”.
She claims Phillips would enter the bedrooms after lights out and grope her under her nightdress.
Another girl, who was ten years old at the time, accused Phillips of sexually assaulting her on at least ten occasions while she was in bed.
Both Phillips and Brunning are accused of indecently assaulting the third complainant, a 14-year-old boy, while drying him after a shower on at least two occasions.
A fourth alleged victim – then aged nine – ran away from the home following the alleged abuse, claiming it was “sleeping outdoors in October was safer than the home designed to specifically protect children”.
Phillips is accused of raping one girl twice and indecently assaulting the sixth complainant, a girl aged between 11 and 12, on at least three occasions.
The court heard he would give the lollipop after the alleged sexual abuse.
One ex-member of staff said Brunning had “no regard for the privacy of the young male residents” and would enter the bathroom or bedrooms without knocking, pulling the covers off them, jurors were told.
The “regime of fear” came to an end when Phillips was suspended in 1994 after an investigation, it was said.
Jurors heard he was convicted in 2001 of sexually abusing eight female residents of Skircoat Lodge.
Phillip is charged with three counts of indecent assault, two counts of indecency with a child, three counts of indecent assault on a male person, two counts of buggery and two of rape.
Brunning denies one count of indecent assault on a male person, two counts of aiding and abetting indecent assault and two of aiding and abetting buggery.
The trial continues.
