Former Eastwood Park guard 'was sadistic' with boys, court hears

A former prison officer at a juvenile detention centre has been accused of violently abusing inmates and sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy.

Patrick Devaney is alleged to have committed the offences between 1970 and 1983 at Eastwood Park near Bristol.

Mr Devaney, now 80 and living in County Down in Northern Ireland, was a guard at the detention centre.

At the time it housed male inmates aged from 14 to 17, most of them from the west of England.

The prosecution, opening its case at Bristol Crown Court, said back when Mr Devaney was a guard at the centre, now a women's prison, there was a government policy of giving a "short, sharp shock" by way of punishment, and there was a harsh, military-style regime in place.

Prosecutor Mark Worsley said Mr Devaney stood out from the other guards as being "particularly and consistently brutal", adding that the defendant was "sadistic, and enjoyed it".

The jury heard he would hit boys with a wooden paddle, punch them and use racist language.

Mr Devaney is also accused of sexually abusing a 14 year-old boy on more than one occasion.

Boys were allegedly threatened not to tell their families.

Mr Devaney denies any wrongdoing - the charges against him being one count of misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault.

The trial was told police first opened the case in 2018, and the length of time that has passed since the alleged offences made it difficult to identify individuals and find records for the centre, in the village of Falfield.

Expected to last six weeks, the trial will hear from 23 former Eastwood detainees, none of whom can be identified.

The first witness told the court that Mr Devaney subjected him to "vicious physical abuse" when he was 15.

He said the defendant would use weapons, which he gave names, to hit boys. A wooden paddle was called "Nelly" and a pipe was called "Mabel", the court heard.

Cross-examining him, defence lawyer Nicholas Gedge questioned the witness' recollection of the events and accused him of lying, which he denied.

"He knows what he did. He can't even look me in the eye," the witness said.

The trial is set to resume on Friday.