24/02/2014 Inside Out South West

Welcome to the programme. Stories airfield from which W

Welcome to the programme. Stories and investigations from where you

live. Tonight, one North Devon manpos`mac fight for the truth after

years of abuse. I have struggled with wanting to kill myself. Riding

out the floods, how the people of the Somerset levels are pulling

together in adversity. We are trying to deliver sandbags down the road

and we are being buffeted by the sort of weird you would normally see

rolling in from the Atlantic. The Exeter man whose guitar maker to

rock aristocracy. We are trying to create a pleasant, smooth shape.

First tonight, the story of one man's fight for the truth after a

former Devon policeman who got away with sexually abusing him and others

for decades. We have pieced together the 25 year catalogue of missed

opportunities to stop him. It should have been the perfect

childhood. Growing up near the beach, training to be a surf life

saver. But what happened to 45`year`old Russell Dawson here as a

boy almost destroyed him. When the abuse started, I couldn't tell

anyone about it. The shame of it was something I felt I could not tell

anybody about. I struggled between wanting to kill myself and not,

because of the way I was affected and how it would affect other people

who loved me. From the age of 14, Russell was sexually abused by this

man ` Danny Bryant, then a police officer. He abused other boys too `

at least five. Last year Bryant admitted his crimes and was jailed

for six and a half years but why did it take so long for the authorities

to bring him to book? The story starts in 1982 when Russell joined

the Devon and Cornwall Police Surf Life Saving club. These pictures are

publicly available in Barnstaple library and show Bryant at the heart

of the club. He was the club captain. As a police constable, he

was based at Barnstaple's juvenile bureau so he had regular contact

with children. He was highly respected by social workers,

employers and teachers. Even honoured by the Queen with the

British Empire Medal. He was a hero figure to all of us. He built

himself up to be our best friend. To all of my closest friends, he was

our hero. . The club organised many camping and sporting trips which

involved overnight stays away from home. It was on one such trip that

Bryant first abused Russell. I remember being on the beach the

morning after he had sexually abused me. Just feeling rage and shame.

There was nobody I could tell. That feeling of everything closing in on

me and just crumbling into the sand. For six years Russell kept the abuse

even from his family until he heard rumours about another victim. He

decided to take action. He turned to this man, Derek Fisher, the head of

the Devon and Cornwall Police Surf Life Saving Club. Mr Fisher was also

a policeman and Bryant's boss at the Barnstaple police juvenile unit. An

investigation followed, carried out by an outside force. But according

to Russell's mum, those officers made a startling admission. The

investigating officers came to see me and said the police had closed

ranks and that as a police officer, Bryant knew exactly what to do to

avoid prosecution and that was to say nothing. They seemed to be more

concerned with their image than what he was actually doing. Bryant wasn't

prosecuted. The family was told he'd attempted suicide. But he later

returned to work. They didn't give up. They decided to try and take out

a private prosecution. They requested the police files. They say

another policeman, not Mr Fisher, then paid them an unannounced visit.

He said that what he had to say would be kept within these walls.

Did we have any idea what kind of horrendous ordeal we would be

putting rustle through? That every aspect of his life would be looked

into and everything they could do to discredit him, they would. It would

be spread all over the newspapers and in court, the barrister would

rip rustle to pieces. Did we really want to put our son through that

ordeal? If that doesn't tell you there was a cover`up, I don't know

what doors. I've spoken to the officer concerned. He denies ever

visiting the family at their home. Devon and Cornwall police say they

have no record of whether this visit took place. The force's handling of

the case is now the subject of a investigation by the independent

police complaints commission. The force denies there has ever been a

cover up .in the Bryant case and it says that any shortcomings in the

investigation were down to the policies of the time. Investigations

then would have been approached in a very different way. Now, we do

investigate it very differently and the Criminal Justice System in

general is more willing to accept a complaint of a victim against one

offender. Whatever the reasons, back in 1988, the force now had an

alleged child abuser in its ranks. We made contact with Derek Fisher,

Bryant's then boss and a senior figure in the surf life`saving club.

He wouldn't give us an interview but told us he took decisive action. In

a statement, Mr Fisher said Bryant was moved from his then front line

job into an administrative role where he would have no contact with

young people. Mr Fisher also said, he took action to remove him

immediately from the Surf Life Saving Club and he took no further

part in that club from that time on. But here in Barnstaple library we've

found evidence that his recollection is mistaken. The surf life`saving

club's records, club minutes, committee members, and photos,

dating back decades and they show that long after he was supposedly

removed, Bryant was still very much part of the club. These minutes from

1992 list Bryant as club captain. This document records how in 1993

the club was disbanded and reformed as the Saunton Sands Surf

life`saving Club. Its new chairman, Danny Bryant. Its secretary, Derek

Fisher. In 1992 when Diana, Princess of Wales opened the new clubhouse.

Danny Bryant was part of the reception committee. What is your

reaction to the fact that you can see he was allowed contact with

children? It is no surprise to me. We asked Mr Fisher about this

conflicting evidence but he refused to comment. In 1993, five years

after Russell's first complaint, another victim came forward. The

local newspaper reported Bryant was being investigated for an alleged

assault on a child. We haven't been able to establish who it was. But it

raised the Dawson family's hopes for action. Maureen says she made

several attempts to help officers but the phone calls were cut off. I

thought naively there had been a mistake, so I telephoned again and

spoke to the same man. He said the family had decided not to take the

matter any further so they had no need for any information from me or

my son. They cut the cold dead. You have three doors slammed in your

face, when you're trying to assist in a case that you know was not

going to be stopped unless he was put behind bars. But it appears that

complaint may at least have triggered the end of Bryant's police

career. He was suspended, then allowed to take early retirement on

the grounds of ill health. He may have left the police but he was

still very much part surf life saving. He was a chief examiner for

the sports national governing body and we've evidence he helped

organise residential training for children. In 2011 Bryant was awarded

one of the highest accolades in the sport, Knight in the Order of

life`saving. And this safety guide published by surf life saving GB in

2011 still lists him as an advisor. Surf life`saving GB has now admitted

to the BBC that in 1993, its then chairman of the council of

management was told in confidence by a serving police officer, who was

also a member of the council, that Bryant was being investigated by the

police for an alleged assault on a child. Surf Life saving GB says

Bryant was asked to stand down from his voluntary work as a surf

life`saving examiner. But when the investigation concluded that Bryant

had no case to answer, he was reinstated. In a statement SLSGB

said it had undertaken a robust review of its procedures to ensure

young people were protected. Although Bryant pleaded guilty to

his crimes last August, Surf Life Saving GB says the police have never

formally informed the organisation about the allegations against

Bryant. For Russell the fight is not over. I want the truth to be told,

which is not easy and comfortable for me, but that is what I am after.

That is what will stop men like him being able to abuse children in

future. Russell has now set up a group to help other male survivors

of sexual abuse. And is determined to discover how the man who ruined

his life was able to get away with his crimes for so long.

If you've been affected by anything in this report you can contact the

BBC's Action Line on 08000 566424. Calls are confidential and free from

most landlines. Two months of the storm and flood

have left the south`west of battered and bruised and villages in the

Somerset Levels are still in the thick of it. We have discovered a

community pulling together in the face of great adversity.

The situation in Somerset has attracted the attention of people

across the country. The efforts of local residents have been boosted by

volunteers from all over Britain, tackling important tasks such as

creating a safe walkway along the River Parrett here in Burrow Bridge.

Everyone's mucking in. I got to work but it was too wet to work, so I

just thought I'd rather be wet here. Save our pub! Whatever the

motivation for getting involved, the work is incredibly physical. Rescue

workers are braving treacherous conditions, and having to improvise

with whatever transport they can lay their hands on.

We're on a pontoon trying to deliver sandbags down the road, and we're

being buffeted by the sort of waves you'd normally see rolling in off

the Atlantic. I've seen people surfing on the coast with less waves

than this. Somerset's inland ocean. We've brought the bags out to this

little bungalow behind me. They are staying put, despite the advancing

water. By all accounts they're still dry, but there is so much water

around here, and there is more due this afternoon. I'm not sure how

much longer they'll be able to stay. Aside from enthusiastic individuals,

organisations such as the Red Cross and Rotary have also been hard at

work. Robin Brown is the Rotary Community Resilience Officer for

Somerset. His team has been assisting the emergency services and

offering help, advice and even accommodation to those worst

affected. How do Rotary get involved in these sorts of operations? Well,

Rotary, for quite a number of years now, have been involved in an

emergency voluntary agency group that's administered by the local

authority here. So it's a great way for us to be directed to do targeted

work, so we're sent to the areas where people really need our help.

Are you surprised by the number of people who've given up their time to

come and join this operation, helping people? This sort of a

situation just seems to bring the best out of people, I think. And of

course, Rotary and others, this is the sort of thing that we get into,

giving our little bit back to the community, I think. And what better

opportunity to be out seen doing it now. As we move further into the

village, past the churchyard and village hall, and even a float from

the Bridgwater Carnival, the scale of the devastation really becomes

clear. Moorland was one of the villages that was watching while all

the people around them were getting flooded, and then suddenly a great

surge of water brought the floodwater in here. And they've got

it up to their downstairs windows. Ron Lancaster is returning to his

house for the first time in ten days to salvage a few remaining

valuables. It's extraordinary, walking through a house full of

water, it's just not something you ever expect to see. And it really

brings it home to you the enormous damage it's causing. I mean, it's

completely turned people's lives upside down. There's some electrical

things underneath. I'd already got most of the furniture out, but I'm

concerned about these two items here, which are my own

craftsmanship. I'm a potter and furniture maker. This is your work?

That's my own work, which I'd like to get out of the water. Are we

going to try to get these on the back of the truck? Well, that would

be very helpful if you could do that for me. I'd like to help, yeah.

Like many residents in Moorland, Ron faces a long period of uncertainty

before he can move back into his house. But not everyone on the

Levels has such a positive outlook. I've never seen so many grown men

cry as what they have in the last month. And I admit I've been one of

them, and that be more than once. And I don't want to live the rest of

my life like this. Carroll and Christine Gray are racehorse

trainers, whose home and stables on the edge of Moorland are now

inaccessible. You cannot even get down there in a boat. It is too

dangerous to get there in a boat. So all my pictures, all my children's

videos, every treasured object except the necessary clothing that

we took is now underwater. We actually had to move out on January

third. Before it come into the village, it was with us, you know, a

good month before. Even though that was the case, the water kept rising,

nothing was done to help anyone else in the village. Nothing was done of

any significance until it's all too late. During his career as a jockey,

Carroll overcame many injuries, including a broken neck. But the

fight to save his yard might be one that even he can't win. You suffer

with depression with riding injuries when you can't be doing what you

want to do and what you love, and basically this is the same thing but

it's worse because it's your house. If it wasn't for these horses,

keeping us going, keeping us working, keeping us focused, we

would be, both of us would be mental wrecks. For several weeks, the

situation on the Levels has been devastating for the local community.

Yet with the help and generosity of volunteer groups and emergency

response teams, the spirit of the residents remains generally strong.

The worst of the weather appears to be over, but even when it does

finally improve, a huge and time`consuming clean`up operation

will begin. We had some experience with the flooding last year. We can

put little teams in to help families put their homes back together again.

And of course there's a lot of this, I would like to think, will be

covered by the insurance companies, and so on. But without a doubt,

Rotary are going to be there then for people and to help out, along

with the others, of course. It's a long road ahead, and not everyone in

this area is optimistic that they have a future on the Levels. Will

you try and move back in? Will you try and get the stables up and

running again? As we feel now, no. I hope we'll be able to continue

training somewhere else. But I think it's a waste of time trying to come

back here and resume the business. This isn't the first time we're

going through this. This is the second time within 12 months. So, it

happened last year and nothing was done. So what can you tell me to

reassure me that it's going to be different next year? Nothing. For

those who do choose to rebuild their lives here, you can be sure that the

wider community will come together to help them plot a route out of the

darkness. Next tonight, Andrew Johnstone has

the story of an Exeter craftsman who's carved out a reputation as one

of Britain's finest guitar makers. The craftsmanship aspect of making

an instrument is only really part of it. You have to be in touch with

contemporary music, what's happening this week. What we're trying to do

is to create a sort of a pleasant smooth shape. I always describe it

as a sort of sexy shape. It's?it has a flow to it. Sometimes we do a

fitting. With this instrument we don't actually have time for that.

It's got to be ready pretty quickly. He'll need to rehearse with it. So

it's one of those ones where you've got to get it right first time,

really. Getting it right first time is

something that guitar maker Hugh Manson and his team have been doing

for the past 30 years. Hugh's latest project is for Kajagoogoo bassist

Nick Beggs, who is about to go on tour. I needed to commission an

instrument from Hugh because first of all, I knew that if anybody could

do it, he could. What I think I'm going to get from any instrument

that Hugh makes is quality, support, you know, and also years of

experience with doing this. Hugh's years of experience have attracted

clients such as Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Matt Bellamy from Muse,

all looking to commission one of Hugh's custom`made instruments. This

is a drawing of an instrument that John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin

ordered from me last February. You can see it's drawn on the back of a

poster. Most of my drawings are done on the kitchen table at home,

actually. This is a particularly complicated instrument. It's a

three`neck mandolin that folds in half. And obviously the idea with

the travelling aspect is that you don't need an enormous flight case.

And the idea behind this is that you can just carry it on to the

aeroplane, turn up at the gig, open it up and away you go.

I wish I could play it as well as he does, but then, I suppose, he can't

make it, but I can. My brother was a guitar maker. He'd

started before me. I went to Goldsmith's and did a design

technology course, came out as a qualified teacher, taught for a

little while. Then my brother gave me a phone call one night and said,

why don't you come and join me in Sussex, I'm getting orders for

electric guitars, I don't want to make them, why don't you come and do

that? So next day, I went into school, handed in my resignation,

and the rest is history, really. This is one you're going to want to

see over here. This is an instrument that I made for Matt Bellamy of

Muse. As you can see, it has suffered a pretty heavy impact. I

think he threw it across the stage and the whole thing disintegrated.

You can actually see that the whole thing comes apart. But there you go.

It's now a museum piece. This, interestingly enough, is the drawing

of the first guitar that I made for Matt Bellamy some years ago now.

It's been in various exhibitions so it's a bit scruffy, but this is the

drawing for the original version of this guitar here. This is quite a

complicated instrument. It had a lot of sophisticated electronics in and

it was covered in aluminium, it was clad in aluminium. Here is a front

off a prototype. But while you might expect the

sophisticated electronics behind an instrument for one of rock's

glitterati to be pieced together in a vacuum`sealed factory in Silicon

Valley, in actual fact they're made by Hugh's mate Ron. We've known each

other for many, many years. He's an electronics boffin, really, and

again, that's one of those amusing things, when you see this high

technology coming out of our instruments and they're made in a

house in Pinhoe. It's always interesting because Matt

Bellamy has some really good ideas, quite off`the`wall ones of what he'd

like to put in his guitars, and it's up to me to try and achieve it. The

first guitar we built was the black one, which is still one of his

favourites. It was absolutely crammed full of electronics from

MIDI right through to analogue effects and we even did one with

about ten laser beams firing out of it, which was quite exciting. Very

much a cottage industry, kitchen table type effort. I've got a full

time job as well, but I tend to make these things in the evenings and at

weekends. Back in the workshop, Hugh is adding the finishing touches to

Nick Beggs' new guitar. So now we've got the body lacquered, we've carved

the necks, they're all fretted, a lot of the components are on. We

need get on with this, really, and get it finished as soon as possible.

Nick's coming for it next week. I find the whole process of making

an instrument still really exciting because everything's different.

Every customer wants something different. For many reasons ` maybe

they all play different styles of music. One guy might want an

instrument for bluegrass and the next guy might want an instrument

for gypsy jazz. And it goes on and on and on and on. There are many

different genres of music. Hey, Nick, good to see you. It's been too

long. Come for your guitar? Yes, I have. Different instruments have

different flavours for different types of music and that the fun.

It's fitting the instrument to the customer and the customer's style of

music. There you go. Oh! She beautiful! I love her! You might

want to do it like that, there you go. And then that goes on there. It

feels very light, it feels great. The thing is, whenever you get your

hand on a new instrument, it's like a new relationship, I suppose. You

feel like there's a courtship going on, you've got to get to know each

other. It feels wonderful, Hugh. Have you

got an amp? We could... Yeah. I can't stop playing it. So with

another project delivered, how does Hugh feel about handing over his

work to his latest client? It feels great, successful. Nick's happy with

it. That's all good. Now we're on with the next project. Just had a

call from the Stranglers. They need something for their next tour.

And that's all from this week's Inside Out South West. We're back

next Monday with more stories and investigations from where you live,

so see you then. Hello, I'm Ellie Crisell with your

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