Bad Lads: a harrowing story of how Thatcher’s government sent boys to hell

Content warning: this article continues descriptions of physical and sexual abuse of children.

This article was updated at 11:30am on Wednesday 15 October to reflect an error. It previously stated that Neville Husband ” retrained as a minister at the United Reform Church, where he continued to abuse boys”. This was incorrect. There has so far been no evidence he sexually abused boys there, nor, as previously reported, that a laptop with images of sexual abuse were found on church premises. We apologise for this error.

I’ve read, watched and been told a lot of truly awful and traumatic stories in my line of work, but what I saw this week will stay with me for a long time. On Tuesday, I was invited to attend the press night of Bad Lads by Graeae Theatre Company at Live Theatre in Newcastle. Whilst I’d heard of the Medomsley scandal, being from the North East, nothing could’ve prepared me for this.

Thatcher’s “short, sharp, shock” led boys to hell – as Bad Lads shows

Bad Lads is a devastating and hard-hitting play based on the testimonies of men who were held in Medomsley Detention Centre in County Durham in the 1980s as teenagers. Medomsley was one of many establishments in the 70s and 80s sold to the public by the Thatcher government to give misbehaving boys a “short, sharp, shock”. Three months behind bars that would put them on the path of the straight and narrow. The reality, however, was much, much darker, with boys as young as 16 subjected to months of mental, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of sadistic prison guards.

The play centres around Jackie, who, though fictional, is created from a story by Jimmy Coffey and the testimonies of the other Medomsley boys told to director Jenny Sealey, writer Mike Kenny and clinical psychologist Dr Susan O’Rourke by survivors. On stage, we’re met with three Jackies: younger Jackie (Robin Paley Yorke), the teenager who nicked a milk float while high on mushrooms. Older Jackie (Danny Raynor) in his mid-40s, still living with the horrors every day. And signing Jackie (Craig Painting), who proved interpretation.

Something Graeae does so seamlessly and brilliantly is incorporate access into all their shows. So although Bad Lads is not disability related, there’s BSL and captioning, but instead of being to the side or only in select performances, it’s a vital part of the show. The captioning brings the testimonies even more to the forefront; the BSL added a whole new layer of physicality and fear passing between the generations.

How many people knew and said nothing

I was lucky to speak to Jimmy Coffey, the inspiration for most of the play, before the performance. I asked him what he wanted people to take away from this experience more than anything. He told me that it was how many people knew it was happening and said nothing.

And watching Bad Lads, this was one I couldn’t stop thinking about either, the police on the way to the centre are taking the piss out of Jackie, laughing at where he’s headed. The NHS staff who patched the boys up and sent them back. The dog walkers in the village who the boys often locked eyes with whilst they were getting beaten in the yard. The successive governors of the centre, who turned a blind eye to what the guards were doing, despite being told by boys, presumably so they could claim they didn’t know.

As Older Jackie says:

This was the system, they were given permission by the government. The powers that be told them to do it, they paid them to do it.

The shame that silenced men for decades

Jimmy expressed to me just how deep the feeling of shame goes and how much that silences victims. This, whilst prevalent in all victims of sexual abuse, is something which is ingrained in men. The feeling of shame is one that carries through the whole show; the older Jackie struggles to speak about his experiences, having pushed it down for decades. The younger Jackie tells you that the shame silenced him so that it meant it was easier for it to keep happening. The younger man also encourages his older self to speak now, to the audience, and be heard for the first time.

What follows is a truly harrowing tale, systemic physical abuse and bullying, boys subjected to daily beatings by men who truly loved their job. One guard, Christopher Onslow in particular, revelled in making these boys’ lives hell. The audience hears how Onslow would force the boys to run around the fence 5 times, and the slowest would get “a good hiding”, this was, of course, a vicious beating. Onslow received just eight and a half years in jail. The cast tells us that when Onslow was told over 400 men had come forward against him, his response was “is that all?”.

Whilst Onslow was not convicted for sexual abuse, courts heard that he was part of ensuring sexually abused boys never spoke up, including beating those who spoke up about the chef Neville Husband. In the play, Jackie describes Husband as “pure evil”, the Jackies tell us they took a job in the kitchen because it was the only warm part of the prison, but what ruled over there was much worse than any of the physical abuse. Husband raped and sexually abused countless Medomsley boys, in the play he heard how he singled out boys and was allowed to take them on trips to his house to force sex acts on them, whilst recording every single act.

“Pure evil”

The younger Jackie demands, “What the fuck happened to those films?” From researching, I discovered many were seized by the police when he was investigated in 2003, though at Medomsley in 1985, he was found with child abuse images and sex toys in his locker. He was moved to another prison. Husband worked in prisons for 27 years, most of which at young offenders’ prisons and 17 of which at Medomsley.

In one particularly disgusting part of Bad Lads, I’m pretty sure half the theatre heard me shout “FUCK”. It’s revealed that around Christmas time, Jackie was taken by Husband to a house he didn’t recognise. Inside, there was a party, he had a bag put on his head with a hole where the mouth was and was passed around the party to be abused. At the end of a very graphic scene, older Jackie says

When they took my blindfold off and I was back in the hall, I saw a man, a man I recognised, a very popular, important man from the telly in a dark blue suit

Yep, it’s exactly who you think it is. This is believed to have been linked to the Freemasons, though it was never investigated. Jimmy is not the only person to have told the police about this. Husband was sentenced to just 10 years in jail, he died a year after his release, in 2013.

We can’t ignore this any longer, as Bad Lads shows

There have so far been three police investigations into Medomsley, brought on by the brave men who came forward. 1,800 men spoke to the police, but 28,000 went through the doors of the detention centre. Just 7 men have been convicted.

After the performance of Bad Lads, I found Jimmy again and asked him why this play was needed now. He told me that it had taken him and so many others so long to speak and that despite local investigations, there had never been a national public enquiry into not just Medomsley, but boys’ detention centres as a whole. He also said there had never been a single apology from anyone in power. Since Medomsley, victims from around 25 other detention centres have come forward, but nothing has happened.

The play highlights just how easy it is to silence victims, but these men have been brave enough to come forward after being failed for so long by a system that allowed this to happen. Hopefully, Bad Lads will show why we need a public enquiry now.

I urge you, if you get the chance to watch this deeply important play, though it’s a very hard watch, it’s time we stopped looking away.

Bad Lads is touring to Plymouth, Bristol, Liverpool, Derby, Coventry and Stockton. Tickets can be found at Graeae theatre.

Featured image via Graeae Theatre Company