Carl Jones was a respected figure in his community. A father, with a good job in a position of power, he was seen by many from the outside as the ‘perfect dad’.
He was trusted, and was quick to offer a favour. But behind this façade lay his true character. Jones, from Salford, was a sexual predator, who offended with impunity for 20 years.
He targeted his victims with skill and cunning. Jones’ home, with a huge TV, a pool table, slot machines and game consoles, was a ‘carefully manufactured magnet’ for children.
And once he had lured them in, Jones would abuse them in the worst ways imaginable. Among his 11 young, vulnerable victims, was a boy he should have gone out of his way to protect.
But such were his vile urges that Niall Johnson, Jones’ own son, was not spared from his campaign of abuse. For years, Niall was routinely and systematically sexually abused by his own father.
More than two decades after that abuse began, Niall, now 27, addressed his dad in court as Jones was handed a life sentence. Niall’s speech, in front of a packed courtroom, was one of the most courageous and remarkable displays seen in Manchester’s courts in recent years.
He looked over at his dad, who, others noticed, kept his gaze away from his offspring, as Niall detailed the graphic and moving account of how the unspeakable abuse has affected his life. Niall recounted ‘multiple’ suicide attempts, psychological torment, and helplessness. All the while, he maintained a composure and dignity which he could have been understandably lacking.
He is not part of the ‘hang ‘em’ crowd’. Rather than calling for the noose, Niall says he would even like to meet his dad again in the future to discuss his crimes in more detail, and partly to help his father reform himself. It is possible to report all of this for the first time after Niall bravely waived his automatic right to anonymity and gave an in depth interview to the Manchester Evening News.
He has even changed his career, and is training to become a social worker to help other young people who may face similar trauma. Niall has not let what happened to him ruin his life, as it so easily could have.
He has a family of his own, is engaged to be married and is a dad. Niall wants his remarkable story of bravery and forbearance to be told to help other victims of abuse, to assist in stopping perpetrators and to tackle abuse which he has shockingly received in the aftermath of his father’s court case.
It is a reality which, although years in the past, is still graphically vivid for Niall. His parents split when he was just four.
He would be with his mother during the week, before spending the weekend with his father. The abuse, which would involve Jones sexually assaulting his son, continued for years until he was 12.
“From what I remember there was a lot of sexual acts going on, mainly him to me,” Niall recalled. “There’s a lot of vivid memories of being in the bed, having clothes on, waking up unclothed.
“It would just be the same routine every weekend. Going there, it might happen once, it might happen twice, or it might not happen at all. It was very hit and miss, you wouldn’t know what you were walking into.
“When I got to about seven, alcohol was introduced. He always said ‘if you drink now, you won’t be bothered when you’re 18’. I don’t know if that was the case, or if it was to get you drunk so you didn’t remember or didn’t realise what he was doing.
“There were only five vivid images in my head, that I replay, from five occasions. But when we counted I knew it happened every weekend, it’s just you have a mental block.
“That’s what I reported to the police, I said ‘I can only tell you about five, but it happened near enough every weekend, between the ages of five and the age of 12.”
Niall says his mother had no knowledge of what was happening when she packed her son off to his father for the weekend. He said: “She had no idea until about three years ago when I told her. Nobody really knew.”
“When I got to about seven, alcohol was introduced. He always said ‘if you drink now, you won’t be bothered when you’re 18’. I don’t know if that was the case, or if it was to get you drunk so you didn’t remember or didn’t realise what he was doing.
“There were only five vivid images in my head, that I replay, from five occasions. But when we counted I knew it happened every weekend, it’s just you have a mental block.
“That’s what I reported to the police, I said ‘I can only tell you about five, but it happened near enough every weekend, between the ages of five and the age of 12.”
Niall says his mother had no knowledge of what was happening when she packed her son off to his father for the weekend. He said: “She had no idea until about three years ago when I told her. Nobody really knew.”
He said that he tried to talk about it when he was five, but that being so young, he was unable to utter the correct words to describe what was happening to him.
Niall said: “The way it came across was, I said ‘dad’s gay’. Obviously I now understand it’s not ‘gay’, it’s paedophilia. I thought boy on boy, I know that as being gay.”
The next time he spoke about his ordeal was at the age of 17. At the time, he did not feel ready to go to the police.
Asked why, Niall said: “It’s that stigma in society, especially from a male perspective. It’s not spoken about, it’s shameful. It’s not until the past few years where it doesn’t bother me anymore.
“I’ve had to deal with it, I’ve had to get therapy for it. It needs to be spoken about more to end the stigma and the shame of it.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed about, it’s not something you’ve asked for. It’s something that has been put on you, and something you have had to deal with.
“If anything, it takes a lot more strength speaking about it.” The fact that his abuser was the one who should have been looking out for him more than anyone else has only exacerbated his hurt.
“That’s what has made it the hardest,” Niall said. “It is your dad, and you have that emotional connection of, that’s your idol.
“Take the sexual abuse aside, you would have seen him as, and a lot of society did see him as the perfect dad. The perfect, functional person.
“He was loved. He was absolutely loved by everybody. Whether that was a façade, or whether that’s who he is. Everybody loved him, he was the person that you could rely on, the person who was always there for you, the person who would always listen, he would help you out at any given moment.
“He worked in management, he worked in manufacturing and production and was a manager. He was really well respected there as well, in a position of power and trust.”
At one time, Jones became aware that Niall had been starting to discuss the abuse more openly. But Niall claims he quickly moved to try to discredit his son.
Niall said: “Even when he did get wind of how I did say these things, it got shut down. Basically being called a liar, that I’m just doing it to get him in trouble or doing it for money, that sort of thing. Obviously that’s not what I’m bothered about. I don’t need money. I just said it because it needed to be said. I started to get this sense of ‘I need to protect others’.”
Niall admits he feels a sense of guilt. More boys were abused after Jones turned his attention from his own son to other children.
He said: “That guilt of thinking I could have saved somebody else, that’s what gets me the most. It shouldn’t be up to the child to say it. It should be the parents, the teachers, the care givers who ask those awkward questions.”
Jones’ false cloak of respectability finally came crashing down in March last year. The mother of another of his victims went to the police.
Niall felt that the time was right for him to speak out. The day after that first report, he went to the police.
He recalls: “At the time I was settled. I had totally moved away from everything, getting a fresh start. But I had this gut feeling that I had to do something.
“I rang them [the police] up. It was fate. Literally as I was ringing them, they were about to release him from custody. With my statement, they were able to hold him for a little bit longer.
“Because I was very close with my dad I knew where all his hiding places were. I was able to direct the police exactly to where things might have been.
“Then I got a phone call from the police at around 3am saying ‘thank you very much’. Then I went down the next day and did a formal statement.”
The first indications were that Jones would contest the allegations. He denied any abuse of Niall.
Later he pleaded guilty to some offences in court, but held out on others. But at the 11th hour, as he was set to go on trial, he changed his plea to guilty on all charges.
“It was a surprise,” Niall says. “He is a proud man. But I think with the amount of people who came forward, the amount of evidence we were able to accumulate between us all, there was no denial really.
“I don’t think he wanted to go through with that trial. I don’t think he wanted to listen to the evidence and be judged.
“It could have been to save us all from the pain, he might have had a little epiphany. But it was a massive relief. I thought ‘I don’t think I can go through months and months of that’, but I was ready to if I needed to.”
In total, Jones had admitted abusing 11 boys including Niall. In total Jones pleaded guilty to 47 offences, including multiple counts of rape of a child, sexual assault of a child, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, and indecent assault.
It was Friday, January 31 that justice would finally be done. Court five in Minshull Street Crown Court was packed with Jones’ victims and their loved ones, offering each other support on a momentous day.
Niall was sat in what is usually the jury box, in the old Victorian, wooden panelled court room, allowing him to look straight at his father. Jones was brought up the stairs from the cells downstairs into the dock to learn his fate.
“I felt in a position of power, for once,” Niall said. “But it was very strange seeing him in that environment. I recognised him but it was also seeing a stranger at the same time.
“I needed him to hear what he had done. A lot of the time you don’t see physically, it’s all inside your head.”
After the prosecutor had outlined Jones’ crimes to the judge, then came Niall’s turn to speak. He rose to his feet, looking straight at his dad, to read his statement.
“I’m glad I held it together to make it so everybody heard,” he said. “The judge’s response was very nice as well, he sort of smiled and gave me a nod of like, ‘thank you, well done’.
“I felt proud, I felt relieved. I felt very empowered in that moment.”
What he read out is surely among one of the most harrowing statements ever uttered in that courtroom, which has been in operation since the 19th century.
“When someone you love is doing things like that to you, that’s how you portray love,” Niall says, detailing the impact of the crimes on him. “It caused a lot of psychological problems, a lot of mental problems.
“It caused a lot of confusion around sexuality. I used to sit there thinking ‘am I homosexual because I’ve done these things with my dad?’ In my head, I didn’t know what I was.
“But I learned not to let that define me, then I realised I was a straight male. But then I didn’t know how to love or how to be loved, which caused a lot of depression and anxiety.”
Niall told how he’d made suicide attempts on ‘multiple’ occasions from the age of 16. “That’s the time when you are trying to find your identity,” he said. “I just didn’t know what I was, what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. I had all this anger, all this guilt, everything inside of me all at once.
“I just didn’t know how to deal with that. I tried hanging myself. I’ve had some sort of guardian angel over me to make it unsuccessful which I’m very grateful for now.
“It gets harder when you have children of your own, because you’ve not been parented right. How do I transfer that love onto my children? It was very hard and made me depressed. But I try and be the best parent I can be.
“It has made me vulnerable as a person. It has caused a cycle of grief and harm. Even now I’m still getting therapy and help, and trying to be a positive person in my kids’ lives. I’m just trying to go day by day.”
After his dad’s barrister gave his speech in mitigation, it fell to the judge to tell Jones that he was receiving a life sentence. Under the terms of the punishment, Jones must serve at least 25-and-a-half years in prison before he can even be considered for release.
He must satisfy the Parole Board that it is safe for him to walk the streets again, before they can make any such decision. Jones, now 57, will be in his 80s by the time his potential release is up for discussion.
Niall said of the sentence: “I think it will give him a lot of time to hopefully reflect and get better. But it’s very much a conflict of feelings.
“You’ve got that inner child inside you saying ‘that’s my dad’, but then you’ve got this adult, rational person in your head saying ‘this person needs to get some help, this person needs to have justice served onto them’.
Despite what he went through at the hands of his father, Niall is not ready to totally rid himself of him. He says: “I wouldn’t want a close relationship, but I’d like to do restorative justice. I study criminology so I see how it works, not just for the perpetrator but for the victim as well. It has a good success rate.
“I’d love to sit down at a table, as a man now, not a child, and tell him what he has done and how it has affected me. I’d love to have a really detailed conversation of every stage of my life, saying ‘this is how what you’ve done has affected me’.
“To really make it resonate, to really make him want to change or to make other people be put off from reoffending. And even for myself, to get it off my chest.
“I feel like justice has been served, but I feel like I’ve got so much more to say to him, so much more to make him understand. Court only gives a snippet of that person’s life.
“This has been the past 22 years of my life. I’ve got 22 years of grief and anger to offload.”
While he would be forgiven for wanting to move on, Niall is planning on using his ordeal to benefit others in the future. “I’ve gone from engineering and I’ve retrained doing psychology and criminology,” he said. “I’m going to further that ahead to help people.
“Adverse childhood experiences are massive. It can put you on the fence, of whether you make what’s happened to you define you, or whether you beat it. I think it just needs that one person with that lived experience with that guidance.”
A key theme of the work he wants to assist with in future is the societal response to the crimes he was subjected to. He was dismayed to witness the response which the M.E.N.’s reporting of his father’s case received online in some quarters.
Some of the comments were political, while others speculated on topics like race.
He says the heartless, uninformed comments made by some keyboard warriors ‘broke’ him. “The victims just got lost,” Niall said. “It became a political playground, it became a racial playground.
“It doesn’t matter what colour you are, it doesn’t matter what race you are. It doesn’t matter what political party is in power at the time.
“What has happened has happened. The perpetrator can be anybody. Race isn’t a factor. What political party is in power at the time isn’t a factor.
“Out of the hundreds of comments that were made I probably saw a handful of people who said ‘I hope the victims get the help they deserve’.
“People start to use these high profile crimes as a platform to get their agenda across. We need to stick to the subject, because this is why victims don’t speak out.
“They don’t feel like they are listened to. I looked at that and thought ‘why have I done this?’ It hasn’t made anything better, it’s not spreading any awareness.
“I did get into some arguments because it was frustrating. It was like I was being lost all over again as a victim.
“I could have just gone back to my house and sat there quietly. But after seeing the comments it was hurtful. That’s why I wanted to come forward. I want to spread awareness of what’s happened, but also the aftermath, and empower victims to come forward.
“Hopefully with more people coming forward and people like me speaking about it, maybe we might educate people to be a bit more empathetic and focus that energy in the right places like improving services.
“I’m still waiting for victim support services, for counselling. If you want to say something political, tell the government to improve funding so that victims aren’t having to wait.”
Niall says of his father: “He’s in prison. He’s not going anywhere. He’s got all these services, he has got his three meals, he’s warm, he has a bed. Yeah he can’t get out, but he has got everything he needs.
“Us as victims have got to walk the streets. We have got to go and be functional in work, we’ve got to take the kids to school in the morning. We’ve got to try and get on with it, with no support apart from each other. That’s where the focus should be going.”
Jones, from Little Hulton, pleaded guilty to 47 offences, including multiple counts of rape of a child, sexual assault of a child, engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, causing a child to engage in sexual activity, and indecent assault. In relation to Niall, Jones pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault and four counts of sexually assaulting a child under 13.
He will serve a minimum period of 25-and-a-half years in prison, before he can be considered for parole.
After the sentencing hearing, Detective Sergeant Katie Halstead, of GMP Salford’s Child Protection Investigation Unit, said: “Jones is no short of a depraved man who preyed on children, with complete disregard for the trauma his abhorrent actions caused.
“The victims and survivors in this case had their childhoods tainted in the most awful way, and at a very young age, they experienced what no one should ever have to. I want to commend their bravery for coming forward to speak with us about their abuse and remaining strong throughout this incredibly difficult process.
“They played a vital role in reaching today’s outcome; ensuring justice is reached and Jones resides in prison, far away from causing harm to the community. We are here to always listen to victims and give them a voice when they are ready. These boys and men will continue to be supported through our partner agency’s specialist support services as long as they need.
“Child protection is GMP’s top priority, and our dedicated teams are working relentlessly to safeguard victims and hold anyone causing harm accountable.”
Jo Palmiero, Senior Crown Prosecutor for CPS North West’s Rape and Serious Sexual Offence Unit, added: “Carl Jones groomed and sexually abused young boys for his own gratification. He plied them with alcohol, money and gifts and exploited the boys in the worst way, with no thought for the lifelong impact his abuse would have on them.
“The impact of sexual abuse on survivors can be deeply profound and I would like to thank the victims for supporting the prosecution and bringing Jones to justice. The Crown Prosecution Service is working hard to improve our services to victims – including recruiting dedicated victim liaison officers in every part of the country – to make the criminal justice process easier to navigate.
“I hope this case will give other survivors of sexual abuse the confidence to come forward. It is never too late to seek justice.”
Culled from Manchester Evening News
