Norfolk 'paedophile ring' case: Senior social worker altered children's accounts

The defendants, including Marie Black (top left) and Jason Adams (bottom left) deny sexual abuse of children

A social worker made more than 250 alterations to the accounts of children making sexual abuse allegations against 10 people, a court has heard.

Norwich Crown Court was told Malcolm Blissett changed a foster carer's records over a two-year period.

He had been told to remove any material that "incriminated carers".

Leia Dowsing, of Suffolk Police, said most changes were in fact to spelling, grammar and punctuation but documents should not have been altered.

She told jurors words had also been changed, chunks of test were missing and questions to the children had been removed from the record.

'Entirely wrong'

The court heard Mr Blissett had been told to ensure all reports were "grammatically correct with no spelling mistakes and there was nothing that incriminated the carers".

"That is what he told me," said Miss Dowsing, who added that making such changes was "entirely wrong".

Ann Cotcher QC, defending one of the accused, Michael Rogers, said: "The majority of changes were not really relevant.

"Some were punctuation, some were spelling; changes or restructuring of sentences; removal of words; addition of words, and there was removal of leading questions."

The abuse is said to have been carried out against two boys and three girls in and around Norwich and London.

The defendants are Marie Black, 34, from Norwich; Mr Rogers, 53, from Romford, Carol Stadler, 59, Anthony Stadler, 63, Nicola Collins, 36, Andrew Collins, 52, Judith Fuller, 32, Denise Barnes, 34, Kathleen Adams, 84, and Jason Adams, 43, all from Norwich.

All deny all the charges they face, except Mr Adams, who admits four of five child cruelty charges.

The trial continues.