Andris Logins convicted of children's home sex abuse

Andris Logins, now 57, was in his twenties when he abused the children at Beechwood Community Home

A former social care worker has been found guilty of sexually abusing children at a care home where he worked in the 1980s.

Andris Logins, 57, is the first carer to be convicted as part of a police inquiry into historical abuse at children's homes in Nottinghamshire.

He was aged 22 to 27 when he abused the children - two girls and two boys - at Beechwood Community Home.

A Nottingham Crown Court jury found him guilty of 17 charges.

He is due to be sentenced on Wednesday.

Andris Logins started working at the children's home in 1981 - the year a BBC documentary featuring the home was broadcast

Police became involved when a woman went to police and told them she had been raped by Logins when she was 15.

Det Insp Mandy Johnson said the children had been too scared to complain when they lived at the home, because of its brutal regime.

"Punishments were quite brutal, people being kicked and punched, and split lips and bloodied noses, which made it very difficult for the children to be able to go to staff to disclose what was happening to them," she said.

The charges in full:

• Two counts of rape on a girl aged 14 between January and October 1984

• Two counts of rape of a girl under 16 between January and October 1984

• Four indecent assaults of a boy aged under 16 between October 1980 and May 1981

• Three indecent assaults on a girl under 16 between January and October 1984

• Three indecent assaults of a girl aged 14 between January and October 1984

• One act of child cruelty between January and September 1984

The jury heard that Andris Logins developed a caring rapport with his alleged victims before abusing them

Prosecutor Mary Prior QC said Logins would develop a caring rapport with his victims before abusing them.

In his evidence, Logins accepted there could have been abuse at the home, but was adamant it was not carried out by him.

He claimed his four victims "had got the wrong man" and suggested the descriptions given could have fitted other men who worked at the home.

'It was wrong, evil'

Beechwood Community Home was in the Mapperley area of Nottingham, but most of the buildings have now been demolished

One of the male victims was 14 when Logins dragged him into his office, punched him until he "cowed on the floor", forced him to undress and then stared at his penis.

Logins was convicted of child cruelty in relation to this.

His victim told the BBC: "All I remember is crying, thinking to myself why is he doing it to me.

"Every day is now a challenge to get up. I'm off work at the moment with stress.

"I drink every day, cry most days. It was wrong, evil."

One of the girls abused by Logins said she still has panic attacks and anxiety attacks because of what happened to her.

"You live with it day in, day out. I feel like I'm doing a life sentence here," she told the BBC.

"He wasn't a carer. He was just nothing more than an abuser."

Colin Pettigrew, Nottinghamshire County Council's corporate director for children and families, said the council is "pleased that Logins has been brought to justice".

"Children in our care should have been safe and protected and the Logins trial heard that in the 1980s they were not. For that we sincerely apologise," he said.

"These offences took place more than 30 years ago and it is important to assure people that residential children's homes of the 1980s bear no resemblance to those of today."

He urged anyone else who has suffered abuse to report it to the council and police.