Thames Valley Police · Philip John Saunders · 2019–2023
The investigation that took years—and the questions that remain.
I eventually saw Philip John Saunders convicted at Reading Crown Court. Getting there was neither quick nor straightforward. This is the sequence I have described publicly, set alongside the reported trial outcome.
Two separate questions: Saunders’ criminal responsibility was determined at Reading Crown Court. Whether Richmond children’s services breached its own safeguarding obligations in 1984 is a separate and unresolved civil question.
What happened, step by step
The route to the Crown Court
I came forward again
After many years I contacted the NSPCC, and the allegations concerning Saunders were referred to Thames Valley Police. Much of the reported offending took place around Slough, within that force area. Other allegations involving Grafton Close and my childhood were handled by the Metropolitan Police. David Hencke described that renewed reporting in February 2024.
Giving a video-recorded interview
In my published April 2026 interview, I said Thames Valley officers came to my home and recorded an interview lasting around two hours. The process meant revisiting extremely personal events, including the abuse, threats, grooming and the locations involved. I also described separate, lengthy video interviews with Metropolitan Police officers about other matters.
I was told police could not locate Saunders
In that same interview I explained that, around a year after my interview, I was told that officers had been unable to find the correct Philip John Saunders and had closed the investigation. This is my publicly stated account of the initial investigative failure; it is not presented as the finding of an independent police-misconduct inquiry.
I took the search into my own hands
I described researching Saunders’ identity and history with help from another skilled person whose identity I have not disclosed. We located identifying documentation, historical address information and a current location. I sent the results to the police. I said this work took a matter of hours online, and that the investigation was reopened roughly a week later with another detective.
The evidence was investigated
The renewed investigation required examination of allegations about events decades earlier, corroborating evidence, interviews, and preparation for Crown Prosecution Service decisions. In retrospect I recognised the difficulty of prosecuting historic offences, while continuing to question why the first search for Saunders had failed. A claim of systemic concealment would require separate evidence and is not assumed here.
The jury convicted Saunders
At Reading Crown Court, Saunders was convicted on seven counts relating to childhood sexual offending against me in the 1982–85 period. The reported verdict provides a judicially established outcome against Saunders; it should not be extended into a judicial finding against unrelated persons or Richmond Council.
A six-year sentence
Recorder J Ryder KC sentenced Saunders to six years’ imprisonment. The judge’s remarks recognised the seriousness of the abuse and its effects on my childhood and adult life. The court also heard of Saunders’ earlier convictions abroad and in England. My testimony was positively assessed in sentencing remarks, but those remarks were not a separate trial of Grafton Close’s safeguarding systems.
The questions which outlasted the trial
Conviction was not the end of the search for answers.
The conviction established criminal responsibility for offences charged and proved. It did not resolve why the initial police investigation said Saunders could not be found, exactly what historical records were searched, or what Richmond’s care and supervision arrangements required when Saunders was allowed to take me out of Grafton Close.
My separate attempts to obtain police material and council records are part of that continuing process. Such requests may be subject to lawful restrictions protecting other individuals or investigative information. Requests for records are not themselves findings of police misconduct or local-authority negligence.
The major institutional question remains direct safeguarding responsibility: what protections ought reasonably to have applied to a child in the care of Richmond in 1984, and whether any failure contributed to subsequent harm.
Explore the Richmond safeguarding question →How this account is sourced
My April 2026 interview: the first-person account of interview length, case closure, my identification research and reopening. Read the published transcript ↗
David Hencke, 18 February 2024: independent reporting of the renewed prosecution, my decision to waive anonymity, verdict, sentence and historic Grafton account. Read the report ↗
Primary court materials: original trial and sentencing documents remain the preferred source when a specific count, precise factual finding or the judge’s exact wording is at issue.
Important scope limit: the initial police closure and reopening sequence is presented as my publicly stated recollection; it should not be misrepresented as an official finding that Thames Valley Police acted unlawfully.