A closer look at the ‘Celebrity Psychiatrist’ closely linked to Kincora Boys Home and British Intelligence
By Dónal Lavery
“The world consisted of predators and prey. You were either hunting or running” – Charlene Weir.
Before his exposure, Morris Fraser was the ‘Celebrity Doctor’ of his era who had featured in programmes by NBC News about the conflict in the North of Ireland as well as BBC Songs of Praise in 1977, after having been convicted in court for child molestation against a young boy in London on 17May 1972. Aptly, this happened just yards away from the Houses of Parliament and in one of the most metropolitan and expensive locations in London, and yet no media outlet reported on it at all at that time.
In fact, there was a concentrated effort to ensure that not only would Doctor Fraser be given a trial in secret, contrary to media convention, but that the Police would manage the accompanying disgrace this involved by failing to even so much as forward the certification of the conviction to Fraser’s National Health Service employer in May 1972 while knowing in full that he had been employed by the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority to the post of Senior Registrar in psychiatry at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children.
Despite his trusted role in overseeing the care and quality of life of vulnerable children, including involvement in allocating some of those children to Kincora Boy’s Home, Fraser was fined a mere £50 in London and walked away a ‘free’ man – with the ‘freedom’ to exploit even more young people.
True to form with predators, they rarely if ever change. In never reforming his ways, Fraser’s crimes were not confined to Belfast or London, as he was further arrested in New York, USA, as a central participant in a paedophile ring alongside seven other men, on 3 May 1973. The allegation this time was of sexual abuse against at least 15 boys, with media coverage actually following suit as no British reporting restrictions would have been enforceable in America. Despite pleading guilty to this crime, the General Medical Council (GMC) wilfully ignored Fraser’s arrest and conviction on 21 June 1974 in Suffolk County, New York. Considering that this was the second such conviction they had been directly notified of, any right-thinking person would concede that this man should have been immediately disqualified as a Doctor to prohibit the easy access he ‘enjoyed’ by way of youth. However, the GMC when it did look into the matter managed to conjure up a finding so questionable that it would make the Hutton Inquiry into Iraq seem credible.
The regulator’s stated position was that here was a good and honest Physician undertaking his professional duties, who just so happened to have been corrupted by drink-fuelled and ‘homosexual’ children into performing sexual acts, seemingly placing all the blame on the minors. No significance was afforded to the undisputed fact that there were actually three men and three boys, with the boys all being from Belfast, who were present in the London flat when he was first charged with child sexual abuse.
The regulator’s stated position was that here was a good and honest Physician undertaking his professional duties, who just so happened to have been corrupted by drink-fuelled and ‘homosexual’ children into performing sexual acts, seemingly placing all the blame on the minors. No significance was afforded to the undisputed fact that there were actually three men and three boys, with the boys all being from Belfast, who were present in the London flat when he was first charged with child sexual abuse.
In collating together the information for my book-in-progress about Doctor Morris Fraser and his exceptionally close ties to the ‘Anglo-Irish Vice-Ring’ associated with the Kincora Boy’s Home scandal in Belfast, one cannot help but be horrified at raft after raft of the criminal ‘abuse of position’ that Fraser engaged in as a Doctor against his young patients. But also, the wilful connivance with which his state ‘handlers’ conducted themselves by downplaying and covering up for him perhaps the worst instance of child sexual abuse that Western Europe has ever witnessed and probably will ever witness.
The cover-up by the Police to ‘protect’ and preserve Fraser professionally and personally appeared to know few limitations, if any, as he had the audacity to be permitted to attend a high-profile events as a guest speaker for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) before an additional conviction for abuse in 1995 after decades of statutory negligence. This raises the vital question as to why the Police, security services and the GMC were so keen to ensure Fraser was never fully exposed and properly held to account for his evil deeds. Did he have some inside knowledge or relationship with the British state that was deemed to be more valuable than the safety or sanctity of those children he remorselessly preyed upon?
When Fraser first met Richard Kerr in the 1970’s at his clinic in the Royal Hospital in Belfast, he instructed Richard to remove his clothing and allow him to take photographs of him naked. Richard was confused as to why this was being done but was reassured that Fraser was ‘trustworthy’ solely as a result of his medical expertise as a Doctor. Little did he know that Richard, alongside other courageous victims and survivors, would go on to play a salient role in his fall from ‘’grace’’ by disclosing to the media the activities of members of this ‘’Vice-Ring’’, which knew no international borders. Indeed, a transatlantic network was at work of perverts in influential positions in Europe and the U.S., which was under the remit of British Intelligence and the CIA. This included but is by no means limited to people like Roy Cohn, the sociopathic lawyer who advised Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump on various legal matters, and wealthy US businessman Fred Ferguson (both of whom knew Doctor Fraser).
Previously, Village Magazine has published prima facie evidence of how these affluent and connected paedophiles molested and exploited Richard Kerr, ranging from photographs to bank accounting and property details as well as ‘perks’ that were given to Richard Kerr as ‘’sweeteners’’ in kind, in the hope that this would either intimidate or pacify him into silence. This was far more robust in scrutiny than the 2015 BBC Spotlight documentary into Fraser’s protracted crimes. Perhaps the most striking thing of all (that he did) was his ability to call upon the future UK Attorney General and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to attend yet another General Medical Council investigation into his paedophilic abuse in 1974 as a ‘’Legal Assessor’’ whilst an MP.
The jaw-dropping revelation that the Government’s future Chief Legal Officer had been embroiled in a scandal to undermine criminal complaints of abuse is made even worse by the added insult that Mayhew faced no such corruption charges of ‘’misconduct in public office’’ when this all emerged some years before his death in 2016.
Whatever your political disposition or identity in the North of Ireland, nobody can disregard the abhorrent and astonishing extent to which this man’s underhand activities were granted a free rein, with the authorities opting instead to throw the innocent to the ‘’wolves’’ in their ranks.
The sad fact and pattern that runs through this man’s medical career is that many of those tasked with ensuring malpractice be rigorously probed and rooted out, were or are themselves, in reality, ‘compromised’ at length. Whether they are guilty of child sexual abuse or guilty by association with child sexual abusers is a distinction but with little tangible difference to those with a societal obligation to those who are vulnerable, especially those who, like Richard Kerr, found themselves under the care of the state via social services.
That Fraser was never arrested in Holland and brought before the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry for questioning under oath is either a damning indictment of the Inquiry or of what we have eroded to as a society, or both.
