George Herd and
Sarah Easedale,BBC Wales
North Wales Police
Neil Foden was jailed for 17 years for a string of sexual abuse offences
A delayed report following a year-long review into how a secondary school headteacher was able to sexually abuse girls for years will be published on Tuesday.
Neil Foden was jailed for 17 years after being convicted of 19 charges involving four girls.
The 68-year-old from Old Colwyn in Conwy county was described as “depraved”, “arrogant” and a “bully” by the trial judge when he was sentenced in July 2024 following a month-long trial.
A Child Practice Review into Foden’s crimes was commissioned by the North Wales Safeguarding Board, with prominent expert Jan Pickles appointed to lead the independent investigation.
Its report had been due to be published in September, but it was postponed just hours before it was due to be released, with a statement at the time citing the need for the board to consider “its legal obligations and information sharing further”.
At a full council meeting last month, the leader of Cyngor Gwynedd, Nia Jeffreys, said the council was “eager” to see the report which she anticipated would be highly critical.
She added that it would “highlight failures to prevent the paedophile, Neil Foden, and that many of these failures will fall under the responsibility of this council”.
PA Media
Neil Foden was convicted following a month-long trial at Mold Crown Court in 2024
Foden had been the long-standing head teacher at Ysgol Friars in Bangor, Gwynedd, and for a time a strategic head at another school in the county.
He was arrested in September 2023 after one of his victims showed an adult a photo of themselves with Foden and screenshots of sexually explicit text messages.
His trial heard how he groomed and abused his victims between January 2019 and September 2023, assaulting them in locations that included his car and hotel rooms.
He was found guilty of causing or inciting child sexual activity, attempting to arrange the commission of a child sex offence, sexual communication with a child, possession of indecent photographs of a child and sexual assault of a child.
Judge Rhys Rowlands said Foden was a “bombastic and domineering character” with “an obsession with young teenage girls”.
It also emerged during the trial that concerns were first raised to Cyngor Gwynedd about Foden in 2019 by a senior member of staff, but they were “dismissed out of hand” and no investigation took place.
The judge called it “very concerning” – and suggested during sentencing that the lack of action may have “emboldened” him to continue his behaviour.
Timeline of Foden’s offending
Following his conviction, a BBC Wales investigation uncovered claims Foden may have abused children for more than 40 years, with far more victims.
It has also led to a legal case being launched by solicitors against Cyngor Gwynedd representing up to a dozen individuals who say they have suffered because of Foden.
The council commissioned its own report into what happened following concerns being flagged in 2019.
Those findings have yet to be made public.
This is the moment Neil Foden was arrested while working at his school
The separate Child Practice Review was commissioned following Foden’s convictions.
The review is a legal requirement under Welsh law and must be carried out whenever “abuse or neglect of a child or adult is known or suspected”.
In this case, the North Wales Safeguarding Board said the review would examine what lessons could be learned about Foden’s behaviour and the culture that enabled him to offend.
It is also set to question decision-making and look at how to improve systems to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation.
The review was started back in August 2024, led by Jan Pickles.
She has overseen other serious inquiries involving abuse, including a review into sexual abuse on Caldey Island and the murder of five-year-old Logan Mwangi in Bridgend in 2021.
