The hidden illegal children's homes plaguing Britain: The girl plied with alcohol and cocaine before being raped by her 'carers' and the boys groomed and exploited by drug gangs... all while owners rake in thousands from councils

By IAN BIRRELL, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, COLUMNIST AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST Published: 01:01, 8 August 2026 | Updated: 01:01, 8 August 2026 The online blurb and pictures looked alluring: a safe residential home in a charming rural area of Kent, providing support for traumatised teenagers who had been taken into state care and assisting them on their bumpy path to adulthood. But the reality behind the beguiling website imagery was rather different: a two-story redbrick house converted, along with a pair of neighbouring properties, from a former pub and operating illegally as a children’s home. Household goods including beds and a mattress were piled up outside last week beside an overflowing bin. ‘I had no idea there was a children’s home there,’ said one neighbour. ‘I have never seen any children there. I’ve only seen adults.’ Yet this supposed sanctuary for vulnerable teenagers and two similar unregistered homes in Kent run by the same company earned almost £1.8million in three years to look after nine youngsters in care – despite its illegality. These fees – averaging nearly £200,000 per head – were paid by Kent and Medway councils to Catalyst Care. This company is owned by ‘Afrofusion’ music producer Davidson Lynch-Shyllon, 44 – who claims to have worked with Rita Ora and reggae star Damian Marley – and his business partner Miriam Ekhator, 47. Last week this pair became the first people successfully prosecuted by Ofsted for running illicit children’s homes. They were barred from running homes, fined £92,400 and told to pay £2,960 in victim surcharges after pleading guilty. Their firm’s annual turnover rose fivefold in three years to almost £1million – despite the court hearing that officials were mystified over how this funding was spent. The two owners, however, pocketed £386,000 in dividends over this period. Incredibly, this is far from a one-off example. Hundreds more children – often with highly complex conditions or suffering severe trauma from abuse – are being sent by councils into illegal homes at an average weekly cost to taxpayers of £10,500. Many of these ‘homes’ are shamefully inadequate for such purposes. They include caravans, holiday rentals, hotels and houseboats as well as being squeezed into houses of multiple occupancy in some of the country’s most run-down urban areas. Together Trust, a Stockport disability charity that runs residential homes, told MPs earlier this year about a 15-year-old girl who came into their care after spending more than 12 weeks by herself in a caravan. Music producer Davidson Lynch-Shyllon owns the company Catalyst Care, which earned almost £1.8million in three years looking after nine youngsters in care Miriam Ekhator, alongside her business partner Lynch-Shyllon, has been successfully prosecuted by Ofsted for running illicit children’s homes ‘During this period, she did not attend school and had no meaningful contact with trusted adults. She felt isolated and left alone to fend for herself,’ said the charity. Most councils do not even know how many of these illegal homes operate in their area. Yet many are unsafe with teenage girls being targeted by sexual predators and boys groomed by criminal gangs, dealing drugs or stashing weapons. So here is another grim snapshot of the chronic failures of our social care system and the betrayal of the 83,000 children and young people taken into state arms – following a string of abuse scandals and obscene profiteering by financial sharks. Anela Anwar, chief executive of Become, a national charity for children in care and care leavers, welcomed the landmark prosecution on the basis that use of illegal care homes was both unacceptable and dangerous. ‘It’s not just the poor-quality care that children in illegal homes have to endure – they also experience criminal exploitation operating in plain sight,’ she said. ‘They need to get the safe, supportive and loving homes that all children need.’ In one particularly sickening case, a 15-year-old girl from South Wales was taken into protective care to escape sexual exploitation – only to end up being raped after two male ‘carers’ plied her with alcohol and so much cocaine that her nose bled. The crime was only discovered after the distraught teenager – the single resident of a three-bedroom unregistered home near Durham – ran away the following day and was picked up by police. Later, she was reported to have attempted suicide. ‘I was in care to be looked after, taken care of and protected from harm,’ she said in a victim’s statement. ‘These men have done the exact opposite to that. They have sexually abused me for hours and have caused me so much pain and destruction.’ Her two brutal attackers – both former soldiers in their forties with criminal records – were given jail sentences of 11 and nine years for offences including sexual activity with a child, intentional strangulation and supply of a class A drug. They were employed by a firm called MAP Adventures, set up by a former sergeant in the Royal Army Physical Training Corps. It claimed to provide ‘crisis intervention’ and ‘adventure therapy’ for young people under a ‘highly qualified’ team. It is a criminal offence to run a home not registered with Ofsted. Yet their use has spiralled in recent years, surging almost fourfold since the start of this decade despite placements costing up to £40,000 a week in the most challenging cases. It is estimated councils spend £353million annually with unregistered homes. One social worker admitted to the authors of a recent report that the youngest child she had placed in an illegal setting was just five years old. Last year, it emerged in a court case that Isle of Wight council spent half a million pounds housing a ten-year-old boy in an illicit home for four months. The standard of care was condemned by the judge as ‘wholly inadequate’ after he heard about the staff’s frequent use of restraint and the child’s social isolation. I have heard similar complaints from young people sent into such homes. ‘They would use restraint as a punitive thing,’ said one woman, pinned down ‘hundreds of times’ by up to four adults at a time. ‘They use more force than necessary. I’ve been left with such debilitating pain I could not even go up the stairs to my bedroom.’ Sienna*, 17, from Essex, was taken into care three years ago and spent 14 months in an illicit home in a neighbouring county. She said it was in a shocking state, with broken windows, holes in doors, fake fire alarms and repeated flooding. She found a knife in her bedroom left by a previous occupant after moving in. She was the only child in the home. She did not go to school for this entire time, missing key exams. The carers all came from Nigeria on special visas, spending much of their time on screens. One called her ‘chubby’ despite knowing that she suffered from an eating disorder. ‘I was isolated in the middle of nowhere with people I could not communicate with,’ she said. ‘I just sat depressed all day in my bedroom doing nothing.’ She plans to become a paramedic now to help other people. ‘It is made out to the public that we are evil children – but we’re just hurting children that need some love. Yet the system puts us in these terrible places that make things worse.’ A report by the all-party Public Accounts Committee into this ‘dysfunctional’ care system found 800 young people sent to illegal homes last year for an average of six months – despite claims from councils that they are used only as a temporary measure to remove children from risky domestic situations, hospitals or police cells. It is estimated councils spend £353million annually with unregistered homes, with one social worker admitting that the youngest child she placed in an illegal setting was five years old Lynch-Shallon's firm saw its annual turnover rise fivefold in three years to almost £1million – despite the court hearing that officials were mystified over how this funding was spent Yet Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s chief inspector, said last month there are 15,000 places available in legal homes for 10,000 children in need of such care. There are 4,800 homes, according to latest data – the number rising by one-fifth in a year. ‘The problem is not with overall supply. We have a real issue with having the right homes in the right places and ensuring that registered providers are offering places for children who most need their care and support,’ said Sir Martyn. England spends two-thirds more than a decade ago on care, yet the number of children looked after by the state has risen only 16 per cent. This is a booming sector with surging demand – and being fleeced by disreputable private players. Visiting that illegal care home in a converted Kent pub, it was no surprise to find it was being renovated to create another children’s home. ‘Ofsted are aware,’ said a man answering the door, declining to give his name. ‘Everything is by the book.’ In Blackpool – home to some of England’s most deprived areas and with reportedly the highest proportion of children in care – there are as many as 60 children’s homes in its two parliamentary constituencies. One-third have been opened in the past four years. There are so many that the council has imposed a planning rule that new homes and supported living facilities for young people must be spaced 400 metres apart. This illustrates how homes are built in cheaper areas by firms seeking to maximise their profits – so children in need of safety and stability often get dumped in rough areas away from families or friends, leaving them exposed to gangs and grooming. One charity worker, a care leaver who advises police, told me she spoke recently to teenagers in care in Cardiff who told her younger children are contacted regularly by ‘weirdos’ on social media and older ones targeted by gangs to traffic drugs. ‘Someone comes up to them and says, “Do you want this pair of trainers? All you have to do is take a package to this address.” This starts luring them to gangs. They know the vulnerability of care leavers and exactly where the homes are. It’s awful.’ This charity worker said young people placed in illegal care homes were seen often as the most complicated or disruptive cases. ‘But how does it make sense then to put them in the most unsafe places?’ she asked, rightly. Care firms can also reject children with complex needs. ‘Illegal homes are used as a last resort in the hope a better solution can be found quickly. But days become weeks, weeks become months – and children grow more traumatised, which makes it even harder to find a place in a regulated home,’ said the campaigner Martin Barrow. Ofsted is cracking down on unregulated homes, sending warning letters to owners and prosecuting two more cases. Yet many owners receiving a warning still do not apply for registration, suggesting that they know they will not meet the standards. Researchers at Anglia Ruskin University published a study three months ago – based on interviews with specialist police, social workers and charity staff – revealing that an unregistered home was infiltrated by an organised crime group, which even had a member working as a counsellor to feed information back to the gang. One interviewee said some unregulated properties seemed closer to ‘trap houses’ – slang for drug dens – than care settings, with so little control that ‘you’ve got people coming and going, children going missing for days’. The report concluded such places were easy targets for exploitation since ‘children become highly visible to perpetrators while remaining institutionally invisible to safeguarding systems until a critical incident occurs’. Roismi, 20, was taken into care aged 14 after suffering years of sexual abuse and violence in her family. Yet her experiences in the system were so grim that now she wonders if she would have been better off staying at home. ‘It is that bad,’ she said. She went through 17 placements, almost all in unregulated homes around London. ‘The whole time I was in care random men would contact me, text me, offering me money, places to stay, a sense of safety and belonging. They would say, “Come over, I’ll give you food” – in some of the homes, they did not even feed us. One 17-year-old girl, from Essex, spent 14 months in an illicit home in a neighbouring county which had broken windows, holes in doors, fake fire alarms and repeated flooding Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, hopes this is the beginning of the end for 'illegal providers who put profit above the safety of vulnerable children' ‘The men would act so loving and caring, I would do anything at the time to have an inch of love and safety, anything. I’d think fine, that’s the price to pay.’ Teenage boys in care homes told her about being groomed by gangs. ‘Boys like flashy things – they like cash, new outfits. There were boys who would keep or sell drugs and look after weapons for people involved in high levels of criminality.’ More than one in four people in prison have spent time in care as children. This shows the consequences of such state failure when only about one in 25 English children are ‘looked after’ by the state at some point in their childhood. Roismi said after one home learned she was being contacted by men, she was just told to do a two-week ‘box-ticking’ online training course and had her phone briefly confiscated. At another placement, men even came to the front door to meet her. So here was a troubled teenage girl – taken into care after suffering horrific trauma – who was then abused repeatedly by men able to exploit her vulnerability inside our costly state system that is supposed to help and protect such youngsters. She has just begun studying criminology and psychology at university, determined to help other children avoid her fate. ‘If you received the care needed, disgusting predators would not be able to access you,’ said Roismi. ‘I’m lucky I survived.’ Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner for England, has fought to end this sordid scandal. ‘Every night across England vulnerable children are going to sleep in unsafe, illegal settings – cared for by unqualified people, in places that were never designed for children, often cramped together without privacy,’ she said. ‘We have seen too many cases of vulnerable children and young people falling through gaps in social care, leaving them at risk of exploitation, such as those who are preyed on by dangerous gangs.’ She welcomed Ofsted’s historic prosecution. ‘I hope it represents the beginning of the end for the scandal of illegal providers who put profit above the safety of vulnerable children.’ Medway Council said ‘less than five’ young people were placed with Catalyst Care, discontinuing use of the firm four years ago, but insisted illegal homes reflected a national problem. ‘Unfortunately in rare circumstances, despite a national search, some young people’s needs exceed what can be delivered in a regulated provision, or there is no suitable provision available, resulting in a young person being placed in an unregulated setting.’ Kent County Council said the use of such providers was a last resort to ensure a child’s safety but claimed they received strong support and ‘high level of oversight’ from social workers. It added that it was creating four council-run homes to tackle such issues. * This name has been changed to protect her identity.