“Steve - Mrs. Gray is very seriously disabled but is of sound mind and perfectly capable of making her own decisions about what is best for her. She does not need self-opinionated people who do not know her or her husband, or the facts of their situation, to make decisions on her behalf. Her experience of care homes has been miserable; they have many people to care for and cannot give her the dedicated individual time and constant care which she is accustomed to receiving from her devoted husband. She has every right to live with him, and that is what she chooses to do. Contrary to the picture of Mr. Gray portrayed by the media, most of those who really know him find him to be one of the kindest, most well-meaning and considerate people they have ever met, and the person they can depend on to help them in a crisis; at least, they did until he was driven from their midst. Like me, they believe he was falsely accused of an offence which quite simply never happened. People who do not know him personally but are acquainted with the facts of the case are convinced that he was framed. It was in fact his very kindness that got him into this mess.

Perhaps for a moment you should consider the injustice done to this couple if he is innocent. In addition to his sentence, he has been vilified by the press as a paedophile and a pervert, thrown out of his home of over 30 years with just 2 hours¿ notice and his wife has been incarcerated in care homes against her will and at times treated appallingly. They were made to accept a house in a place where they had no desire to live, then having reluctantly accepted that they must settle there, far from their many friends who both gave support to them and depended on Mr. Gray for help when they needed it, had to wait for major modifications to be made to enable Mrs. Gray to live there, and just when the end seemed in sight, were denied their right to move in due to threats of arson by unidentified local people, who not only did not know the details of their situation, but refused to allow me fully to explain them when I tried to do so.

If Mr. Gray is innocent as many believe him to be, all of this is clearly unjust, but whatever you think of him, bearing in mind that you do not have the evidence on which to base your judgement, and that the Courts do sometimes make mistakes ¿ Mrs. Gray is completely innocent and does not deserve to have been made to suffer any of this.

Having forced her to leave her home, the Council had a statutory obligation to re-house her, so this was a matter of necessity, not of choice, for them. MAPPA insisted on placing them there. However, they were warned before the plans for the adaptations were begun that Mr. Gray¿s new location had been discovered and this could no longer be regarded as a safe house, but chose to ignore the warning and proceed with the adaptations, so I agree entirely that this was a waste of tax-payers¿ money because the ¿local unrest¿ was predictable. Although the house will still be usable for a similarly severely disabled person it is highly unlikely that it would otherwise have been adapted in this way, because there are undoubtedly more suitable properties which could have had the same adaptations made at far lower cost. The blame lies with MAPPA because they refuse to listen to sound reason and make decisions against which appeal appears to be impossible. So don¿t blame Mr. Gray, don¿t blame the Housing Department, blame MAPPA.”

“I am stunned by this article! After his solicitor and I have spent countless hours trying to persuade MAPPA to reverse its decision and allow the Grays to move into their home, you have the impertinence to blame him for their refusal to allow them to move in because of vigilante threats to burn the house down if they do! Put the blame for this situation where it belongs, with a MAPPA (Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements) system which is neither transparent nor accountable, and which has refused from the start to listen to reason, with his accuser¿s family who, having achieved their aim of driving him from Pontyates now appear to be trying to prevent him from settling anywhere else, and with selfish Red Roses residents who, unlike the Judge who suspended Mr. Gray¿s sentence for that very purpose, have no compassion for a very severely disabled sick lady who has no other place to go where she can receive from her husband the constant one-to-one care she so desperately needs, which he has always given with exemplary dedication and which ¿care homes¿ have failed to provide to anything like the same standard.

The fact that Mr. Gray lived in the house in Red Roses from May to September 2008 without assaulting their children shows the residents¿ fears of the danger he poses to be exaggerated.

MAPPA gave him no choice of any other location after they forced him out of his home of over 30 years with just two hours¿ notice, following a small and very unrepresentative meeting of Pontyates residents, most of whom stayed away because they disagreed with its aims. An attempt to force him out of Pontyates by raising a petition had already failed for lack of signatures. Despite informing the Council that he had reason to believe that his new location would not be safe, Mr. Gray accepted his fate and resolved to make the best of it.

The problem with using the word ¿paedophile¿ where a single relatively minor offence is alleged, is that it conjures up pictures like the one in Robbie¿s mind, which bears no relation to reality. The conviction in this case was based on the allegation that Mr. Gray touched one child, not ¿many¿, on her tummy, nowhere else, with his thickly bandaged, very painful left hand, still stitched, just four days after invasive surgery to remove a metal plate and four screws which had been holding his thumb in place for several years after he had accidentally severed it almost completely from his hand. The case amounted to the child¿s word against his, the two other children present having not seen him do it, heard the child¿s protests, or noticed her leap up and flee from the house, as she claimed to have done.

Why ten of the jury did not find reasonable doubt that a right handed man whose right hand was fine, would choose instead to put his intensely painful bulkily bandaged left hand down a child¿s trousers, I cannot imagine. Admittedly some of the most glaring discrepancies in the child¿s evidence and the testimony of one of the witnesses were withheld from the jury, but even so, they should have seen the physical impossibility of what she claimed he did, which I can easily demonstrate.

Mr. Gray has always maintained his innocence and I and many others firmly believe that his conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Even if he had touched her tummy, I hardly think it would have caused the child ¿a lifetime of misery¿ as Robbie claims, nor do I consider his demand for hanging to be a proportionate response! Why do the public trust the Court¿s verdict, but not trust them to pass an appropriate sentence?

He has no other convictions and is not a monster, but a loving, caring considerate husband and the highly valued friend of his former neighbours in Pontyates, who are appalled by the way in which he has been treated.

As for where ¿the pair¿ are now, those who need to know do, and if the vigilantes do not, that is as it should be. The fact that you have p”

“reading the first few comments i was starting to worry,but then steve and a few others hit it bang on?its not about the money they should have nothing,a phedo that has caused a life time of misery for many children.bring back the death penalty.then we can sleep knowing our children are safe ,?good night to all those that where more interested in the money//////”

“yet another story of how carms council make major mistakes...total shambles is the only way to describe the way carms council is run ... while other honest taxpayers have 2 fight all the way and still get nothing from them”

“Valleyboy
Quite agree with the costings and having nothing better to do of a lunchtime I googled the property and quite how it would be possible to spend that amount of money on the property I don't know.

Perhaps the comma was put in the wrong place in the article and it was really £8.3k. That would give them some nice ramps and a walk in shower.”

“I have been involved with many disability adaptations over many years. £83k is an enormous cost for one house. A straight stairlift from £2k, a curved stairlift from £4k, a through the floor wheelchair lift from £8k, a nice wet floor shower room from £6k, a closomat type invalid wc from £3k, door widening and 1 in 12 gradient ramps, a few thousand.
It seems like Carms Council have dropped a clanger on this one !”

“Hang on a second;
Not withstanding the fact that this is in Carmarthenshire, the maximum grant allowed by the the Welsh Assembly is £36k for Disabled adaptations, so why the preferential treatment?”

“so his wife needs daily help ok!! so now the council have forgotten about home help or if she needs intense supervision put her into care cos thats got to be better than struggling along with a pedo that gets chased out of every village they go to obviously the cheaper option is more important than the children in our communities this country makes me sick!!! they only want to waste money and not make it a better safer place for our children to grow up in”

“his whereabouts are unknown i thought he would have had to sign a child sex offenders register”

“Re: John, swansea

Try reading the article, the Council in question is Carmarthenshire Council not Swansea Council!”