Ex-army officer accused of raping two women continues to manage illegal children’s homes
A former army officer who manages illegal children’s homes in the north-west has been accused of raping two women.
Richard “Dougie” Douglas, an ex-army medic who denies the allegations, has previously been reported to the police for rape by two women. Both women are speaking out now because they believe Douglas should not be caring for vulnerable children.
Douglas also has a history of domestic abuse allegations stretching back more than 25 years, according to documents we obtained during our investigation.
In a statement provided via his legal representative, Douglas said he had a brief relationship with one of the women, Grace*. He said they had been “friends with occasional benefits” but that he had “never raped or assaulted her in any way”. He suggested Grace, who later accepted a police caution for sending him an offensive message, was motivated by jealousy because he was seeing someone else, adding: “Hell having no fury like a woman scorned.”
Douglas said he needed more time to request information from the police and the Ministry of Defence before formally responding to the other allegations in this article, though in an earlier phone call with one of our journalists he denied some of them, including the second alleged rape.
He manages children’s homes for the Merseyside company SafeSpace4U – whose headquarters are owned by a convicted drug dealer with ties to organised crime. The company is currently under criminal investigation for running illegal children’s homes.
Sian O’Neill, director of SafeSpace4U, declined to comment on the allegations levelled at Douglas but told us he had been subject to an enhanced criminal records check which had not raised anything of concern. She accepted SafeSpace4U’s registered address is owned by a convicted criminal – John McDonough, the father of her child – but said he has no involvement in the company.
McDonough told us he rents the property to O’Neill. He acknowledged his “past legal matters” but said they had no relevance to O’Neill or SafeSpace4U.
Catalogue of failures
Douglas is also connected to the shocking incident we revealed in April, in which a 15-year-old girl was plied with alcohol and abused by two former soldiers at an illegal home in Durham. Douglas had provided supportive references to the two men in question, both of whom were convicted criminals. He did not respond to our questions about the references.
Our latest investigation presents more evidence of the alarming lack of vetting given to the people who staff England’s many unregulated care homes. Homes not registered with Ofsted are operating illegally, but due to shortage of legal provision it has become a booming industry, with councils sending hundreds of kids to such places every year.
In the regulated sector, anyone managing a home must pass the strictest criminal record checks, which include a review of relevant information held by the police.
We found that at least seven councils – Wandsworth, Barking and Dagenham, Tameside, Worcestershire, Leicestershire, Calderdale and Plymouth – have placed children in illegal homes run by Douglas’s company, SafeSpace4U. O’Neill said the company had applied to be registered but Ofsted told us it hadn’t accepted the company’s applications.
One of the alleged victims’ MP, whose name we are withholding to avoid revealing the victim’s location, told us councils and providers have a fundamental responsibility to carry out proper safeguarding checks: “The findings reported are deeply disturbing and raise serious questions about how people are vetted before being allowed to care for some of the country’s most vulnerable children.”
The MP also called for a review of unregulated placements: “There must now be an urgent review into how historic placements into unregulated homes were commissioned, what checks were undertaken and why concerns raised with public bodies did not result in effective safeguarding action.”
Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, told us: “The details of this case are extremely disturbing and point to a potential catalogue of safeguarding failures.
“Anyone responsible for caring for children should be subject to the highest possible standards and scrutiny, with any allegations of violence or other safeguarding concerns being treated with the utmost seriousness, so there is no doubt the adults responsible for caring for children are suitable to provide safe and stable care.”
Rape allegations
Grace* met Douglas on Facebook in June 2022. They messaged for a couple of weeks before arranging to meet. “I thought he was safe because he was an ex-sergeant major from the medics ... So I’m thinking he’s a really great guy,” she said.
She drove to his home in Lancashire and they spent a night at his local pub. When they got back to his house, she alleges he raped her. “We did end up kissing but I said I didn’t want to have sex with him, many, many times,” she said. In his statement, Douglas said they had a brief relationship and it was consensual.
Grace didn’t report the alleged assault, fearing she wouldn’t be believed. But just under two years later she went to Greater Manchester Police for help. The force offered her a place in a women’s refuge when she told a safeguarding officer she had been seeing Douglas.
“I was told he was an immediate danger,” she said. “It really knocked me sideways. How can I be offered a safe house when he is looking after vulnerable children?”
Lancashire Police investigated the alleged rape but took no further action against Douglas. In a letter explaining that decision, they said Grace’s interview had been “compelling” but there was not enough evidence to send the case to the Crown Prosecution Service. Douglas said the police’s decision showed they had reviewed Grace’s evidence and found it was not credible.
Multiple women have alerted police, military and local authorities about Douglas’s current role, but he continues to manage children’s homes.
Grace’s local MP brought her concerns to the attention of senior local authority figures overseeing the police, as well as ministers at the time, including Yvette Cooper and Jess Phillips.
We have seen correspondence, written as part of this process, which references Douglas’ history of alleged domestic abuse.
It shows how the Ministry of Defence notified Greater Manchester Police of three allegations of domestic violence involving Douglas between 1999 and 2018. The letters also describe Douglas as having a “history of abusive behaviour” with enough “detail to understand what violence and abuse this subject has been involved in”. Douglas did not respond to questions about these incidents.
Grace requested a review of Lancashire Police’s decision but earlier this month learned the investigation will not be reopened. In a letter, the investigating officer told her there were “linked investigations” into Douglas and “clear similarities” between her allegation and other accounts.
Grace believes that the “harrowing” allegations against Douglas should prevent him managing children’s homes.
“How can [the allegations] be so horrendous … spanning more than 20 years of some of the worst things you could do against women… and work with the most vulnerable children in society?”
Responding via his representative, Douglas said he had “serious concerns about [Grace’s] own credibility”.
He has made counter-allegations against Grace, which led to her being arrested for stalking. The police have taken no further action against her but she accepted a caution for sending him an offensive message in 2024. She regrets sending the message but believed he had got away with assaulting her.
A second woman, Chloe*, alleges she was raped by Douglas at home while her children slept upstairs in January 2017.
The pair had connected via a dating website and exchanged messages for two years when one day he said he was passing her house and asked if he could drop by for a coffee.
“He went in for a kiss, which was absolutely fine. It was consensual,” she recalled. “And then he grabbed all my head, and he’s pushing my head towards his groin. And I’m saying, ‘No my children are upstairs’ …. He was pushing my head and pushing my head, and I couldn’t get out of it. He was just laughing and I’m telling him, ‘No’.”
West Yorkshire Police took no action against Douglas but Chloe has requested a victim’s review.
She said: “I thought he was a nice guy … after everything I’ve learnt about him, he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He is not what he pretends to be… [he is] very, very dangerous.”
Speaking to one of our journalists, Douglas described Chloe’s allegations as “laughable”. He claimed she had messaged him for years after the alleged incident “all nice and pie” but then “jumped on the bandwagon” and accused him of rape. “I went to her home but I never forced myself on her at all,” he said.
Links to abuse case
After Douglas left the army in 2019, he got jobs as a construction worker, bouncer and bodyguard before forging a new career in the illegal care market. In May 2022, he got a job as a team manager for the Protective Care Group (PCG), which ran unregulated homes.
While at PCG, Douglas managed two ex-soldiers turned carers, Liam Ramsay and Stephen Hurst, who went on to sexually abuse a 15-year-old girl in an unregistered home – one of the worst safeguarding failures so far uncovered in the system.
We have discovered that Douglas provided positive references for both men when they were hired by MAP Adventures, the company that ran the home.
Douglas graded their all qualities as good or excellent despite acknowledging that Hurst had been investigated and dismissed by PCG. He failed to mention that Ramsay had neglected a child under his care. Douglas did not respond to our questions about the references or his relationships with Ramsay and Hurst.
Minutes of a council safeguarding meeting after the Durham assault cited a council officer saying that the references had been “untrue whether by omission or commission and that will need to be explored by statutory agencies”.
* Names have been changed
Politics Editor
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