Webster’s analysis of the British children’s home pædophile panic of the 1980s and 90s, The Secret of Bryn Estyn (reviewed in FT208), is one of the great solo investigations. Webster showed that the entire series of episodes, the result of a nation-wide ‘trawling’ by the police for pædophile networks preying on the residents of children’s homes, was a fantasy, the result of bad journalism, offic­ials afraid of being blamed for ignoring a scandal, and lies told by some of the children who were motivated by the police promise of large compensation for any abuse. Webster dismantles the whole thing and concludes that over 100 wrongful convictions ensued.