NO ESCAPE

Inside UK’s ‘Paedophile Island’ where children were sexually abused ‘at industrial scale’ for YEARS & no one stopped it

The children were island residents or coaxed on day trips from the mainland during school holidays.

• Published: 12:53, 4 Jun 2025
• Updated: 12:55, 4 Jun 2025

WITH its luscious green cliff tops, white sandy beaches and glistening coves, Caldey Island looks like a picture-perfect paradise.

But the tiny island off the coast of Tenby, Wales, has a dark past – with children being systematically sexually abused on what has now been dubbed ‘Britain’s paedophile paradise island’ for more 50 years.

These children, many of whom were orphans and particularly vulnerable, were either island residents or coaxed on day trips from the mainland during school holidays.

They were systematically sexually abused by a number of monks who lived on the holy island, where Roman Catholic pilgrims routinely came for religious retreats.

But the worst of them all was Father Thaddeus Kotik, who moved to Caldey from his native Poland – where he had fought in the Free Polish army during WW2 – in 1947.

In 1956, he was ordained as a priest and joined the strict Cistercian order of monks, and set about befriending the families who regularly visited, along with the handful of farming families who lived there.