THE man at the centre of a collapsed trial into alleged child cruelty and deception at Warrington care homes has branded the investigation a 'farce'.

Iain Stead, aged 44, of Ollershaw Lane, Marston, was one of the people behind the Winterley Project, which ran small care homes in Cheshire for difficult children.

He and his wife Jane, aged 43, appeared at Warrington Crown Court charged with obtaining money by deception and cruelty to children under the age of 16.

The trial collapsed last week after key witnesses failed to back the CPS's case.

Mr Stead said: "It was a witch hunt, and no organisation in the country would have undergone that scrutiny without something being found - it was a farce."

Andrew Street, 42, of Mobberley Road, Knutsford, and Beryl Roberts, 54, of Weaste Lane, Thelwall, were also accused of deception.

Mr Stead claimed that the police travelled as far as Switzerland in the course of the investigation and that the costs 'must have run into the millions'.

But Cheshire Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) say that the investigation was not flawed and that the judge had not criticised them.

A spokesman for Cheshire Constabulary and the CPS said that the allegations centred on some of the most vulnerable children in society and that they were 'rightly and properly investigated'.

"After the closure of the Winterley Project the law changed to regulate such services," the spokesman said.

He added: "There was no application on behalf of any of the defendants of 'no case to answer'. A number of offences was admitted at the start of the trial by one of the defendants."