A MAN has been arrested in Suffolk over historic child abuse alleged to have taken place in North Wales.

The man was held in Ipswich on Tuesday morning over “a number of serious sexual offences against a number of individuals”, the Serious Organised Crime Agency said.

He is being taken to a police station in North Wales where he will be interviewed over recent allegations of historic abuse.

The man is the first person to be arrested under Operation Pallial, which was launched in November last year and is being led by Detective Superintendent Ian Mulcahey, from Merseyside Police.

A report on the progress of the investigation is due to be published on Monday.

Operation Pallial is focusing on allegations of historic abuse said to have taken place in children’s homes in North Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.

In December officers revealed that they had received information from 105 potential victims in just one month.

The operation was set up to re-examine claims of sex crimes and look again at the original police investigations into the care homes abuse scandal.

A High Court judge, Mrs Justice Julia Wendy Macur, has also been appointed to carry out her own review of the Waterhouse Inquiry which was set up in 2000 to look at alleged abuse.

It focused on claims at homes in the former council areas of Gwynedd and Clwyd since 1974, but recently potential victims have said it only examined a fraction of the abuse that took place.

The judge is looking at whether specific allegations were not investigated and urged alleged victims and all other interested parties to give further evidence.