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Revealed: Crucial files detailing allegations of abuse of vulnerable kids go missing

By Marion Scott
Daily Record
November 02, 2014

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/revealed-crucial-files-detailing-allegations-4552535

David Whelan suffered years of sexual abuse in the care homes.

David Whelan

Investigators have been told that the documents which run in to the hundreds are no longer available.

Government files containing claims of abuse of some of Scotland’s most vulnerable children have disappeared from national archives.

The secret papers contain allegations of physical and sexual abuse in homes and residential schools over four decades.

Some of the papers prepared by a task force set up by the-then Secretary of State for Scotland Bruce Millan in the late 1960s were seen by Sunday Mail in 2002.

But the vast majority of the papers, relating to abuse claims from the 1930s to 1960s, have never been made public.

They were requested by researchers commissioned by the Scottish Government to examine the extent of historical abuse involving children in care.

But social work academics Professor Andrew Kendrick and Moyra Hawthorne discovered they were no longer available.

Strathclyde University lecturer professor Kendrick said that of hundreds of files once held in archive, only two now remained.

Professor Kendrick said just two of the many files initially made available to the Sunday Mail at the National Archives of Scotland in 2002 were found by researchers.

He said: “The two files we were able to see referred to serious concerns about corporal punishment in residential care in the late 1960s.

“However, Moyra wasn’t able to track down any other documents related to the ‘task force’ and we haven’t come across any other reference to it.”

Some files were seen by Sunday Mail investigators in January 2002 when the documents were briefly released under the 30 year rule, legislation drawn up under the Public Records Act.

They included documents detailing the death of a six month old baby who choked to death while in care at the Christie Home in Haddington, East Lothian.

Other reports detailed children in care being locked in darkened rooms for hours, kids banned from seeing their parents, and a seven-year-old girl who had her mouth washed with carbolic soap for swearing.

When we returned to the national archive office to inspect the others, we were told the files had been withdrawn for “privacy reasons”.

The late Mr Millan said in 2002 that thousands of Scotland’s child abuse victims could have been spared lives of despair if the incoming Tory government had not sidelined his taskforce when Labour lost the 1970 general election.

Campaigner David Whelan, 55, a member of the joint government and survivors think tank, the National Confidential Forum for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, said: “Those missing files weren’t where they should have been. They need to be found.”

He says the papers may have included claims about serial abuser Jimmy Savile, a regular visitor to Fort Augustus Abbey School in Inverness-shire.

David, who suffered years of sexual abuse at Quarrier’s Children’s Village in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, in the early 70s, said: “We know there are allegations as many as 20 high-profile paedophiles with links to Downing Street regularly used and abused children in care.”

David joined other abuse survivors as Education Secretary Mike Russell announced proposals for a compensation scheme and a way for victims to receive apologies last week.

David said: “We understand the government may be considering a £20,000 per victim, one size fits all compensation scheme which we do not believe is equitable.

“We believe the scheme operating in Jersey, where victims are compensated up to £60,000 depending on the level of abuse, is more workable. We want to see the Scottish government making payment and reclaiming institutions.”




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