Gordon Brown says ministers should pay out to UK child migrants as young as five who were sexually abused before being sent to Australia

By Rachael Burford
Daily Mail
January 30, 2017

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4171258/Gordon-Brown-says-UK-child-migrants-sexually-abused.html

Gordon Brown has accused the UK authorities of ­'criminal negligence' for ignoring the alleged abuse of British children sent to abroad

Most children were wrongly told that their parents had died and that they would enjoy a 'better life', while the parents thought the children had been adopted in Britain, Pictured: British Orphans at Melrose House near Parramatta in 1953

British orphans are pictured at Melrose House, Australia in 1953. A new report alleges some child migrants were victims of sexual abuse before and after they were sent abroad

Two twins from Islington, London are pictured carrying their luggage to the boat train 'Rangitoto' in London in 1950. There is no suggestion that the boys pictured were abused

Thousands of British children, some as young as five, who were sent abroad to start a new life may have been sexually abused - and then moved as part of a cover up.

Former Prime Minster Gordon Brown has accused the UK authorities of ­'criminal negligence' for ignoring the alleged abuse of children who were relocated under the Child Migrants Programme from the 1920s to the 60s.

Writing in the Mirror, he claimed new evidence suggests many children fell victim to sexual predators before they left the U.K and that the Home Office was warned they were at further risk abroad. 

Under the Child Migrants Programme, poverty-stricken youngsters were compulsorily deported to Australia, Canada and other parts of the Commonwealth until it was stopped in 1970.

Most children were wrongly told that their parents had died and that they would enjoy a 'better life', while the parents thought the children had been adopted in Britain.

Mr Brown apologised for Britain's 'disgraceful' role in sending more than 130,000 children to its former colonies in 2010, but now says his apology was 'incomplete'. 

He said: 'We now know that scores of children were themselves subject to abuse before they were deported to foreign countries.

'It is clear that at least in the mid-1950s, and probably from 1947, Governments did have evidence that abuse was happening and did nothing.' 

Mr Brown was citing evidence given to the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. 

He described the evidence as painting a picture of 'violence and rape'.

One victim claimed they were just five years old when they were repeatedly raped in a children's home in the UK and then, after being sent to Australia as a child migrant, the sexual abuse started again.  

Mr Brown said the new evidence needed to be urgently addressed by Britain's ­Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

It was set up in 2014 following the revaluation that Jimmy Savile had repeatedly sexually abused children for decades before his death and was partly modelled on the Australian inquiry. 

Mr Brown also warned that a fund set up by campaigners at the Child Migrants Trust to help those sent abroad is due to run out of money 'by March'.

At least 100 families have not received any aid.

Mr Brown added: 'Some [families] are only now in the early stage of making contact with their UK relatives. Others have yet to come forward for help.

'It would be inhumane to deprive them of their last chance to meet their kith and kin.'