MOTHERWELL (UNITED KINGDOM)
BBC [London, England]
December 14, 2023
By Morven Mckinnon
[Photo above: Janet and Frank Docherty married in 1997. Courtesy Janet Docherty]
The widow of a Smyllum Park abuse victim says she will continue her husband’s fight for justice.
Janet Docherty was married to Frank Docherty, who spent 19 months at the orphanage in Lanarkshire, which has been at the centre of allegations of historical abuse.
On Wednesday, two nuns and a care worker were found guilty of abusing vulnerable youngsters at the orphanage.
Janet said Frank would be “over the moon” with the outcome.
Like many others at the orphanage, Frank suffered abuse at the hands of the people who were charged with his care.
He passed away in 2017, aged 72, after around 20 years of fighting for justice.
To help victims like him, Frank became an abuse campaigner and set up the In care abuse survivors group (Incas).
“He was a happy-go-lucky guy, but the minute he started campaigning and set up Incas, he got so depressed and wrapped up in his work that it took up most of his time,” said Janet.
Smyllum Park, which opened in 1864, provided care for orphans or children from broken homes and later closed in 1981. About 11,6000 children were looked after there.
The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul ran the home, with Catholic nuns looking after the children.
Janet said Frank was very disturbed when he started to hear of abuse at the orphanage coming to light.
At first, she said she was shocked as she had never heard Frank speak about his experience before. She said some days he was so depressed, he was unable to get out of bed from thinking about it.
Certain words would trigger him, which Janet said would cause Frank to become enraged and frustrated.
She said: “When we got married, I knew he’d been in care but he never ever spoke about it. And then in 1997/98, someone put a newspaper article in about somebody being in an orphanage and there was abuse, so he called them right away.
“From that day right up to the day before he died, he was involved in Incas.”
In 2003, a burial plot, containing the bodies of a number of children, was uncovered by Frank and Jim Kane – also a former resident of Smyllum.
They found an overgrown, unmarked section of St Mary’s Cemetery during their efforts to reveal physical abuse, which they said many former residents had suffered.
According to an investigation by BBC News in 2017, the bodies of at least 400 children were believed to be buried there, all residents of Smyllum Park.
Frank and Jim, who both died in 2017, believed that the true number was far higher, as the nuns had indicated their records were incomplete.
Janet is determined to keep fighting for Frank and other abuse survivors.
Speaking about the recent conviction, she said: “I’m excited that this has happened but there’s a lot more to come out and it’s just taken all these years.
“When Frank brought this out, he wrote to every priest, the Pope, MPs and nobody was wanting to listen because things like that wouldn’t happen.
“These people were supposed to be looking after children, but eventually more folk came forward when he started Incas. They all shared the same kind of thing.”
She believes helping other people is what kept Frank going.
She said: “He fought to actually the day he died, he was on the phone to members.
“Until the very end as long as I’m here as well, Incas group will keep going.
“It affected me in this house because from early on until late at night he was on the phone sharing his experience. The house I would say suffered, but I’m glad I stuck by him the whole way.”