Absolutely heartbreaking to read. I would like to draw your attention to the last paragraph. This under-qualified government really have questions to answer. Not only do they refuse to hold a full independent inquiry on the issue of this thread, but they also continue to fund institutions where abuse has taken place.
Children in homes run by Quarriers, Aberlour Child Care Trust and Barnardo’s ‘tortured and abused’
Marc horne
Children were raped, beaten and tortured at care homes run like “prison camps”, a report has found.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) spent 43 days hearing evidence about homes operated by
the charities Quarriers, Aberlour Child Care Trust and Barnardo’s between 1921 and 1991.
Lady Smith, the inquiry chairwoman, found that vulnerable children and teenagers had been subjected to horrific abuse and degradation while living in the units. Her 150-page report, published yesterday, was scathing in its findings, saying that the charities “could have made a real and positive difference to every child, but that did not happen”.
“For many, further damage was inflicted upon them,” she wrote. “They were physically abused, emotionally abused and sexually abused in harsh, rigid regimes. Children were subject to regimes, structures and practices that facilitated the engagement by sexual predators in grooming practices and in serious breaches of trust.”
Her report that found abuse became a routine part of daily life for many youngsters. It noted: “Children were hit, slapped and beaten with open hands, knuckles and implements including shoes, belts, wooden spoons, canes, table tennis bats and a baton. They were kicked. They were punched. They were pushed.
“Children had carbolic soap forced into their mouths. Heads were
forced into toilet pans and water then flushed over them.”
One survivor told the inquiry that she was stripped naked and beaten by her “house parents” at a Quarrier’s home in the 1960s.
“They used a belt with a buckle and a wet towel,” she recalled. “When I started crying they wrapped the towel around my neck tightly until I passed out. Then they poured a bucket of cold water over me.”
Another former Quarriers resident said: “It was
like a prison camp. There was no freedom to be children.”
At Aberlour children were forced to wear orphanage clothes and have similar haircuts so they could easily be traced if they tried to escape. Siblings were routinely separated, birthdays were ignored and children were force-fed liver and tripe until they vomited. Runaways were stripped and severely beaten as a deterrent to others. Sexual abuse was rife.
Lady Smith said: “Children were sexually abused by male and female staff, older children, housemasters and a teacher. It included lewd sexual innuendo, indecent assaults, lewd and libidinous practices, oral sex, rape and sodomy.”
One woman told the inquiry that she was abused by the woman tasked with looking after at a Quarriers-run home in the 1960s.
“She would take girls to her room and would touch you sexually and make you touch her,” she said. “It happened a lot. We would have been aged between six and ten.”
Lady Smith will use the findings when deciding what recommendations are to be made in her final report.
She found that the abuse was even worse than that uncovered in a previous inquiry investigation into residential homes run by Catholic orders. She said: “Although there are similarities, the extent of sexual abuse — including abuse which also constituted a serious breach of trust — was greater in this case study.
“There were also forms of cruel punishment that did not feature in the earlier case studies.”
These included children being sent into a shed in their bare feet and pyjamas on cold winter nights at Quarriers and placed in solitary confinement in a cupboard under a staircase, known as “the cooler” at Aberlour.
All three charities, which continue to receive significant funding from the Scottish government, have apologised for the abuse.