Fornethy House abuse survivors should be eligible for compensation, say MSPs

Fornethy House abuse survivors must be able to access compensation from a Scottish Government scheme, a Holyrood committee has concluded.

The Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee said it reached an “unanimous” view of including the survivors in the Redress Scotland scheme.

More than 200 women have come forward with abuse allegations relating to the residential school in Kilry, Angus, dating back to the 1960s and 70s.

The former residents say they were beaten, humiliated, force-fed and sexually assaulted during their short-term stays at the school, which was then run by Glasgow’s local authority.

The Government previously said the scheme, which offers up to £100,000 in compensation for those abused in residential care before 2004, could not cover those from Fornethy House.

That was because of the requirements for the residents to stay in long-term care and to meet strict evidence requirements.

However, records at Fornethy House had been destroyed, meaning survivors were not able to meet these requirements, and the parental consent given by some of the survivors’ parents also made them ineligible, ministers had said.

But in a letter to deputy first minister Kate Forbes, committee convener Jackson Carlaw said many of the children at the residential home had “limited or no contact” with their parents and relied on the institution for daily care.

He said: “The evidence we have continued to gather has solidified our view that the regulations introduced in December 2021 have created an unjustified barrier preventing those who experienced abuse in settings such as Fornethy House.”

The letter also recommends ministers include residential institutions that were owned and operated by the state, regardless of length of stay, in the compensation scheme, while enabling redress where the abuse was carried out by staff employed by the state regardless of whether parental consent for the child’s placement had been received.

The committee also said while the recommendations may require further legislation, ministers should “not to delay taking action”.

Forbes said: “Abuse of children at Fornethy House should never have happened and I am profoundly sorry for what the survivors endured as children and the impact this abuse has had on their lives.

“The independent report we commissioned to investigate this matter further is clear that children attended Fornethy House primarily on a short-term basis for convalescence or a recuperative holiday under arrangements involving their parent or guardian and another person.

“Those circumstances, as agreed by the Scottish Parliament, are excluded from the redress scheme which is designed primarily to provide acknowledgement of the harm that has been caused for survivors of historical child abuse who were in long-term care.

“These findings are in no way intended to diminish the experiences of the survivors or to suggest parents of these children were in any way responsible for the experiences they endured during their time at Fornethy House.”