Alan SimpsonVictims of an abusive foster mother and her rapist son have blasted an “insulting” sentence handed down to their abusers.
Jennifer Robertson, 79, and her son Steven, 52, were found guilty of nine charges last month at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Jennifer had abused children as young as ten months old at a property in Murthly, Perthshire between 1980 and 1995.
She physically assaulted young girls, forced a child to wear urine-soaked underwear on her head and forced food down children’s throats.
Her son Steven sexually abused a number of girls between 1986 and 1995, sometimes acting with his late father Alan Robertson. He also sexually assualted another girl between 2015 and 2017.
Jennifer was also found to have failed to stop her son assaulting and raping one of the girls on various occasions between 1988 and 1995.
On Friday, Steven was jailed for 11 years while Jennifer was handed a community payback order and ordered to perform 250 hours of unpaid work within 12 months.
The sentencing has been branded “a slap in the face” by victims, some of whom were present in court on Friday.
‘Jennifer gets to sit at home with her feet up’
In a statement released via law firm Digby Brown, the siblings said: “This sentence makes us sick.
“We live with what happened every single day, even feeling scared in our own homes.
“Yet Jennifer gets to sit at home with her feet up like nothing has happened.
“It is unfair and unjust to put victims through the pain of giving evidence when the outcome doesn’t justify the means because for us, a conviction is not enough.”
In sentencing, Judge Morris told Jennifer: “It is clear that your victims have suffered severe harm and continue to suffer severe trauma.
“You have a complete lack of remorse even for the things you admit doing.”
However, he said the nature of the offending was such that if she had appeared in court by herself and not alongside her son, the matter would have been heard in the sheriff court and not the high court.
He added: “I am well aware that your victims want you to go to prison.
“However, I am narrowly persuaded to draw back from sending you to prison. I am persuaded in the circumstances that I can draw back from custody and to impose a community payback order.
‘Crimes were hidden for years’
The siblings continued: “From our perspective, it’s all about the sentence, yet today, for Jennifer to be allowed home and for Steven to get a reduced jail term – even after they denied their wrongdoing – is just a complete injustice and a slap in the face to every survivor who has ever been in this position.
“We don’t accept any mitigating factors for these abusers having minimal records because, of course, they do – their crimes were hidden for years until we spoke out.
“But to then use that as a reason to justify a more lenient sentence is utterly insulting.
“The criminal sentencing guidelines need ripped up and reformed because if judges follow guidelines that leave victims in pain then maybe that’s a clear sign the guidelines need changed.”
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