Mother’s tears as she tells inquiry of son’s abuse at school for deaf children

A mother broke down in tears as she told an inquiry her severely disabled son suffered assaults, mistreatment and sexual abuse at a school for deaf children.

Giving evidence to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry under the name Mary, the woman said her son was abandoned by the side of the road after being put out of a minibus on a trip from Donaldson’s School for the Deaf.

Mary cried in the hearing room after telling the inquiry of an incident in 2010 where she said he was sexually assaulted by other boys at the school – saying it had “destroyed” her family.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was born with severe learning difficulties.

Mary said she and her family were initially “ecstatic” when he was given a daytime place at Donaldson’s as they felt mainstream education was not appropriate for him.

However she said the environment at the school was “chaotic” after it moved to a new premises in Linlithgow, West Lothian, in 2008, away from its old building in Edinburgh.

Under questioning from inquiry counsel Ruth Innes KC, Mary said a senior teacher would be “smoking a cigarette, watching all this chaos”, and she accused the teacher of seeking to cover up the abuse her son was suffering.

Inquiry chairwoman Lady Smith ordered that the name of the senior teacher, who later left Donaldson’s, should not be publicised.

Describing the assaults by other pupils, Mary said: “It began in Primary 1, Primary 2 wasn’t too bad. Then it was constant.”

She said her son, who started at Donaldson’s in the 2000s and continued until he was a teenager, was punched by a group of other boys and would be hit with a chair.

She said teachers failed to intervene and she found that despite her complaints to the school, “nothing’s ever done”.

This left her son “terrified”, Mary said, adding that a teacher described him as a “lazy pig”.

Mary said another teacher poured water over her son, while he was also made to perform a “cowboy dance” in front of other pupils when he was tired.

Describing this dance, she said: “It’s like a Russian Cossack, it’s all over the place.

“I thought it was disrespectful – to me it’s like making a mockery of him.”

Mary went on to tell the inquiry about an incident where a teacher put him out of a school minibus in the middle of Dalkeith as the children went on a trip – saying he was left abandoned until another child’s parent collected him.

Holding back tears, Mary told the inquiry: “A boy who couldn’t talk, who couldn’t use a phone, was put out in the street.”

Her son was left badly sunburned by this ordeal, she said, telling the inquiry the senior teacher only said she would reprimand the staff member in question.

Mary then gave evidence about the 2010 incident where her son was sexually abused when he was in a shower block.

She said two boys grabbed him then “got hold of a hairdryer and put it on his genitals”.

Her son was left “hysterical” as a result, she said.

The two boys were sent home early from school but Mary said the incident was only treated as a “trivial” matter by staff.

She told the inquiry: “A sexual assault isn’t trivial, it destroyed us.”

The inquiry then paused after Mary began crying, before her evidence session resumed after a short break.

She said a number of the school’s governors, who Mary had approached with her concerns, resigned from its board and the Scottish Government became involved in 2014.

Several of the staff involved were suspended, and Mary was later given an apology.

Mary accused the senior teacher of covering up evidence of her son’s abuse, saying: “What’s not okay is ruining people’s lives by hiding it. Because it’s ruined ours.”

In November 2014, Donaldson’s was ordered to make urgent improvements following allegations against a senior staff member.

Shortly afterwards, it emerged that almost half of the school’s governors had resigned.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry is being held in Edinburgh and its current block of evidence focuses on residential care in establishments for children with long-term healthcare needs.