Latest / UK Column Radio / Fornethy Residential School: 18 Guilty Verdicts, But No Justice for Abuse Survivors

Transcript

Fornethy Residential School: 18 Guilty Verdicts, But No Justice for Abuse Survivors · UK Column Radio

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. Today UK Column is going to be
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: talking to some of the Finefie ladies and what we're
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: going to be hearing is their thoughts about the recent
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: court case, how that went, and what they think about
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the sentence in the final sentencing. So we've brought a
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: group of them together. We've had a few problems setting
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: up today, but I think we're all ready to go.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: And I want to say that we've got a lovely
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: day here in Plymouth. The sun is shining, it stopped
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: raining because we've had some pretty unpleasant weather for the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: last few days. So I think we're going to have
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: a very relaxed and enjoyable chat. It is a very
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: serious subject, but as I said, the main aim is
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to capture the thoughts and feelings of the finefi women
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: about the court case.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: And if you.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't mind, brit maybe I can give a little bit
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: of background just to review. Do we can look as
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: well as all of the content that we've covered on
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: UK Column for well, it's been about over two or
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: three years now, three years, hasn't it since the first
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: conference that you went to up in Scotland That was
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: about three years ago? So this is not a new
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: topic for UK column. We've been covering this for a
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: number of years and it's been, you know, an incredible
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: pleasure and honor to work with all of these ladies
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: for the time that we've been doing it. But I
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: feel like it's probably just to kind of contextualize everything
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: that we'll be talking about today with the survivors of
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: for Neti Residential School, and we'll be going into detail
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: on this and other coverage as well, but just quick
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: where we got to this month. Then the third of
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: December was the sentencing for the one remaining member of
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: staff that we leave is still alive. She received three
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: years probation, which means that she can't leave the house
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: between three pm mid MIDNIGHTET.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: She's allowed to leave the house.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Okay, thank you for that, lens, so she can leave
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: the house after one year. But she's got three years probation.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: And she was ordered to pay one thousand pounds to
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: each of the eighteen survivors who was who had the
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: guilty charges the other seven I'm sorry, yeah, exactly. They
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: can take give a thousand pounds to these women. It's
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: just it's really insulting for I think the level of
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: abuse that they survived and they don't want it, and
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: it's completely understandable, but that was that was what was
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: assigned to her as part of the sentencing. And when
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: I attended that particular event, the way the judge led
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: up to it, he made it sound like, yes, you've
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: done horrible things for a number of years to many girls,
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: and then I actually thought that he was going to
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: put her in prison, and then he turned around and
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: gave this probation, and so it was quite shocking. And
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: this is where this is leading up to now. What
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: we'd like to hear from the women who were there,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: and I can say a lot, but for someone who's
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: worked for the justice that they deserve, thinking they were
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: going to get it when she was found guilty on
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: eighteen charges and then to have this turned around on
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: them this at the end, it has been very difficult.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: So I'd like to open it up, I guess to
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: the women, Brian, let's start with Lynn Shearon.
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: But I think the sentence was an absolute more for
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: all the witnesses. Someone the last Sea's have been up there.
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: It was really really hard to sit and watch it.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: So for them people out there and actually gave their
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: evidence and then sit. I mean, that was a full
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: see and a half weeks. We attended there every single day,
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: whenever mister day. We had great spot for each other.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: But at the end of it, it was like a
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: kicking of teeth, you know, it was like just a
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: severe blow for her to just walk out that court.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: We like she mare or less.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: I would say in my mind, she got away with
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: that because she walked away with that, which so she's
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: to give for the girls a thousand pounds total insult,
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: absolutely insult, one thousand pounds for which she did to them,
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: and she's walked away to it and have the nerve
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: to say that most of us were in it for
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: financial gain. We've never once asked for any money for this,
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: not ever, or for anybody. I'm just shocked. I'm shocked
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: to the core that that was what happened, after all
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: that time, after everything been through, that she managed to
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: walk away home and she considered a ta and have
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: our Christmas dinner or turkey whatever else were nice. We
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: and co bracelet on if she even got one and
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: enjoyer Christmas. Whereas weekend we're still in lumbow yere. What
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: do we do next? We don't want this to be
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: the end of this. This is the beginning for a
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: lot of years. Because three years probation and one thousand
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: pound compensation Disney washwars absolutely.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Not and just to react to that on the financial
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: side of it, when we look at the skytchtild abuse
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: inquiry and the redress scheme, is that I know that
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: the petition that has been going through Parliament for it's
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: been that's also been going on for a couple of years.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: It's about the right to access redress, regardless of whether
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: or not you want the money. It's because the problem
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: that we faced with getting you able to even be
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: able to qualify for a redress, as you know, but
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: the audience doesn't maybe know, is that they said, well,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: you're only there for a short term, so short term
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: I use.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: To make any difference. I mean, some of the victims
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: were there more than once, somewhere there two or three,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: four times, so they have to go through all that
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: and you're absolutely petrified to tell anybody. I mean I
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: never told them for fifty years, and some of the
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: survivors were the first ones that I had told because
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: I thought, oh my god, you as well, you know,
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: so I mean to carry that all your life and
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: knowing that you're burying that deep inside yourself. But what
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: did she there for the last fifty years go on
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: my life, took mere jobs, delp with their kids, abused
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: them as.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: Well for what I heard.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: And yet well, we will continue to carry this for
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: the rest of our lives, whereas she can go a
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: home and forget about it. Now that's it done, Dusty finished.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: I forgot about, but not snow. It's no forgot about, not.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: As far as I'm concerned.
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: On a personal note, I will fight to my deaths
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: because she doesn't have much longer left. But We've lost
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: people along your fight, so and I'll continue to fight
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: for me and for anybody else that wants to fight.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: But it's it's just an absolute.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: It's weird.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: We're the ones with the sentence no. We left that
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: quote ruin be a sentence no. And redress well, no
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: chance to redress. Absolutely. And what I did here through
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: grapevine was that there was another pot being opened for
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: for Metthie survivors. But that takes time. Whether that comes
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: to light or not, who knows and who cares, Basically,
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: because redress was never something that we did want. Some
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: people might have to think, well, okay, I'm getting older now,
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: I'm not getting any younger. I don't want this fight
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: to continue, and went he got on with the rest
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: of my life, which we all thought we were going
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: to day when we left that courte room. But you
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: know what I mean for them that they want to
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: have redress, they should be allowed it.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: And I think that's what's at the heart of this
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: is they're saying, well is the amount of time?
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: Is that absolutely denying what happened is when they refuse
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: us reads their meals sent to us, Well, it didn't happen,
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: so you're low getting do you know what I mean?
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: It's it's like it's no working from you, so go away.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: The other thing that happened with the day and the
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Petitions Commedian meeting with when Shana Robinson was still the
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Deputy First Minister and saying that that you didn't have
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: any records and therefore couldn't qualify, when clearly the criteria
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I'll say that that records aren't necessary, that that survivors
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: are to be believed, and she was basically saying, well,
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: there's no records of their time at for Nethie, there's
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: no GP records, there's no social work records, there's no
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: education records, and therefore they can't apply, which of course
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: is a lie based on their own criteria.
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, showing August was like, she's you know what,
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, she's got a key in her back and
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: when that gets around, then she'll fall through and then
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: she's there. I mean, she's got a nerve to go
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: out there and fight just now for people being drafted.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: What about us?
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: You know, I mean what about us five year old,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: six year old seven year olds? No, all the right
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: at twelve, we don't matter because I mean we've left
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: it all this time so we can live the rest
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: of our life. Right, not happened shown? Sorry, you know,
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: something has to be done for from Essie and we exist.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: We went there, We went through the beatens and the
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: sexual abuse and everything else, so we deserve to get
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: their justice.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's go next to Sharon Cruden.
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: Hi, I thought we agree with ever written Lynne said.
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: Just the sentence she got was just a joke. Like
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: I personally feel that she walked out that court laughing
• 9:46
  Speaker 6: up or sleave us and it's it's just no good enough,
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: Like can I believe the amount of people that when
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: you find out the sentence she go, they're in disbelief,
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: like eighteen charged, eighteen guilty, chargeed, and she walks away.
• 10:03
  Speaker 6: I mean a regardless ther age. She to be told
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: to stay in the house, pray, what is it two
• 10:10
  Speaker 6: o'clock to twelve o'clock. I mean someboday, it's seventy seven's
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: in the house at that time anyway, So that is
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: no punishment whatsoever. And as far as the thousand pounds concerned,
• 10:22
  Speaker 6: she can shove it while the undon't shine, because that
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: doesn't matter to me. Just it's no saying much to
• 10:33
  Speaker 6: any other victim that wants to come forward and report
• 10:38
  Speaker 6: any historic abuse, because it's a case I'll get awabit,
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: I'll get awaba, and it's just no fair.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I interviewed you on the day of
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: the sit and scene as well, and I think something
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: that that I heard from a lot of you, and
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I now because you've been one of the leaders of
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: this group, that you've been right there in the fight
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: at the head of a lot of this Sharon as well,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: and the difference between how and understandably how you all
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: reacted to the guilty verdict or at least on eighteen
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: of the twenty five and feeling like you finally had
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: justice coming to you and then to have this turned
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: around on you at the sentencing. Could you maybe talk
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: a little bit about that because it was so good
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: and was it October when the verdicts came in and
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: then December all of a sudden, it's like they've taken
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: it away from you. To me, it almost seems like
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: another just another step towards Yeah.
• 11:48
  Speaker 6: When the guilties came through, we were all a bit
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: surprised because we were all a bit downheartened about hearing
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: things in the court room, seeing about capital punishment nor
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: less harry On, and we just thought she's going to
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: get away with us. So when the guilties came through,
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: we were overjoyed and then pretty weight, like I don't know,
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: was it three weeks or something for the sentencing and
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: that was a total slapping face what happened in there
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: that day. We just thought, what was the point, what
• 12:23
  Speaker 6: was the point in all this fight for her just
• 12:26
  Speaker 6: to walk out of there? And as Lynn says, like
• 12:30
  Speaker 6: she's going to be sitting our Christmas table, having her
• 12:33
  Speaker 6: Christmas dinner. I mean what punishment is that.
• 12:40
  Speaker 7: She's lived her life up until now.
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: Normally where we have everyone of us is all had
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: an impact in were life since for Nehy, I just
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: don't think it's right at all.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: And something that I found as well during the day
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: that I attended with the within the trial is that
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: it felt to me like even the solicteners that were
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: supposed to be working for you on your side, they
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: were trying to reframe what was happening. And this was
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: just my opinion and let me know, and I'd like
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: to hear from all of you as well, And this
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: was that they were trying to say, well, they were
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: they when they when they showed up, they had to
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: be deloust, they had to be taught how to eat,
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: They didn't know how to use cutlery, they had never
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: left they'd never left the house before, they didn't know
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: what they were doing. That they was sort of a
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: positioning of almost like trying to decrease the severity of
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: what had happened, because they were saying, well, these girls
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: were so uncivilized that feral. Yeah, that's that's what I
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: found as well.
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that was a line, what a line?
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: That was just a pen wasn't a bad light and
• 13:51
  Speaker 6: make out that we were nothing but scum from Glasgow
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: and it just is not.
• 14:00
  Speaker 7: We couldn't use cutlery.
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: Come on, come on, I mean and d like we
• 14:08
  Speaker 6: all went for medicals before. If you never passed your medical,
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: you didn't get go into for nethy. So why would
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: we why would why would we be deal out? If
• 14:18
  Speaker 6: we were full of light, we would have been there
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: because we would have feeled the medical. So I think
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: her lawyer side, we're just trying to paint is all
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: in the worstline.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: That's yeah, which I found really.
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: Just to can and get her off. But obviously the
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: jury scene through all that, I'm really happy that they did.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: And it was also great to see a couple of
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: members of the jury attend the sentence sing and they
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: they came to see us that you know, and we're
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: having coffee and sandwiches after and thank you for the
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: sandwiches that you made for the group as well. That
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: was really nice. Those were great sandwiches and the shortbread
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: was great. But you know that that is one thing
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: that I would say about the group is that you
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: have all been there supporting each other just fite some
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: ups and downs.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: In the groups.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: But to see there at the end that you can
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: still all come together and at least be there for
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: each other, I think was very important, through.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Very important, very very important.
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Where do we go next, Francis h.
• 15:24
  Speaker 8: All right, well, I agree with everything Sharon has said.
• 15:28
  Speaker 8: There coming for a deprived so called deprived area. I
• 15:33
  Speaker 8: went to for Netphie ten years before the girls here,
• 15:38
  Speaker 8: so I'm sumportant them. Although Robertson wasn't my perpetrator.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: It was WMNA at the time.
• 15:48
  Speaker 8: I was at court to see the sentencing and I
• 15:51
  Speaker 8: was absolutely disgusted.
• 15:52
  Speaker 7: I was gutted.
• 15:53
  Speaker 8: God knows how these girls felt. Absolutely ridiculous. Sure, it's
• 15:59
  Speaker 8: like she never gets sentenced. She just got away with it.
• 16:04
  Speaker 8: She's seventy seven. That isn't old for a prison sentence.
• 16:08
  Speaker 8: No way, there's older than her had a prison sentence
• 16:12
  Speaker 8: with the same historical abuse.
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: I don't understand that.
• 16:17
  Speaker 8: She's almost thought to me, I'm a pensioner and it's
• 16:21
  Speaker 8: great to sit in the house for three is twelve
• 16:24
  Speaker 8: at midnight. That isn't a punishment at.
• 16:27
  Speaker 9: All for her, No way. And the other thing is
• 16:32
  Speaker 9: I was there ten.
• 16:34
  Speaker 8: Years before these girls and it just shows you the abuse.
• 16:38
  Speaker 8: How long the same abuse went on for some of
• 16:42
  Speaker 8: these girls were there in the eighties. I was there
• 16:45
  Speaker 8: on the sixties, sixty five, sixty sixties, and the same
• 16:48
  Speaker 8: things were happening thirty years later. You know, how can
• 16:53
  Speaker 8: she possibly get a three year probation for that eighteen
• 17:00
  Speaker 8: eighteen eighteen charge?
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Is it guilty?
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: Why that? It's so.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Well?
• 17:07
  Speaker 8: I was gutted and it didn't really concern me, the
• 17:10
  Speaker 8: Robertson thing, but it was awful, awful and if the
• 17:15
  Speaker 8: rest of them were there, they would have borne on
• 17:16
  Speaker 8: that stand as well, you know, just gutted for them all.
• 17:21
  Speaker 8: I really am gutted. But it hasn'ty changed. It hadn't
• 17:25
  Speaker 8: changed the years, you know. Awful, the same sort of
• 17:30
  Speaker 8: things they were doing, very same that happened in seventies
• 17:35
  Speaker 8: and eighties happened.
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: In the sixties as well.
• 17:37
  Speaker 8: It was like they carried it on through each mistress,
• 17:41
  Speaker 8: our head mistress, our next teacher. And to think that
• 17:44
  Speaker 8: there was only one that went up that stand. I
• 17:48
  Speaker 8: know the other ones are dead, but there must have
• 17:51
  Speaker 8: been more staff in that school over that period.
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: They've got to have been.
• 17:56
  Speaker 8: That's still alive, you know, that's that very and disappointing.
• 18:02
  Speaker 8: I think the sentence was ridiculous. We were sitting there
• 18:06
  Speaker 8: listening and that it looked it looked like she was
• 18:10
  Speaker 8: going to get sentenced.
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: That's what we're hoping for. But the last paragraph of
• 18:16
  Speaker 7: that was gutten.
• 18:17
  Speaker 8: It was just absolutely shattering listening. Is that last paragraph
• 18:22
  Speaker 8: from the judge terrible, absolutely ridiculous.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: It's a shame, Francis you. I'm really interested in what
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: you've said there because the fact that you were there,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: you said from nineteen sixty five, I think, and therefore
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the pattern of abuse went on. It was provable that
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the pattern abuse went on over a very long time.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: This is an obvious point, but when you say it,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: it really brings it brings it home. So the idea
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: that the girls come in and they're feral and then
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they need some regimented system to look after them, they
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: are evidence was there in front of the court. Yeah,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the evidence was there in front of the court that
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: a pattern of abuse had gone on over all these years,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: not just hearsay. That was provable from somebody like yourself
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: who'd been their way back in nineteen sixty five.
• 19:24
  Speaker 9: It's now sixty years to the day practice.
• 19:27
  Speaker 8: Since I was there and listening to everyone else and
• 19:32
  Speaker 8: reading all these things, it's just the very same, the
• 19:36
  Speaker 8: same abuse, the very same things that they've done in
• 19:38
  Speaker 8: the sixties is done in the eighties, and it looks
• 19:41
  Speaker 8: like it's just been carried on. You know, it's incredible
• 19:47
  Speaker 8: to walk away for court. Yeah, wain nothing practically.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: And I think that's an important point. And I brought
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: this up when I did the report last week and
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: you kick had them news is the way that the
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: media was framing what Baxter did Baxter Robertson is basically
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: saying that she was this evil woman that did this,
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: you know, a few mean things. You know, she did
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: some force feeding, and she did maybe slap the girls.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: But to me, that was another part of the cover up,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: was that there was abuse for thirty one years and
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: it was systemic throughout the entire institution, but they made
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: it seem like it was just this one teacher who
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: did a few mean things for two eighteen girls. Yes,
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: and that that just diminishes the severity and the extent
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: and the time that all of this was happening. And
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Francis shows that very well what she said here.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, well, group.
• 20:48
  Speaker 10: Yeah, mirgrant Hi, I would just like to say that,
• 20:53
  Speaker 10: you know, for a lot, for a lot of years,
• 20:55
  Speaker 10: a lot together was kind of a keep that away, well,
• 20:57
  Speaker 10: our personally cap away and didn't discuss it until the
• 21:01
  Speaker 10: last seven years. And to get to this point to
• 21:04
  Speaker 10: go to the court, I feel I'm very strong, but
• 21:08
  Speaker 10: that was the hardest thing I've ever had to do
• 21:10
  Speaker 10: in my life, was to stand in that courtroom and
• 21:14
  Speaker 10: relive all the things that this woman had done to
• 21:18
  Speaker 10: me because I kept it away.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: But to stand in that court and then to come
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: from that.
• 21:26
  Speaker 10: And get the guilty was amazing, absolutely amazing.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: But to then come to the verdict it was never wratten.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: My whole body was shaken.
• 21:37
  Speaker 10: But we're holding hands and listening to that judge talking
• 21:42
  Speaker 10: about how cruel she was, how abusive she was. Well,
• 21:46
  Speaker 10: we're in it for money, we really thought. Listening to him,
• 21:52
  Speaker 10: I thought, we've done it. We've done it. He's going
• 21:56
  Speaker 10: to sentence her. It must, that's eating guilties, it must.
• 21:59
  Speaker 10: It's a high court. What for him to turn around
• 22:02
  Speaker 10: and give her that probation. I could have just fell
• 22:06
  Speaker 10: on that floor. It was disgusting. I couldn't believe it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 10: How can the High Coat of Glasgow with eighteen cruelty?
• 22:14
  Speaker 10: Now even every girl was up there. You know it
• 22:17
  Speaker 10: might been not guilty for that girl, but they might
• 22:19
  Speaker 10: have had three, four or five things done to them
• 22:23
  Speaker 10: up to how many things done in them of cruelty.
• 22:25
  Speaker 10: It wasn't he just the eighteen, There would have been
• 22:27
  Speaker 10: double that, and then the other girls. There was twenty
• 22:31
  Speaker 10: five girls someone got not guilty, not proving disgusting.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: It should have been she should have They should have
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: thrown the key away. They should have put her away,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: throw the key away. That would have been justice for me.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: And I've got the statement in front of me that
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: the judge read out at the at the sentencing, and
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: I just want to read that part of it because
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: this is a very important point. The pre sentence report
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: that has been prepared notes that you accept, and this
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: is talking about Robertson or Baxter, that you accept no
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: responsibility for the offenses. That was your position at trial,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: and it is unsurprising that you maintain that position. You
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: clearly show no insight into your offending behavior and the
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: impact that this has had upon your many victims. Your
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: suggestion to the author of the presentence report that your
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: victims have made these allegations for financial reasons, as you've
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: just said, is frankly absurd and conveniently overlooks the evidence
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: of one of your former colleagues who spoke to aspects
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: of your appalling behavior. The gravity of the crimes you
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: have committed is such that there is no doubt whatsoever
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: in my mind that the custodial threshold has been passed
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: in this case. However, and this is where it turns,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: a sentence of imprisonment can only be imposed if the
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: court considers that no other method of dealing with you
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: is appropriate.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Disgusting.
• 23:54
  Speaker 10: She should have been put away. She should have been
• 23:57
  Speaker 10: put away for this. So because he's never done old
• 24:00
  Speaker 10: time before, So what does that mean? So if somebody
• 24:03
  Speaker 10: was up who was on a murther charge, never been
• 24:05
  Speaker 10: in jail before, we'd be no jail that person. But
• 24:08
  Speaker 10: this was cruelty to children, abuse to children? What does
• 24:13
  Speaker 10: that tell everybody out there? And a thousand pound I
• 24:16
  Speaker 10: don't like gree with girls. Stick it with the sunder's
• 24:18
  Speaker 10: machine because that's not going to raise my memories. That's
• 24:21
  Speaker 10: not going to take everything that I feel. Since that court,
• 24:24
  Speaker 10: I've started having nightmares. Again about this. I'm trying to
• 24:28
  Speaker 10: relive the things. I'm trying to remember the things that
• 24:30
  Speaker 10: I can't remember, you know, So I would rather put
• 24:35
  Speaker 10: that in the bee box again, but I can't.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: It's there every single day again.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go to Carol next. Hi, So what do
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: you want to share about what we've been saying so far?
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: I know you haven't been able to be part of
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: this conversation because you're taking a break from work, but
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: we're just kind of getting every everyone's views on what
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: happened in the trial, both in the sentencing and in
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: the verdicts. So just whatever you'd like to share with us.
• 25:06
  Speaker 11: Well, I think, as you say, when we heard the
• 25:09
  Speaker 11: eighteen guilty verdicts, we thought there's no way she's going
• 25:13
  Speaker 11: to walk for this.
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: So we left that day in.
• 25:17
  Speaker 11: A pure high and just kind of believe that we'd
• 25:20
  Speaker 11: actually got there at two court. And then the day
• 25:25
  Speaker 11: of the sentencing, I think we all still feel deflated.
• 25:31
  Speaker 11: It's just shocking that she's managed to walk away, really
• 25:34
  Speaker 11: be nothing, and to not even admit her guilt. It's
• 25:40
  Speaker 11: just a joke. It's I don't know how she can
• 25:44
  Speaker 11: hold her head up and eat, go and get my
• 25:48
  Speaker 11: doll in now, so give me two minutes. Can we
• 25:50
  Speaker 11: go to Carol White?
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Now?
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: Carol had to go, Carol Rabitton had to go for
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: a minute. You we go to Carol White?
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: Now?
• 25:56
  Speaker 9: I think it's an absolute disgress. How she got away
• 25:59
  Speaker 9: with it, eighteen gilties and walking out of court and
• 26:01
  Speaker 9: that's not justice? And how do we get closure from that?
• 26:06
  Speaker 9: How do we move on? Every time something's done for Fete,
• 26:10
  Speaker 9: whether it's done with the redress or whatever, there seems
• 26:13
  Speaker 9: to be a stumbling block. There's always a stumbling block.
• 26:19
  Speaker 9: How do we get justice? We went to get justice.
• 26:22
  Speaker 9: We all stood in the stand, we all said a
• 26:24
  Speaker 9: bit what she'd done is it's all played an impact
• 26:27
  Speaker 9: in all our lives, every one of us. I mean
• 26:30
  Speaker 9: I couldn't go to school after Finette. It affected my
• 26:33
  Speaker 9: children's lives. It's it's affected everything. And then having to
• 26:36
  Speaker 9: face her again and say what she's done is every
• 26:40
  Speaker 9: woman took a big chance on that, doing that, saying
• 26:44
  Speaker 9: the big impact she's had, and she walked We all
• 26:47
  Speaker 9: got eighteen guilties. Wasn't bad And we all walked away
• 26:50
  Speaker 9: that day and she got the eighteen guilties. Thinking yes,
• 26:53
  Speaker 9: we've got her. That judge said, all this bit led
• 26:58
  Speaker 9: us to believe this is it, She's going to get
• 27:00
  Speaker 9: a custodio, and then wallap. I've still got my head
• 27:06
  Speaker 9: around it. I can't sleep at night. I'm sleeping more
• 27:09
  Speaker 9: during the day. I'm not going out. I don't want
• 27:11
  Speaker 9: to go out. I'm totally humiliated because it was out there,
• 27:15
  Speaker 9: because we all got it out there to let people
• 27:18
  Speaker 9: know what kind of person she was, and now she's
• 27:20
  Speaker 9: still out there. She should be in prison, and my
• 27:24
  Speaker 9: mind's not going to change. I don't know what's going
• 27:25
  Speaker 9: to happen with this review. I'm hoping it'll do something, but.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I just don't know.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: So if I can read the next part of where
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: this flipped, so I read the part about what he
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: was saying about how bad the crimes were. But then
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: he goes on and says, the judge said, it is
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: a fundamental principle of sentencing that senses should be no
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: more severe than it's necessary to achieve the appropriate purposes
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: of sentencing in each case. Here are those purposes are
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: punishment and expressing disapproval of your offending behavior. No issue
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: of protection of the public arises having regard to your
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: age there is equally and for that same reason, together
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: with an absence of offending on your part since nineteen
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: eighty four, no issues of rehabilitation, I am proposing to
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: impose a probation order upon you today. The nature of
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: a probation order is such that the court can only
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: impose one if you consent to its terms and conditions.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: And when he said that and then went into the details,
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: that's when I felt it. In the room. You can
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: feel this. He says it's really bad, and then he
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: turns around and says, we're giving you probation. That's where
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: I felt the.
• 28:37
  Speaker 9: No, that's when he should have turned in and gave
• 28:39
  Speaker 9: her a custodial sentence, because see, the abuse is historical.
• 28:42
  Speaker 9: But see the historical abuse, there's nothing to say it
• 28:45
  Speaker 9: couldn't be futuristic. She can't be trusted with children. We
• 28:49
  Speaker 9: with somebody else's children, and she abused us. We were
• 28:53
  Speaker 9: from the age of five to twelve. And at the
• 28:56
  Speaker 9: end of the day, she should be in prison for that.
• 28:59
  Speaker 9: Because they've done it to a child. Now they go
• 29:02
  Speaker 9: to prison. She should be in prison for historical abuse.
• 29:08
  Speaker 9: I'm not going to change my mind about it. It's
• 29:10
  Speaker 9: stuck and it's never going to go away, and we
• 29:12
  Speaker 9: all need closure about this because we never got justice.
• 29:15
  Speaker 9: It's no give us justice and it's heartbreaking for all survivors.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Carol, what are you're telling us now?
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Did?
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Did? Did anybody else around the cold case ask you?
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: After the cot case had finished about the way you feel?
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Were there other members of the press there? Did they
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: speak to the women?
• 29:41
  Speaker 9: And yeah? Was there?
• 29:44
  Speaker 11: Yeah, there was quite a lot of the press there.
• 29:46
  Speaker 11: I mean, unfortunately, we actually thought we were talking to
• 29:49
  Speaker 11: TV and it was actually BBC studios that were speaking
• 29:52
  Speaker 11: to us. They did take my phone number, but they've
• 29:54
  Speaker 11: never called me back, which I'm glad. I'm probably just
• 29:58
  Speaker 11: prefer to deal with yourselves and STV. But I think
• 30:01
  Speaker 11: everybody was shocked because, as you say, the judge, when
• 30:05
  Speaker 11: I heard these I'm reading bikes his thoughts. I thought
• 30:10
  Speaker 11: she's going to get the jail. And I think even
• 30:13
  Speaker 11: if they gave her a day or a week, anything
• 30:16
  Speaker 11: would have been better than what.
• 30:16
  Speaker 9: He's gave her.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: She shouldn't be a lot of kisses.
• 30:23
  Speaker 11: No, but I think I mean they're saying there's going
• 30:26
  Speaker 11: to be appeal, but nobody can get an answer. For that,
• 30:28
  Speaker 11: so we don't know what's happening there.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: Well I did.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: I've got my call this morning and I've got an
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: appointment Ali on Thursday at twelve o'clock for the court
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: for the court. For my appointment basically is for obviously
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: my case because I was a witness, and then dropped. Oh,
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: I've also mentioned that we want to know whether there's
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: going to be an appeal. What's going to happen here
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: because we're not happy once bit about how the sentencing went. No,
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: so I tend to follow that up. He firstly, when
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: I got to the appointment.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Let's go to run a next either. Hi, so what
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: what what would you like to share about the verdict
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: and then the sentencing.
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm not happy with the sentencing. The verdate.
• 31:27
  Speaker 12: We were all happy because we thought we're eighteen guilty,
• 31:30
  Speaker 12: she's going to.
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: Get a prison sentence.
• 31:33
  Speaker 12: And then with the words it was coming at the
• 31:34
  Speaker 12: judge's mouth on the sentencing, did they correspond with the
• 31:38
  Speaker 12: sentencing when he was speaking, Because they did.
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: They made everybody believe that she.
• 31:44
  Speaker 12: Was going to passed down a custodio sentence and then
• 31:48
  Speaker 12: three years probation.
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: Absolute joke.
• 31:52
  Speaker 12: So it was I've said, oh he was too soft
• 31:55
  Speaker 12: that judge the minute astrod in that doc, I said
• 31:58
  Speaker 12: he was too soft. So anybody goes in front of
• 32:01
  Speaker 12: him are going to walk free. So there he was
• 32:04
  Speaker 12: a joky judge in my eyes.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: So he was.
• 32:08
  Speaker 12: He didn't passes the right sentence that should have went
• 32:10
  Speaker 12: down to her four years of torture. I had to
• 32:15
  Speaker 12: do that woman four years in a row. So I
• 32:19
  Speaker 12: did an interface her in the dock say everything. Well
• 32:22
  Speaker 12: I didn't even get a chance to say everything that
• 32:24
  Speaker 12: I wanted to say. But what I did get to
• 32:27
  Speaker 12: say I thought would have been enough, but obviously wasn't.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: There.
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: It's just a joke.
• 32:34
  Speaker 12: I don't think I love I get her this. I
• 32:37
  Speaker 12: don't think I love I get her it. No, it
• 32:39
  Speaker 12: feels like a slapping face. She's walking away laughing. She
• 32:45
  Speaker 12: got her friends to go on the dock and lie
• 32:47
  Speaker 12: for her, saying we needed the lousing. And like Sharon said,
• 32:51
  Speaker 12: if we were needing de lousing when I went there,
• 32:55
  Speaker 12: that was the whole point. Your medical to check at you.
• 32:58
  Speaker 12: You were healthy enough to go, and you said that.
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: We need allows. We couldn't recognize food except fish and chips.
• 33:07
  Speaker 12: Well, you need to have something and money back then
• 33:08
  Speaker 12: it really buy fish and chips, so you would have.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: I just think it's a fast, a whole lot.
• 33:16
  Speaker 12: Yeah, to be honest for you, and I'm hoping that
• 33:21
  Speaker 12: will be appeal, but I'm not confident that there will be.
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: I'm not confident there will be.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Right, No, that's something where the strength of the women
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: this is just my feeling on it, but the strength
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: of you all to stay together and work together and
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: push for that is very important.
• 33:42
  Speaker 12: But we don't know what else we can do. We're
• 33:44
  Speaker 12: just waiting on the PF who's putting it through. But
• 33:49
  Speaker 12: whether it gets accepted the appeal or not, I don't know.
• 33:52
  Speaker 12: I don't think it will get accepted. I have no
• 33:55
  Speaker 12: confidence in it anyway. No, I come to this any
• 34:01
  Speaker 12: justice system anymore.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: I can understand that. But if you do nothing, it's
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: obvious what will happen if you continue to work together
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: and you continue to challenge and put pressure on the system.
• 34:19
  Speaker 12: And obviously yeah we are, well, we're all phone and
• 34:22
  Speaker 12: we're all being phone in the PF.
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: So we are trying to find it as much as
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: we can.
• 34:26
  Speaker 12: And well, we all well stick together and that's will
• 34:30
  Speaker 12: be our lifetime lost stick together as ladies.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So that's that's all the ladies have spoken. Yes can
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I can? I put a question to whoever wants to
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: answer it. But I watched and one of the things
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: that struck me was that in the way that the
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: proceedings for the case were framed and and the way
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the charges were framed, it seems that they stripped out
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: all of the really serious evidence.
• 35:07
  Speaker 7: That have been brought forward.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: So some of you, I knowe we're talking about very
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: serious sexual offenses. And I've been careful with what I
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: say because my knowledge of the case is reasonable, but
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: I may have missed things. But my impression was I'm
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: going to call it the establishment. So the procurator, fiscal,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the police, the court service north of the border, to me,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: seemed to work to suppress the really serious historic offenses.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: They've then just concentrated on the eighteen will say, the
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: eighteen offenses, which they regard as also very serious, and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: then we've come out with this week very weak sentencing.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: But to me, they was a deliberate attempt to hide,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to push to one side all of the very serious
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: evidence and recollections that.
• 36:12
  Speaker 12: I totally agree with that they've pushed that aside. Definitely,
• 36:16
  Speaker 12: I don't know why you don't want to hear that.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: So without asking a question that's going to upset any
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: of you here here with us in this conversation. But
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: did any of you give evidence that was of that
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: very serious nature which was then simply not even brought
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: into court?
• 36:41
  Speaker 12: And that didn't No sexual assault happened with me anyway,
• 36:45
  Speaker 12: and I went, I went four times, it never happened
• 36:48
  Speaker 12: to me.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: So the ladies that that did talk about these sorts
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: of serious crimes, the court simply didn't engage with them.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: The prosecution didn't engage with them because it would have
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: brought them, it would have also brought them into court.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: This is something that I don't understand why when there
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: were other witnesses he were talking about even more serious
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: things taking place, the prosecution didn't even bring bring those
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: cases into court. Do you know why that was?
• 37:28
  Speaker 12: I think on the ones that had I think are
• 37:30
  Speaker 12: the ones that had sexual allegations, then they should all
• 37:33
  Speaker 12: get together and see if they can bring it further,
• 37:37
  Speaker 12: because only them it can speak for themselves.
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: We can do that because it never happened to us.
• 37:42
  Speaker 12: But the ones that did happen to they only need
• 37:44
  Speaker 12: to get together and fight this and get Hoard brought
• 37:47
  Speaker 12: back to court.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: And do you do you think it's the case that
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the women who suffered that type of abuse, the impression
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: I get is that they're not working together. Do you
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: think that might be because their recollections are so painful
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: they simply can't work as a team. They can't talk
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: about it, even with other survivors from FINETHI it's not
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: even just that they don't speak.
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: It'speacause it's whether you're going to get believed. That's the thing.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: Whether they're going to get believed what happened to them.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: You know, it's.
• 38:29
  Speaker 12: More people need to speak it. More people need to
• 38:32
  Speaker 12: speak it. I mean, there's more people have came forward
• 38:36
  Speaker 12: even when the trial was just women. I mean exactly personally.
• 38:40
  Speaker 12: Know somebody else has gave evidence to the child of
• 38:43
  Speaker 12: his inquiry and they've been asking they pass it on
• 38:46
  Speaker 12: to the police for them.
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: They said yes, So I know, Well, is that more
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: charges going to get brought to her?
• 38:54
  Speaker 12: That's what I would love to know, because there's still
• 38:56
  Speaker 12: interviewing people, they're still take their statements that person on
• 39:00
  Speaker 12: the police.
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: So as a question for ailing.
• 39:08
  Speaker 13: And the other.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: The other point for me is that evidence that comes
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: forward inevitably because of the time that's gone past and
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: the fact that many, well the bulk of the members
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: of staff from Finehi have died. They're not around anymore.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: But even bringing in the bringing in the evidence from
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: the from the memories and whatever other documentation there is
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: of these other serious crimes. There have been cases in
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: the past, i'm sure where where a crime has been
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: committed but the court has had to say, we recognize
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the crime, we recognize the severity of the crime, but
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the persons who perpetrated the crime have not been recognized
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: or not been caught, not not being not been apprehended,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: so they're not here in the court today. But nevertheless,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the fact that the crimes are brought into court means
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: that they are actually recognized, and they're brought to light
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: publicly in the media, the wider public gets to understand them.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Come back to this thing that to me, it seems
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: that that all that was allowed to come through the
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: court was for you, a very cruel and unpleasant period.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: But it was one part of what went on and
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the rest of it was kept out of court. I'm
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: not sure I've explained that very well, but that that's
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: what I sense from being on the outside looking in.
• 40:48
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I feel that this should have another There's another
• 40:50
  Speaker 12: two hundred odd women out there who want you up
• 40:53
  Speaker 12: on moph and see stuff, and they're not getting the
• 40:55
  Speaker 12: chance to be heard. I don't think it straight. And
• 40:57
  Speaker 12: as a single person that went through their doors experienced
• 41:01
  Speaker 12: the we experience, I've got the rate to speak it.
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: And I'm not getting that in my parade.
• 41:09
  Speaker 12: An't going to Hollywood, and it's not getting any any
• 41:14
  Speaker 12: justice near there, and it's not fair.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: And what is the situation at the moment with numbers
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: of women? You will suggest, well, I'm picking up the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: more women are still coming forward into the group at
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: least and making themselves known. How many women are we
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: dealing with now?
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, if we do the just the basic maths,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: we can say that we can estimate around ten thousand,
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: around ten thousand girls would have been there.
• 41:48
  Speaker 12: Between sexteen seventy, No, between sixteen seventy, between sixteen seventy
• 41:55
  Speaker 12: thousand over thirty years two those four hundred through the
• 42:00
  Speaker 12: doors a year over thirty years seventy.
• 42:05
  Speaker 10: I think the problem is as well, that time has
• 42:08
  Speaker 10: gone by as well, And a lot of women can't
• 42:10
  Speaker 10: can't actually name their perpetrator or maybe even identify them
• 42:16
  Speaker 10: now because time's gone by, and that makes it more difficult.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of them have passed away as well.
• 42:22
  Speaker 12: Yeah, there's people that gave us, gave them evidence and
• 42:29
  Speaker 12: have passed away before they even got to trial.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's credible that all this happened over
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: thirty years and that I'm putting words in your mouth?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I've started this way, so I'll finish it. Do you
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: think it's credible that the abuse went on over all
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: that time and nobody within the authority, so Glasgow's City
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Council or the educational authority, nobody knew what was happening.
• 43:03
  Speaker 12: Nobody came in shirt Tony when you were there so
• 43:07
  Speaker 12: you could There's neverdy you could run and turned to
• 43:10
  Speaker 12: help me.
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: There was nobody you could run it to help you.
• 43:13
  Speaker 12: And if you didn't want to, any member of staff
• 43:15
  Speaker 12: or did you fell on deaf years because they were
• 43:18
  Speaker 12: all exact same, The whole lot of them done exact
• 43:21
  Speaker 12: same punishment.
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: See, for the thirty years at that place was running,
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: There's nobody going to tell me that there had to
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: have been parents of children that went home and the
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: parents have went and made a complaint. There's got to
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: have been I they couldn't get away of that sore
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: the people?
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Where is where is all that?
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: Where are they all the complaints? Because I don't believe
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: there wasn't any complaints about it, that all the swept
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: under the carpet as well.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Extremely good point because if you've given that figure of
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: two thousand, four hundred roughly girls per year over the
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: time frame, it does seem impossible that no girl went
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: back and complained to the parents and there was not
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: a single parent who was prepared to stand up and
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: make her complaint or challenge the system. To me that
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: that's that cannot be true.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: It was sorry, sorry if I'm bat member, there actually
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: was one of the person, Robertson. Robertson another member of
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: staff put them back to glass but to get the
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: parents and then to get a lot off a bus.
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: She told her dad and our dad challenged Robertson.
• 44:46
  Speaker 7: About and.
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: Obviously I don't know of him and was done.
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: But that was brought up and court.
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: And Robertson denied that she has spoken to the girl dad.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: But she admitted that she was on that bus. Mhm right,
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: she wasn't supposed to be on the bus. Another woman,
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: another member of staff.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: I.
• 45:18
  Speaker 7: To go dancing.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: I know that as well Peril Fletcher.
• 45:23
  Speaker 12: She was interviewed before she died, and yet none of
• 45:26
  Speaker 12: that statement was read in the court because I would
• 45:30
  Speaker 12: have loved to have heard what she I would have loved.
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: To have heard what she had to say when she
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: was being questioned.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Do you do you know anything that was in that statement?
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: No, none of us do. None of us do? Oh
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: we know is she was interviewed, but nothing is ever
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: mentioned any about it.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: So this comes back to the feeling that there was
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: very strong manipulation around how the cot the Vanethi coat
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: case was brought together and framed before it came into court,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: very selective in the way people were chosen. Absolutely, my
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: feeling as an observer is that a cover up has
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: taken place, and I spoke to Diane very early on
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: and said that that my feeling was that the case
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: was being very carefully managed so that there was a result.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: There was a cork well, there was a court case
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: and one of the people was found guilty, but then
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: gets a very light sentence and therefore for the public, well,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: something took place and one nasty woman did some horrible
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: things and she got probation, and then they're waiting for
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: time to us dissolve all the rest of the memories,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: when in fact what should have come into court was
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: the huge scale of what had taken place. And if
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: we are I know you might react to this, but
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: if we are fair to Patricia Baxter, it should have
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: it should have been clearly stated that she was one,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: just one person in this huge abuse system where all sorts,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: all sorts of other people were involved, the staff members,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: but also the authorities which had not only set up
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: for Nethi, but they permitted these abuses to happen. All
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: of that seemed to me to.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: Be washed out of the trial, and it seems to
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: me that what they've done is use the so called
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: justice system to prevent justice.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's yeah, And you've.
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: Only seen a fraction and heard a fraction of what
• 48:07
  Speaker 6: actually was going in that place.
• 48:10
  Speaker 7: They should have.
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: The wider picture replaced to gay people, more understanding of
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: where it was like, including all the other teachers and whatnot,
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: because it was the vision, that's what it was.
• 48:28
  Speaker 12: They all came for the same area. All the staff,
• 48:34
  Speaker 12: they all knew each other and they were and that's
• 48:37
  Speaker 12: how they get the job with Perl.
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: Fletcher gave them all the job.
• 48:41
  Speaker 12: So they all went and exactly what she wrote them,
• 48:44
  Speaker 12: followed the exact same rules, exact same punishment.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: There was none of them one was better than the other.
• 48:51
  Speaker 12: You couldn't have said, oh, she was a kind of one,
• 48:53
  Speaker 12: she was a kind one, because it wasn't the kind
• 48:55
  Speaker 12: in any of them.
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: No.
• 48:57
  Speaker 10: I think the teachers who stood that stand and told
• 49:02
  Speaker 10: everyone they saw nothing.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Nothing happened like that. No, I didn't see children crying.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: They should all be brought back.
• 49:09
  Speaker 7: For heads in shame.
• 49:13
  Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, definitely to protect because they're protected. They're protecting
• 49:19
  Speaker 10: a child abuser and their child abusers as well, and
• 49:22
  Speaker 10: they protect us and the enablers understand.
• 49:26
  Speaker 12: Yeah, well they should be brought to child they should
• 49:29
  Speaker 12: we get yes, yes, yeah, definitely, Thank you.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: Very much for that. I think I think we're getting
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: near to the end, and it's been really interesting hearing
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: what you have to say. Where would you The media
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: hasn't given you a lot of coverage on what's actually happening.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: It certainly hasn't given a lot of coverage of of
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: how you've all felt about things. What would you like
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: to see the UK column do for you? What can
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: we do to help where you are and where you
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: want to be in twenty twenty six?
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: Me personally, I would love for the appeal to go through.
• 50:21
  Speaker 12: In fact, we brought back to car And even if
• 50:24
  Speaker 12: it's because she's a year on a tag, so how
• 50:26
  Speaker 12: can you show the I year's prison sentence and then
• 50:29
  Speaker 12: she can be at ob privation, but at least get
• 50:32
  Speaker 12: something because it's to prison.
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: I'll get a wee bit of a feeling acknowledgement to
• 50:37
  Speaker 5: what we went through, because that's what it was like.
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: It was like being in prison.
• 50:41
  Speaker 10: And when she hears that cell door shutting, it's like
• 50:44
  Speaker 10: that door shutting as when we went into Fineffe. Everything
• 50:47
  Speaker 10: changed the minute we went on that door. Everything changed at.
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: The fair changed. She needs to feel that, she needs
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: to feel afraid like we felt. Yeah, And what's going
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: to happen next that unknown? What's going to happen next,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: what's going to happen next to us? Wayne? What's going
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: to happen to me?
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: Is she ever going to see her family again? Because
• 51:06
  Speaker 6: that's the way I felt when I was in Yes,
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: definitely you were going.
• 51:12
  Speaker 10: To get six months is a long long time for
• 51:16
  Speaker 10: a child, A long time for a child to be
• 51:18
  Speaker 10: away for its parents. So and she'll be away for
• 51:22
  Speaker 10: her husband and her family if she's in jail. Even
• 51:26
  Speaker 10: if Rona said a year, six months, whatever, just to
• 51:31
  Speaker 10: do that time she needs.
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: It, I'll have forget no, but I'll give her it.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: I'll give you some comfort.
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: It would, but it will still affect us through my
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: life no matter what. But having that weadit, knowledge that
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: she is going through a wee bity what we had
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: to go through, would bring me a lot of comfort.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And what about a final message for the the Scottish
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: government and the establishment, because ultimately they have been in
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: control of what has taken place. They've been in control
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: of the police investigation, they've been in control of the
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: way the abuse of support organizations have and have not
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: engaged with you. What what would your message to the
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Scottish Parliament be.
• 52:27
  Speaker 7: I don't tru I don't trust.
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: I don't trust the Scottish government one iota. They see
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: they sit and say they'll do that, will do that,
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: and nothing ever comes it. It's just words it's words,
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: two shot eyes up and get us out the door.
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: I just don't trust them. They're a waste of space.
• 52:48
  Speaker 12: Well I've heard them when a lot of women went
• 52:50
  Speaker 12: to Parliament. A lot of the MPs too, don't walk it.
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: I mean it could have sat there, let them, but
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: then they walked to it.
• 53:03
  Speaker 7: That was at the debate.
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: I was there and the whole chamber emptied.
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: I watched that floor debate that was I believe that
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: was in June this year, when they worked so hard
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: to get it to the floor debate with Colin Smith
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: and the others of the Petitions Committee, and it was
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: really shocking because well for a lot of reasons, but
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: the Petition's Committee was unanimously an agreement that this needed
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: to go forward to the floor and they all supported you,
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: which is unheard of. And then they got it, and
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: then it was I wasn't there, but I was watching
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: it online as it was happening, and you could see
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: before that it was quite full with all the MSPs there,
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: or most of them, and then when it came to
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: your item on the agenda, it emptied out and there
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: were may be what ten ten of them maybe?
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the only one the only one at that day
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: that debate that our Shinny's praises were is Fergish ewing.
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: He was so passionate and his speech and what he said.
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: He's the only one that I can praise regarding the
• 54:11
  Speaker 6: Scottish government.
• 54:14
  Speaker 12: Oh well, I heard as well john S when he
• 54:16
  Speaker 12: was off for it, when he was before he was
• 54:19
  Speaker 12: a prime when he was a parliament prime minister.
• 54:22
  Speaker 9: Know that he is.
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: Does they want to know anything?
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: But he was off for it for the ladies, they
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: know John Swinny's a waste of space as well.
• 54:31
  Speaker 7: And I'm sorry but that that's just it, that's fact.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: Then learn Now we've got you on a separate channel
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: over here. Then do you have anything to add the
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: end here?
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for the Parliament, do the right thing, do the
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: right thing, don't we the way it should be dealt with,
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: And stop trying to shut everybody up, because we're not
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: going to go away, you know, I mean the murders
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: they shut the murdors will break down.
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: We won't.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: I'm not going away.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not going anywhere.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: We'll be in it to the end. Oh, it's just
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: a big, massive cover up.
• 55:10
  Speaker 13: Well, I definitely, unfortunately at the end here, But I
• 55:15
  Speaker 13: guess i'd just like to say that, and I've said
• 55:18
  Speaker 13: this before that UK Colin will be here for as
• 55:22
  Speaker 13: long as you need us to continue to help you
• 55:25
  Speaker 13: with your with what we can do with research, reporting,
• 55:28
  Speaker 13: with everything.
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: It's it's been an honor to do so up to
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: this point, and we won't be going anywhere if you don't.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: It's just true.
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: That so much.
• 55:39
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much, thank you very much, thank.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: You so much.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: We'd also like to talk with Kelly Fox. Kelly was
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: part of the trial as she she attended both the
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: sentencing as well as the day that I attended the
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: witness testimonies up in the High Court in Glasgow. So, Kelly,
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: I guess if you wanted to start with something that
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: we've heard from the other women, is the difference between
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: what happened when you received the eighteen guilty verdicts versus
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: the way that it felt when we heard the sentence.
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: So I'd like to hear from you just a little
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: bit about your thoughts about the two different outcomes in
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: the two different days.
• 56:23
  Speaker 7: While we were related absolutely delighted that the Jerry had
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: listened and had heard us. I myself, I can almos
• 56:32
  Speaker 7: speak for myself, but I felt really disappointed in the
• 56:34
  Speaker 7: not Province because those girls have been through pretty much
• 56:38
  Speaker 7: the same as what we've been through, and there just
• 56:40
  Speaker 7: wasn't an afferdance. I don't know what the class is evidence,
• 56:44
  Speaker 7: but I think it was. It must have been errific
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: for them. I've only spoken to the girls at the
• 56:49
  Speaker 7: core and I at sentence, and I haven't spoken to
• 56:53
  Speaker 7: an outside, so I don't know where they're at with that.
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: But so when they when the guilties came back, it
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: was like, to be honest, I was scared to breathe.
• 57:05
  Speaker 7: I was like, really, oh my god, that's amazing, that
• 57:08
  Speaker 7: is amazing, that is amazing. And then I felt as
• 57:11
  Speaker 7: if I had felt once before the guilty came back.
• 57:15
  Speaker 7: I felt there was a paradigm shift after it came back.
• 57:18
  Speaker 7: With a judge, I felt as so initially it was
• 57:21
  Speaker 7: very impartial, but when the verdict came back, I really
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: felt as though he was on our side. And then
• 57:28
  Speaker 7: when he said, so we found a thousand pounds each.
• 57:34
  Speaker 7: Can I tell you something, This has never been a
• 57:35
  Speaker 7: bit money. It never will be a bit money. I
• 57:37
  Speaker 7: have the needed multi charity. I'm not none of us
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: have ever been in this for the money. When you
• 57:43
  Speaker 7: count up the amount of money that we spent on
• 57:45
  Speaker 7: coaches to Edinburgh, who these t shirts, banners, trying to
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: get our plight out there, and to be for it
• 57:55
  Speaker 7: to be put to us that our suffering was worth
• 57:58
  Speaker 7: a thousand pounds. It was just an absent and so
• 58:01
  Speaker 7: and when he said that she wasn't actually getting any
• 58:03
  Speaker 7: custodial time, I think we left that court. I mean,
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: you might have noticed it was a very lack of
• 58:09
  Speaker 7: noise apart from a few of us saying that's unbelievable.
• 58:13
  Speaker 7: We actually can't believe that. I think everybody was in shock.
• 58:17
  Speaker 7: And then we get outside and I don't think it
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: hit us really, because how can you. I mean, I've
• 58:24
  Speaker 7: got two grown boys, and if I'd have been up
• 58:27
  Speaker 7: on a charge of assaulting them abusive behavior towards them
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: one time, never mind eighteen different occasions, I'm quite sure
• 58:37
  Speaker 7: I would a custodial and it shouldn't have mattered a
• 58:40
  Speaker 7: jot a rage because she never took an account outage.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: So I would say, thinking about the sentencing day, it
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: was I felt just the shock of it, right, like
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: everyone was just saying how shocked all of us were
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: when it came back. One thing I noticed as well,
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: when you mentioned how everyone was quiet, it reminded me
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: of when I was there with the one day in
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: court for the witnesses and the one police police who
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: was standing around watching every movement we made. But then
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: on the day of the sentencing there were I don't know,
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: maybe five police or something in the room. It was
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: it was like a lot of police.
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: And then they expected there to be an outcry. I
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: really think they expected us to explode, and I'm really
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: proud of them that they held their own and you know,
• 59:28
  Speaker 7: we've done it with dignity, and we weren't happy whenever
• 59:32
  Speaker 7: got and I just hope, I really hope that it
• 59:34
  Speaker 7: was going to be an appeal because that as much
• 59:37
  Speaker 7: as getting aunty court was justice, what was served in
• 59:39
  Speaker 7: court was not justice. It really wasn't.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Kelly, how do you how do you feel looking back
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: now to the the start from when you first got
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: got involved with other Finessey women and then how many
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: for you six years a so six years ago you
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: started to get involved with other Vanehi women and they
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: were working really hard to get the truth out and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: to get the wheels of justice moving. How do you
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: now feel about that whole journey, from the time that
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: you went from probably being very much on your own
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: to getting alongside some of the other women, and then
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: you're fighting as you and as you're saying, you're you're
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: campaigning and you're getting banners done. How do you now
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: feel about all of that journey.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 7: Well, there's a lot of water gone under that bridge,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 7: and there's very many different groups of For survivors, I
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 7: am very much a voice on myself. I don't speak
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 7: for anybody else. I don't and if they asked me
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 7: to speak for them, then I'll make it clear that
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 7: I am speaking on their behalf. But I think, you know,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 7: I always believe they were stronger together. But what you
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 7: have to say accounts a lot of big personalities, a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 7: lot of damaged personalities, a lot of angry you know,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: women that are looking to get their pound of flesh.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 7: And I've totally get that, I completely utterly understand it.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 7: And never at any point have we ever ever ever
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: let ourselves down verbally physically. I mean, we've we've been
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 7: overcome me emotion a lot of the time, but we've
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 7: tried to use our pain and are suffering to our
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 7: advantage and try and get it out there and get
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 7: people behind us. And I think six years ago when
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 7: this first was my cousin that phoned me, actually, Carol,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 7: and said to me heart for anything, And I was
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 7: like yeah, and she says, how was it for you?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 7: And I was like, oh, you don't want to wiping
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 7: and I kind of learn she went not really do
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 7: you know? So I told her and she was like, right, listen,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 7: I've this this group if you want to join it.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: And I was like, well, I don't really know. But
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 7: at the time my mum was well, I just have
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 7: to say, my mom's ninety four and she's been diagnosed
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 7: with Alzheimer's, so a lot of my time is spent
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 7: with my mum. But back then she was perfectly fine,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 7: living on her own, standing out until she was ninety,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: so I had time to do this. But I always
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 7: very much kept in the background because I hadn't discussed
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 7: this with my mom and I didn't want her to
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 7: feel like how Hollywood and how her lawyer was trying
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 7: to make us feel like it was the parents' responsibility.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 7: It was therefore, and yeah, they might have signed a
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 7: form to send us to Finity. But then I never
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 7: signed a form for us to be abused, and I've
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 7: tried to hide this, and I also hadn't told my children.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 7: It took me twenty years to tell my husband. But
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 7: then I sat down with my husband and told the boys,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 7: and they were like, Mom, don't hide, don't hide at
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 7: the back, go straight to the front and let them
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 7: hear your voice. And so as my mum became more unwell,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 7: obviously there's more time spent up there and less time
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 7: spent in Finity, but I still made time to go
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 7: to the protests and go to Holyrood and make myself
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 7: known among the MPs and just trying to I mean,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 7: apparently once you make me, don't forget me. But I
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 7: am very tall. I take up a lot of room,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 7: you know. I'm five ft eleven and a half, you know,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 7: and I'm not a wee, quiet, shrinking violet. So I think,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 7: you know, I do kind of stand out a bit
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 7: from the crowd, and I hope to use that in
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 7: my advantage, not an intimidating way, but if you can
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: be intimidated by somebody else, that's more a you problem.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: And it is me because I've never been intimidated since
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 7: I left for Ethie, I have to add, but I
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 7: think the journey's been it's been very much peaks and troughs.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 7: I think there have been people that I've met in
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 7: for Ethie that I'll be in my life for the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 7: rest of my life. And there are people in for
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 7: Ethie that were in for ne Eti that I would
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 7: avoid with a loaded gun because I wouldn't be trusted.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 7: So we can just you know, it's been a very
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 7: emotional journey. And then for that outcome, it's a Slatin teeth.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 7: How is that supposed to encourage? The whole thing about
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 7: doing this was to get justice for us, but also
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 7: for every other person out there that had been gagged.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 7: And I felt, like you said, Diane, in the court,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 7: we were very much gagged. It was we weren't allowed
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 7: to comfort each other. We were allowed to I mean,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 7: I remember at one point one of the girls was
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 7: holding my hand and when we committal, God killing really
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 7: crushed my finger bones and I was like, sorry, I
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 7: didn't even realize I was holding non so tight. But
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: you know, we feel like we've been gagged again because
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 7: what's going to happen now we've been told we very
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 7: careful you speak about and blah blah blah. If this
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 7: is going to go to your peel, we kind of
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 7: fake kind of chance that she's going to get off
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 7: on a technicality because we've spoike got something outside the court.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 7: But I'm only speaking about things that are already out
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 7: there in the press.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: Anyway.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Do you think the Scottish government has done what it
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: needed to do?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 7: No, absolutely not. I think I mean the SMP John Swinny,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: he didn't even he spoke to us, he gave us
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 7: an audience. I have notes from that meeting where he
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 7: promised us that the women that were asking for redress right.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 7: I've never been interested in the dress because it's a
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 7: gag and order. I'm interested in being gagged right. I
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 7: think if people want to work through their trauma by
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 7: talking about it, that should be their right and their privilege.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 7: And if us talking about our trauma encourages other people
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 7: to come forward, and that can only be a good thing.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 7: But how is that going to encourage anybody to come
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: forward whenever they see what the outcome six years of
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 7: fight and stand in the rain, the snow being you know,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 7: like we've had done sults thrown it is and blah
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 7: blah blah, and you know we've just had to turn
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: a blind ear. But at the end of the day,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 7: how would that encourage other people to fight? We've been
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 7: fighting for six years as a group, not just one person,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 7: as a group to get this into the you know,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 7: the open. And this is where we are heard that
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 7: she'll still sit at Christmas table. I mean she might
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 7: be winch a pile that of down because she's been
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 7: fined and effect eighteen thousand pounds. I've already I've already
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 7: promised that money to a charity because to meet's blood money,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 7: don't want it. And if ever was any money coming
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 7: from the horrific things that happened, and for Nessie, I
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 7: want no part of it. The thing about it was
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 7: right her lawyer made out we were in this for money.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: I'm quite sure that they've done a background check on
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 7: all of us, right, And I'm not being facetious when
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 7: I say I don't need her money. I don't need
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 7: her money if I can pay my bills and have
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 7: a wee bit left over a nice bottle of wine,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 7: and I'm happy about that. So this has never been
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 7: a bit money. I know there are other women who
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 7: have got their own companies who are CEOs. This is
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 7: not about money. But he made it like we might
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 7: have been poor then, but you know I was poor once.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: I've going to like it.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 7: I don't want to do it again, thanks very much.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 7: So I've worked hard and my husband's worked hard. So
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 7: at the end of the day, they don't know our circumstances.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 7: And how do you put a price on trauma. I
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 7: don't understand that. But the very fact that it was
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 7: a thousand pounds, I mean, we have spent more in movies.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 9: Ye.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: The easy point for me to make, Kelly is that
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: across all the older women, it's affected their whole lives
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: from from the age they were when they first went
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: to for Nethy. It's blighted their whole lives up, you know,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: through a full life, and so a thousand pounds is
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: just laughable.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 7: But the thing is effects not just the women's lives.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 7: It affects their husband's lives and their children's lives.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: Listen, if you speak to the women about how they
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 7: brought up their children right. A lot of the time
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 7: when I was sitting with the women, I would just
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 7: listen to what they were saying, right, So they'll be
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 7: talking about what skill trips and things, and I think,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 7: my kid's never done that, and my kids never done that,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 7: and my kids were never allowed to go for sleepovers.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 7: My kids at the sleepovers were always at my house.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 7: I always had the best garden, toys, always had the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 7: biggest tent, always had the best of everything for the kids,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 7: so that they would want to be here and the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 7: kid the mates would be here and I would go
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 7: to the kids' mum's house for a coffee, introduce myself sake,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 7: you're come to my house for a coffee, and you know,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 7: get to know the lay of the land before your
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: child comes and stays at nine overnight. You feel like,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 7: I mean means sixteen at the time, but it doesn't matter.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 7: I'll still your children. So I think there's a common
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 7: denominator with the women that there's a big, big trust issues.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 7: And like I said, there's very many different groups of
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 7: ATTI survivors and the trust is broken, and you know
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 7: quite a few of those groups. And trust is a big,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 7: big thing for a FEE survivor because we went there
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 7: trusting innocent children, babies. I mean, I was five when
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 7: I was there, and then I was there again at
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 7: eleven and to say that, you know, we were going
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 7: on a holiday. That's what we thought, that is what
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 7: we thought. But every bit of trust and vulnerability was
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 7: ripped out of us in for anything. Do you know
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 7: if anything taught me, taught me how to hate myself,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 7: taught me how taught me that I was I wasn't
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 7: worth it. And I can I can sit properly at
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 7: a table, and I can eat my dessert with a
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 7: fork and a spoon. But at the end of the day,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 7: what you don't eat is getting rummed down your throat.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: You're getting force fed. Now, I'm fortunate that I was foresaid,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 7: but I wasn't forestreading.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: All the vomit.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 7: But just because it never happened to you, you're sitting
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 7: watching it. So you know, if you don't eat, if
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 7: you don't eat your dinner and finish it, this is
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 7: what's going to happen to you. So trust is a big,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 7: big thing among the women, and they find it very
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: very difficult to trust. And when you do trust some
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 7: day and to let you down, that's an even bigger
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 7: slap in the face. And that's why the reactions are
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 7: so so strong and are so heartfelt because you're like,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 7: I actually can't believe that trusted you. I believed in
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 7: you and you've let me down. You've done it. That's
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 7: happened again.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Kelly, what what about the future? What about
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: into twenty twenty six? Obviously there's the appeal, which which
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: isn't fact at the moment. That's something that's being considered.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: What's your feelings on that appeal and what it might achieve?
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 7: Well, as I said, I think it's an absolute travesty
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 7: of justice. She'll be sitting at a Christmas table like
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 7: every other year that she's sat that she's stolen from us.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 7: Really an effect and I'm not that bitter and angry.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 7: I'm better, not better. But what I will say is
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 7: that even one day jail time too, people tell her
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 7: when she wrote to bed, when she'll got up, what
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 7: she'll eat, how she eated, blah blah blah, and to
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 7: living fear. See every single time that door opens, that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 7: she should have a wee bit of fear, and she'll
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 7: maybe have a wee percent knowing how we felt. But
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 7: the thing about it is that woman has nor Moss
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: absolutely not an answer of marsh and I ever answered
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 7: any of the police questions. When she spoke to the judge.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: The judge spoke to her and said, if she'll norms,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 7: absolutely not. I mean when she took the stand, oh
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 7: my god, brought me over with a feather. You could
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 7: have knocked me over with feather. And actually thought half
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 7: of the women met abou up and left because it
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 7: was so triggering. So we can only see the back
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 7: of her head, but see when she turned around and
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 7: then she started speaking. Then she's getting angry.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 7: It was like, there you are. Now, that's that's Robertson.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 7: Now this we all life here. It's oh, it's a
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 7: wee shame. Now she's getting angry and that you can
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 7: it was so triggering because we recognized.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: That right away.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 7: But for next year, hopefully there's going to be an appeal.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: If it's in to do with us, there will be
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 7: because we'll just I don't know how much how many
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 7: more protests of him and I've got in to be fair,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 7: I mean, what you need to remember is the age
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 7: of the women, you know. I mean, I'm going to
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 7: guess that the youngest I'm going to say is maybe
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 7: fifty and the oldest probably near laated. That's not that's
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 7: not counting the moon we've lost along the way, be
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 7: it suicide or ill health or whatever. So I don't
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 7: really know grinds the honest answer. I'd like to think
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 7: they would keep on fighting and we will keep on fighting,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 7: but we may we may do it in a different way.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: And we just add to that Kelly that UK Colin
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: will be here for you all if if your intention
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: is to keep fighting, we will be here with you.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: And we are still absolutely convinced that exposure of what's
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: actually taking place and of course all the comments from
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: the ladies about what is what happened in the court
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: and how they feel, none of this is being pushed
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: out by any other media streams. So UK Callum is
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: going to be absolutely with you to make as big
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: a noise as possible.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, the thing is, we're all just a
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 7: small fish and a big pond. But you know, if
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 7: I always believed if we all came together and made
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 7: a collective noise, then it's harder for them to pooh poohs.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 7: And you know, and I think any exposure is good exposure.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 7: But I just feel when she was being followed outside
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 7: the court, and have you get anything to say by
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 7: the press, And I mean if she gets spat in
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 7: her eyes, would have done. And I thought contentious, old,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 7: well that Bay, that's a polite worker. But no, absolutely,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 7: no compassion. No, And I think that was the thing.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 7: One of the other girls who wasn't even a witness
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 7: in the case, she was a fanatic girl, but Robertson
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 7: wasn't her. Well, see, this is what's very complicated because
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 7: there's a few of the girls who Robertson was her abuser,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 7: but they couldn't remember our name. So they went to
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 7: the police. They gave their statement and they said what's
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 7: her name is? She said, I don't remember, but if
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 7: you show me pictures, I'll be able to pick her out.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 7: And they never took their statements, so they running witnesses
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 7: even although the minute they sort of when you were
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 7: right away. So that needs looking, isn't it. I mean surely,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 7: I mean they didn't. What would Jimmy Saville, I mean,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 7: he wasn't charged until after he was dead. So what
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 7: about the other perpetrators that the other teachers in the school.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a very very good point, Kelly, very
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: good point.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Nillie Bremner and Pearl Fletcher in particular
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: need to be Yeah, I know Fletcher received was it
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: some sort of award after and and so we're you know,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: we were looking into can that be taken away? Can
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: we take that back from her after she's been passed
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: away because she obviously doesn't deserve anything.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that was for work with children.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. She was the head teacher for most
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: of the both times I was.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 7: There, and it was very much a network of abusers.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 7: It wasn't just one person. I mean, and that was
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 7: in one of the the interviews. Was it just well watching? No,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 7: absolutely not, but yeah, I think it was very much
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 7: highlighted that you know, if you knew somebody that worked
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 7: in there, you could very much get a job. And
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 7: why don't come work and do six weeks? And I
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 7: mean she was why don't you come in and work
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 7: because somebody coudn't turn up, So come and do a
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 7: night shift. There's nothing watching her what she's doing overnight,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 7: No things like pbg's back then, you know, So it
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 7: wasn't what you know knew, it was who you knew well.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 3: And I think that that network is one of the
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: parts of the cover up. If we look at what
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: the mainstream media has done with the story, because they're
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: all saying it was just this one evil woman, which
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: is what I was saying to some of the other women,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: and it was one evil woman, when we know it
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: was an entire system, and those teachers, including Fletcher and
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: Robertson and Bremda and all of them would have been
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: responsible for, you know, the milk and biscuits at night.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: Somebody had to give them the milk and biscuits to
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: drug them up and take them off to the parties.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 8: I mean that.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: And these are the things where I think if they're saying, well,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: there was this one evil woman, then there's you know,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: it's sort of like, well, okay, there was one evil woman,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: but no, it was actually an entire, entire council, ultimate
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: really all of it.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 7: Diana Sarey's one evil woman. I can understand why people
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 7: would fail to believe that US could come. Yeah, was
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 7: where were all the other teachers when US was going on?
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 5: Exact and so.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 7: Fact it was it was all of them. Well, t
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 7: be fair, I'll only remember Fletcher and Robertson, but alan
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 7: remember fletcher On, Robson because that's who was bad to
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 7: me and KEP George. I mean a very little spoken
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 7: about KP George.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was mentioning the keeper yesterday.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah, but that's almost few people I remember. I'm funny,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 7: I think. Now you tell me in any situation, little
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 7: girls all get together. Now, you go to a school,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 7: you start a new schooling. On the first day, you
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 7: make a friend and you probably stay friends with that
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 7: person right through school. We were there for six weeks.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 7: I could not tell you, and I was there twice
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 7: for six weeks. I could not tell you the name
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 7: of another child. It was there because we were actively discouraged.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 7: Even the domestics of kitchen staff. We weren't really to
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 7: speak to anybody. It was like it was like an army.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 7: But I've never been in the army, but I think
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 7: probably was worse because at least in the army you
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 7: probably get downtown, but in Fornetti you can roll downtown everything,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 7: even like when you're out to play in the playground.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 7: Nobody spoke to each other because it was ingrained in
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 7: you from the see the minute that that manibus came
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 7: in and the doors opened, it was there was again
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 7: like a paradim shift. It was a different It was
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 7: like walking in a different environment altogether. I mean there
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 7: was structure in my house.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: I haven't heard this before, Killy, and is very interesting.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: Hearing you saying that, my brain is saying, yes, you
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: you discourage you frighten the children to such an extent
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: and discourage them from speaking to each other because they
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: stopped them corroborating stories, and it stops us.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 7: Comfort each other. We had no comfort. Yeah, you know,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 7: everything was more strict of everything.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: When we went there.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 7: Now, my mum was a dress designer. The last thing
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 7: I needed was clothing. My mother made clothes for the
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 7: whole of the West End, you know, so we had
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 7: loads of clothing. And hear her stand up and court
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 7: to say, oh yeah, we had to dress them and no,
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 7: excuse me, no you never And I mean I had
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 7: Clark shoes on my feet as much as they were
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 7: ugly and they were horrible. That was all my mom
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 7: had to pay for those shoes. Because you could make
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 7: her clothes or euse she had to buy the traffic,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 7: but she could make her clothes. But she only had
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 7: to pay a lot of money for shoes, so she
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 7: could afford to do that.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: But you know, they never.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 7: And I was certainly never a wife. I mean that
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 7: I'm the tallest of all the girls, but we're all
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 7: five and a half six footers. So we had a
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 7: good diet and so much so if at over making
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 7: the food, because my mum was a terrible cook, and
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 7: she used to say, whoever makes a dinner all week,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 7: I'll make a weekend or a dress or whatever you wanted.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 7: So we'd fight over making the dinner. But there was always,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 7: you know, whenever went to for NESTI because they were
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 7: I mean, as a matter of fact, see before you
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 7: went to for net you had to get medical so
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 7: you were weighed, you were checked for health. You stood
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 7: in clinic India Street and your vest and pants and
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 7: you were weighed and measured and so you had to
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 7: be fit to go for Nestie. So how can they
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 7: say it's a respite People went because they were ill.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 7: I'm quite sure there might have been one or two
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 7: or three you know, in there. But if you were
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 7: sick and you were going there for respite, help me
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 7: you understand why five and six mile walk today.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: Well that's the other lie that's been that's been reported
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: in the media, as well as by some of the
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: discussions in the Parliament committees, is that it was ret
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: but our holiday when we know, as you know that,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: I found that it was actually part of the education community,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: Glasgow Corporation, and you were sent there and enrolled in school.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 3: It was a primary school for you for that time.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: So all of these things circulating about it being a
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: holiday or whispered or convalescence and you know, deprivation, all
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: that is absolutely lies and we know that, and that's
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: one thing we need to keep getting out.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 7: I wasn't there in the summer holidays or any holidays.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 7: And when the lawyer asked me and I said, I
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 7: don't know, but I remember when we were going for
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 7: our morning walk that there was due on the grass.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 7: That could be any time in the year. I don't know.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 7: I know I wasn't there in March because that's my
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 7: first day. I wasn't there. It's a summer holidays, and
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 7: I wasn't there at Christmas time, so but I was
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 7: there for six weeks each time, but there was I mean,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 7: one of their girls spoke about a party the night
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 7: before she left, and I was like, no, we never
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 7: get a party. See the thing about it is. See
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 7: when you go there, right, well, when I went there,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 7: my experience saw it is although I was there when
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 7: I was five, and I was there again when I
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 7: was eleven, it was like a brand new time each time,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 7: because it was I was in that whole different It
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 7: was a whole different body, a whole different mindset, you know.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 7: But when you go there, I mean it's the psychological
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 7: abuse as much as the physical abuse. When they say
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 7: if you don't behave you've never got home. Yeh, Then
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 7: there's no talker getting home. And then you start then
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 7: the all your clothes are get your name on them,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 7: or your mum's done that before you go, and then
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 7: you start to think this is it. And then I
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 7: remember the second time I went, I thought, I know
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 7: what happens here. I know what happens here. I know
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 7: why they're so terribly cool because you stay here until
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 7: you get to teach us age and then you become
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 7: a teacher. Yeah, there's no escape. And I remember saying
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 7: it like one of the girls, this is it. This
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 7: is where we are now, this is our life. We
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 7: better just make the rest of it and cry and
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 7: every night. And we used to play things like where's
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 7: your mama gone? And we don't be sitting crying and
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 7: there be sitting laughing at us. Just absolute cruel to that.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 7: You'd never your kidney make up. You actually could not
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 7: make it up. It's like understanding their attraction children. You'll
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 7: never understand that, why you're a pedical And it's the
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 7: same way child abusers.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: Kelly, to me, what has been done is that the
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: whole investigation has been very carefully orchestrated, choreographed, very light touch.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: The police eventually did a little bit of investigating, but
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: not too much. And then eventually there's one lady that
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: they can't sort of push into the long grass, so
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: she's the one who's going to be brought forward into
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: the court. They they strip away all of the accusations
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: about more serious offenses, curious sexual offenses, all the implications
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: that serious sexual allegations, that serious sexual offenses did take place,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: those rules stripped away.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 5: Why was that?
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 7: I mean, one of the witnesses brought up in court
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 7: actually sat, I wasn't there, I was awful, but one
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 7: of the witnesses actually sat in the witness box and
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 7: spoke about sexual abuse. And that was one of the
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 7: charges that helped me understand that.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: What I heard was that some of the earlier well
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: some of the women that had the more serious charges
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: were not allowed to testify. So it was sort of
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: like the number was cut in about half of the
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: women who wanted to come in, and those were cut well.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 7: I was in for four hours when I'd done my commission,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 7: and apparently it was an hour in seventeen minutes played
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 7: in the court and it was chopped and slice because
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 7: a couple of girls said to me, kell you, I
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 7: don't know. You said to us that it happened in
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 7: the classroom once she bashed face off with about that's right,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 7: but he said on the tape happened in the dining room.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 7: And I said, but this is the thing that when
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 7: I spoke to the lawyer and her lawyer and he said,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 7: you all discussed it, and I said, no, listen, can
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 7: I tell you I'm about trauma Dunton. I don't know
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 7: any of the girl's story, and they don't know mine.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 7: Might go wee bits of it. When I said that
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 7: she bashed my face off with it, I said, just
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 7: because it happened in the classroom doesn't mean it's not
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 7: out with the remit that could have happened in the
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 7: dining room as well. But she said, the way your
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 7: evidence was cut, it looked like you first of all
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 7: said the classroom and then said the dining room. And
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 7: I said, well, I'm not responsible for how they cut
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 7: my evidence, but there was a lot that I had
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 7: said that wasn't he I mean, I wasn't. Obviously you
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 7: can't to be there when your evidence is given, but
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 7: just having spoken to the girls that because all we've
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 7: done was that a bit in court waiting to be
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 7: go back into the court or you know, but there
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 7: was a lot of stuff and I don't understand why
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 7: the sexual stuff and shoved under the carpet.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the sexual accusations get stripped away and then
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: they run the court case, and that court case translates
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: it all into the fact, well, there was one nasty,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: evil member of staff and that lady carried out cruel
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: and unnatural behavior. We're not talking about sex abuse or cruelty.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: And then the summing up is very hard and then
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: she's given a very light sentence, and then the whole
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: thing is, well, something did happen at for Nephi, And yes,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: an old lady did get a sentence, and now it
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: all goes into the long grass. My personal perception from
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: the outside looking in is that the whole thing, from
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: the initial response from the government and the police, and
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: the investigation and the construction of the court case and
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: the actual procedure of the court case itself, this has
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: all been orchestrated in order to make sure that all
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: of the scale of it thousands and thousands of little girls.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: So the chances are thousands and thousands of little girls
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: got abused, that all that was stripped away, lost in
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: the long grass, and it's just this rather nasty old lady.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 7: And the thing is, are they going to come forward
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 7: now seen what the outcomers? Probably not?
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe, Kelly. That comes down to what story? And
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: I mean that in a positive way, what story now
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: comes to light as a result of everything that's happened,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: including the court case. And I actually think that that
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: what all the women have had to say to us
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: has been very powerful. And I also think that if
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: we are going to produce a written report, which is
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: the plan, that's all going to be very powerful, because
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know that any such thing has ever been
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: done in any other case, Because like you.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 7: Said Brian, I mean they. I mean I only spoke
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 7: to Olie from the Daily Record, not SDB. Sorry. He
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 7: approached me in court and said can I have a
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 7: word afterwards, and I said, I okay. We spoke to
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 7: him first six years ago when we first went to Parliament.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 7: But like that, they have their own questions prepared in advance,
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 7: and you don't know what the questions are going to be,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 7: so and it's very difficult to circumvent there. You know,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 7: their line of investigation if you like. So it's it's
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 7: quite profession to be able to speak really and you know,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 7: I know you've done a bit of work in the
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 7: background and looking into things, and I totally appreciate it
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 7: as to I'm sure the other women, and we do
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 7: need to keep it out there. We really do need
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 7: to keep it out there when it keep digging and
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 7: we need to find out. But hopefully the Loyals, though baby,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 7: play a part in that.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: And I think the agenda for the ladies has got
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: to be to come back refreshed after come back refreshing
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: into the new year and stop giving them a hell.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: That's what I think's got to happen.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: I think they know that we want an appeal anyway,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 3: what if that does happen or what happens out of it?
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 7: Apparently it's a very unusual thing to happen. That's good.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 7: Doesn't mean it's it's not going to happen because it's
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 7: an unusual thing.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 7: Well it's like the peopil's mark in their own homework,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 7: hasn't it?
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly, we.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 7: Don't if we don't make a noise about it and
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 7: say via the lawyers and via the PROPERTI fiscal that
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 7: we do want an appeal. And then I mean they
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 7: must know we're not going to wait now. I mean
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 7: we've been chomping at this for six years. We're not
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 7: going to just put our hands up and say, oh, oh,
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 7: that must be what's going to happen. Then we've been
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 7: told a million times, but we were not listening. We
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 7: were not listening. We're not going away.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: We are not going away, thank you very much.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 7: Yeah, they're very well coming.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Carol White, let's come to you. How did
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: you feel about the sentencing as well as the eighteen
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: guilty and the five not proven? Was it seven not proven?
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 9: I felt it was really upsetting for all the survivors
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 9: that came forward. I know, we've got eighteen guilties and
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 9: that was a good day for justice, but disappointing for
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 9: the other ones that got they're not proven and the
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 9: sentence was disappointing. When the judge had put out the sentence,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 9: I feel that he could have done a lot more
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 9: than what he did, and he changed his tune three
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 9: quarts of the way when he told Missus Robertson that
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 9: she was sadistic, and when he brought out everything in
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 9: the court about all the victims and that and what
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 9: we went through.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: How did you feel about the because I know some
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: of the other ladies have talked about this, how there
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: was such I don't want to say relief, but the
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: feeling of thinking that she was finally going to get justice,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: and you were going to get justice, you know, and
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 3: back in when the when this came out, and then
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: the complete difference of how we felt in December when
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: we were there for the sentencing. Did you how did
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: you find that between the two when she.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 9: Got found guilty, it was it was, it was brilliant.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 9: I was over the moon that we were being listened
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 9: to and everybody that the jury believed us. It was
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 9: under unanimous and then in December when she didn't get
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 9: the sentence and that we expected, it was really really disappointing,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 9: a really upset and day.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 3: It really was. I could feel the energy in the room,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 3: just how it shifted from you know, hearing hearing the
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: judge say, well you did these horrible things, and then
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: now it's just seeing.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 9: I couldn't believe it myself because I had to actually
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 9: round the court room to tell by people reactions in
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 9: their faces. And then it hit me that she wasn't
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 9: getting sentenced, that she was getting probation, and we were
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 9: to get paid one thousand pounds, which was an insultd Hendry,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 9: because it's not about money, it's about getting justice the
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 9: trauma we suffered.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Carol, can I just ask when when did you
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: get involved with the Finefi group? Just roughly? Were you
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: one of the women who was in early on or
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: did you discover them later.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 9: I was involved at the beginning, but I'm not no
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 9: longer in Finefi groups. It started off. It was on
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 9: a forum and I started speaking to a lady in
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 9: twenty seventeen, and then I put it in the back
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 9: of my head and then it came back to me.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 9: I think it was twenty twenty one, met up with
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 9: the Daily Record and if it was STV News and
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 9: asked for survivors to come forward and get the justice
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 9: that they deserve.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: When you look look back at your journey over that
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: from being one of the survivors out there, probably not
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: knowing where the other girls were, you weren't in contact,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: and so you make contact and in twenty seventeen, your
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: journey starts with the other ladies who are trying to
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: do something. When you look back now, following the court case,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: how do you feel about things?
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 8: Was it?
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: Are you still pleased that you did what you did.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 9: Please because it got for an fie out there, and
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 9: then pleased because the police phoned Missus Robertson. I'm upset
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 9: that the other teachers got away with that in the ford,
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 9: but it could still and caught and budgeted themselves. I
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 9: think it was for and that missus Witch had died.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 9: I'm really upset about that because she should have been
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 9: there with Missus Robertson. And I'm happy that we all
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 9: started the journey because she had to be punished for
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 9: what she's done. Is because it's child abuse at the
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 9: end of the day and it can't continue to go on.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 9: It's still going on, and it needs to be nipped
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 9: in the bud now because it's not just about historical
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 9: it's about what's happening in the future and it's causing
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 9: futuristic harm to children now, So being nip it in
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 9: the bud now and get it out there and show
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 9: what's happening, and get the ones in prison that have
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 9: done it historically and show an example that this is
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 9: going to get stopped.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you say that, what comes into my head
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: were some of the closing comments where we asked the
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: We asked the group, which included yourself, but we said,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: you know, how do you feel about the Scottish government's
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: approach to the whole thing? Do you think do you
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: think that the Scottish government has taken this seriously? Do
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: you think they have done enough?
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 9: I don't think they've done enough at all. It's hard
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 9: to do with the Scottish government blim in the state.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 9: They're all blooming each other, and maybe they should just
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 9: open their hands up and have met to the mistakes
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 9: admitted and give us the justice we desire and start
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 9: moving on.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I have never I have never experienced anything like
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: the abuses that the fine ladies have gone through. But
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: on a personal level, my family was affected by a
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: relative who died in a died in the hospital here
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: in Plymouth under very unpleasant circumstances, and it eventually resulted
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: in the first ever jury in quest and NHS jury inquest,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: And at one point in that inquest, the hospital consultant
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: had been put forward by the NH the hospital management
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: to be their spokes manner at the inquest, he got
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: to a point where he got he stood up and
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, I've listened to what's being said,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: and I think the only thing that I can say
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: is we're sorry. And there was a big pause for
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: the family and I'll say that I'll just use the
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: term the family for the family.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: This was the first time there was any concept that
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: the hospital, the NHS organization recognized what it did and
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: actually said we're sorry, and that sorry made a huge difference.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: We didn't take any compensation out of the NHS. We
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: could have done lots of things.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 9: It's something you don't get a lot of as well,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 9: an apology.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: An apology and so I can't possibly grasp what it's
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: been like for the Fanethi women, you all as survivors.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: But in my head I thought, yes, there hasn't really
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: still hasn't really been any recognition and apology from you.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 9: It should be a handwritten apology as well.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so one of the was it. Glasgow's City Council
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: did make an apology, but it was very.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 7: Short and.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: It wasn't very meaningful.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 3: No, it was more like a backsticking exercise.
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 7: Yeah, was it.
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 9: First they were in denial, went they was established and
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 9: didn't exist, but it did exist as soon as you're
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 9: walking the doors of Pernetti, you know, existed. Y was
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 9: ptrued by the It was given down by the courses,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 9: so it was bequeathed absolutely down from Lord Gantana, so
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 9: so on and so on. The was gifted for a
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 9: residential school, so they knew what they were doing. They
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 9: were starting off the regime.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: The moment you say that that that brings us back
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: to the point that because of the scale of the thing,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: the number of girls that little girls that went through
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: the establishment, and the length of time that that took place,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: it is it's simply unconceivable that the authorities had not
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: heard something there hadn't been rumors.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 9: Or that there would have been rumors, and they denied
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 9: it and keep denying it and try to hate it
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 9: and brush it under the camp and the other.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: The other thing I'd like to ask you is that
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: there were a couple of the Finetti women that that
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: said that the whole experience of the process leading to
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: the court case and the court case itself brought back
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: memories that were bringing very bad memories back into their heads.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: Do you flashbacks yet? Do you come away from from
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: the court case. Do you come away feeling that, Okay,
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: you haven't got the result that you wanted, but you
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: have achieved a lot, or have you also come away
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: feeling that it's it's been really hard because it's brought
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: bad memories back.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 9: Feelers has been brought forward, and she's got to go
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 9: in and it's brought all those awful memories back, and
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 9: I feel it down, Yeah, the extent that I'm not
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 9: speaking well at Nate at all. I'm up whole night,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 9: I'm not sleeping, so I'm losing it all my sleep
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 9: over Hulf. Well, I shouldn't be. If she's put away,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 9: i'd probably more settled. So it's unsettled me for sure. Yeah,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 9: because it's brought back all those experiences, because when you
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 9: go back, understand, you end up back at FINETHI because
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 9: you're experiencing it all over again.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: Carol, how many years ago was.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 9: It for you? I think it was forty two, forty three.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 9: It was an eineteen eighty two. I went when I
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 9: was ten going on eleventh. I said, my eleventh body there, right.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: And the reason I ask that is because for people
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: in an audience, people who are going to hear at
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: this interview at some stage, it's always so difficult for
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: people who've never been through any sort of trauma like
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: this to understand what it really means. But here you
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: are saying that something that happened you forty plus years
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: ago is so still so powerful and raw.
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 9: So there, I had blocked it out, but it's come
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 9: back to me now, and now it's not going to way.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 9: It's going to stick there because I'm an adult. When
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 9: I blocked it out, I was a child, because I
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 9: was really to get home to my family. Yeah, because
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 9: that's all I wanted. As soon as I realized what
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 9: holiday it wasn't.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you said eleven or twelve.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 9: I was ten going on eleven.
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 3: Were you was that.
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: Age group about the about the oldest age group of
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: the girls that went through.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 9: It was the oldest ones. And then you had as
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 9: young as five, right, and.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: Even though you were that bit older, you still got
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: the same treatment that the younger girl's got.
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 9: Yeah, it was just awful, plain awful. They just they
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 9: should have not should doesn't care forism. We want the
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 9: dirty children. We made out we were clean. To me,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 9: it was a holiday. So my mum paid for that holiday.
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 9: She sent my money in different things up. We had
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 9: new clothes, we had new this, that and the other.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 9: And they put a penny on us, so we didn't
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 9: wear our clothing.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: Wow, I haven't heard that before.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 9: It was a penny we had. It was their regime,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 9: so it was yeah, they probably thought if they put
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 9: a penny on as it was like us were in
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 9: their uniform. So if any of us attempted to run away.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 14: And I heard about the wellies, the really uncomfortable wellies,
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 14: they didn't fit the wellies. It he went for long, Yeah,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 14: one walked through the through the forest and there yeah,
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 14: wish went to the old legs yeah yeah, blisters.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: So two final questions. You did discover what was happening
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen, and you did start to meet other ladies.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: Have you have you had comfort from being able to
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: meet the other survivors.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 9: Got pretty close to a few ladies. I'm really close
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 9: to one that and you're in twenty seventeen, So it's
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 9: good to make friends and that through FANTI.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're not on your own. You haven't got
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: that feeling being on your own anymore.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 9: Sometimes it can feel pretty isolating, but that's just because
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 9: of our experience there that you feel isolated because you
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 9: were in an isolate an isolated setting in fine if
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 9: you didn't have your family around you and your mum
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 9: was the closest person to you, if you're a girl,
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 9: that makes any sense, and then you wanted your family
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 9: to be there and you couldn't get your family because
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 9: you had them, and then they put things into your
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 9: head that you want loved and you were disgusting and everything.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 9: It was an isolating situation which they got paid for.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: So last question then, Carol, So what what would you
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: hope would come out of this review procedure to re
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: look at.
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 9: It and to pass on a bigger sentence not to
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 9: be Selenian and not think about our age because we
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 9: were only week kids. We didn't deserve that punishment. If
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 9: she didn't commit the claim, she wouldn't we wouldn't be
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 9: expecting time. So she should be going down for this.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 9: And we need we need closure because we're constantly fighting
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 9: for something or something to do with and it's time
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 9: for the ladies to get peace and closure over this
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 9: instead of constantly thinking about Robertson or my life. Need
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 9: to move on.
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my last my last comment is I'm not sure
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: which of you said it, but one of the one
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: of the women said that in her mind for Robertson
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: here the cell door closing, front door shutting, Yeah, was
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: the way the front door shut in for NETI and
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: I thought that was a really really powerful The best.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 9: The other way to describe it as if see when
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 9: you watch a film like and the door slam shut.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 9: It's something like that if you visualize it that way,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 9: And that was our hell as if that door was
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 9: getting shut and they were in control of us from
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 9: that day on to when the door opened, we get
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 9: on the bus and go home, because as soon as
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 9: the bus drove away, my recollection was the girls were
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 9: going yay because we were getting away from right because
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 9: it just wasn't what it was made out to be,
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 9: like this big adventure on the holiday. So it was
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 9: very disappointing.
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really excellent. Is there anything else you'd like
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: to say?
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 9: I just hope pray that does get sentence if they
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 9: do review it. Yeah, and I think that Lord Colwack
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 9: made the mistake and the way he made it, it
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 9: did really look like he was ready to sentence, and
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 9: it was really disappointing to sit and build us up
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 9: with that just to let us down.
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, well brilliant Carol, Thank you very much
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: for doing that.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 9: Maybe there is more survivors out there, and hopefully when
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 9: maybe they'll come forward and they'll reopen another case.
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 5: Who knows.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this is this is one of the the
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: big things I'm sure about is that when there are
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: hundreds of survivors actually speaking, things change. It's it's it's
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: over well when everybody is saying, well, there are hundreds
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: of women out there, but it's when those women get
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: a voice's.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 9: Got to be more than one voice. It's thought.
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hello to the UK column audience. I'm here in
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: UK Column studio two with Diane Rasmussen. This morning we
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: had an absolutely fascinating discussion with a group of the women,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: the survivors from the abuses at for House in Scotland.
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: We've just done a little bit of an extra clip,
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: a little bit of discussion with one of the ladies
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: which will be added back into that. But I'm here
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: in the studio with Diane because we thought that after
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: this morning and the discussions, we would have a little
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: bit of a chat, relaxed chat ourselves about for Nefi,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: what's been done, what we've experienced, what we've learned out
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: of it, a little bit of a summing up on
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: the on the case itself, and also the experience of
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: dealing with mixing enjoying the company of the FINEFI women.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: So here we are welcome to studio too.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 3: Thanks Brian. It's really fun to be here. This is
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 3: the first time I've used studio too. It's very nice.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: It is very nice because it's it's very relaxed. We've
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: want to this studio just to be able to sit
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: and maybe do interviews, but also discussions in a lot
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: more of a relaxed way. So yeah, I think it
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: works pretty well.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 3: It's great.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so how do we go the ladies with their
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: group of them giving their experiences of the recent trial,
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: and you attended, you attended part of that trial, and
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: also you did some earlier interviews with the ladies. But yeah, yeah,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: what's in your head about that trial and what we
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: heard this morning from the ladies.
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely brings back, you know, my attendance of it,
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 3: as well as thinking about their experience, because even as
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 3: someone who's not a Fanti survivor, I found it difficult
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 3: to sit through those two days. So the day that
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 3: I went to listen to the trial with some of
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 3: the witness testimonies, even though it was supposed to be
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 3: the solicitor on the side of the survivors doing the questioning,
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 3: I still found it to be quite disrespectful to the survivors,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 3: not only the ones who were on the stand, as
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 3: well as one former member of staff that they talked to,
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 3: but just being in the kind of the what do
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 3: they call that area, the public area where they're allowed
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 3: to sit to watch the sort of the public gallery. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 3: there was a policeman who was there who these women
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 3: got to know because he was there every day, because
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 3: they attended every day of the trial. But I was
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 3: not expecting because I've never attended this kind of thing before.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 3: Even for me, it felt very intimidating because the policeman
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 3: was watching every movement that we make, so they basically
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 3: looking for not just any emotion or expression, but just
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 3: even controlling our movements. So I reached At one point,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 3: I was reaching over into my handbag for something, and
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 3: he came over. You're not allowed to do that, said,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just reaching. You can't do that. You couldn't have
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 3: bottles of water, you couldn't have any large bags, any
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 3: they you know. So I understand like the going in
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 3: as sort of the airport screening, making sure there's nothing dangerous.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 3: But then once you're in the room and he's watching
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 3: every single movement, And at one point when the lady
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 3: started to cry and he tapped her on the shoulder
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 3: and told her to leave until she could compose herself,
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 3: it was almost like you couldn't even be human.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: In so that this was a we could say, tightly
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: controlled court case or a highly controlled court case, And
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: in my mind, for that to happen, the state, the
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: judicial system is frightened of something. They are frightened of
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: the public who are attending. They think the public are
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: going to do something. And if they're frightened at the public,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: that they understand the severity or the seriousness of this case.
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: And yet the big thing that the women told us
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: earlier on was that their disappointment over the case was
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: that the member of staff was found guilty on eighteen counts.
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: The judge did a very detailed summing up in which
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: he clearly identified the severity of the abuses, and then
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: when he gave a sentence, the sentence was very it
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: was not a custodial sentence, and that those events seem
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: to be the key events which have really disturbed the women.
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 3: Right absolutely, and I the most serious charges were not proven,
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 3: as they say in Scott's courts, and so the overall
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 3: charges are labeled as cruel and unnatural treatment, which, in
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 3: my opinion, even that wording makes it seem to be
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 3: more minimized than what it actually was, because they can't
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 3: just say child abuse is cruel and unnatural treatment. So
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 3: if you look at the list of the charges that
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 3: are in the sentencing statement, it lists the things like
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 3: the force feeding and the there's a few bullet points
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 3: in there that he read out, which you'll find, yes,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 3: if you want to read those upright there, actually.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: Right, it says. So he's talking to the accused, which
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: at the time was Patricia Baxter. She was the elderly
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: former member of staff, and so in his sentencing he's
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: addressing her. Really, he says, for the entirety of your
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: time at for Nephi, it is clear that you behaved
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: in a cruel and sadistic manner towards many young girls.
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: The example spoken to in evidence are too numerous to mention. However,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: amongst other cruel acts, you made derogatory remarks to children
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: and ridiculed children when they wet the bed, forced children
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: to wear soiled clothing, struck, slapped, punched and kicked children,
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: forced children to eat food causing them to gag and vomit,
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: and force them to eat vomit, and force children to
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: stand facing walls for prolonged periods. Put shortly, you were
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: in a position of trust and response ability and use
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: that position to abuse vulnerable children in your care over
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: a period of many years.
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 3: So that's what he said, which is all true, which
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 3: is all very bad as well, but when we look
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 3: at the larger systemic patterns of abuse and some of
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 3: the sexual charges that came up against Robertson as well
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 3: as what happened in the ways that would not have
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 3: been recognized because of the way the trial was constructed
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 3: against one woman. So if we think about even the
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 3: sexual abuse charges that some of the survivors have told
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 3: me about, for example, just touching the girls to see
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 3: if they'd wet themselves, and this is one of the
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 3: things that it's one of those things where they could
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 3: say we don't have evidence, but there have been some
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 3: things in previous investigation that uk Colin was doing previously
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 3: where they may have been drugged and at bedtime, So
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 3: there were for example, the milk and biscuits. They'll all
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 3: talk about the milk and biscuits if you ask them
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 3: if they remember.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: What was in the milk and biscuits, and you were
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: saying the milk and biscuits, because the recollections of the
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: girls is that often once they'd had the milk and biscuits,
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: they didn't remember.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 3: Much, right, So then that would be at bedtime and
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 3: they were required to eat them. And so there's questions
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 3: about the medications that maybe could have caused them to
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 3: start wedding the bed, because a lot of them said
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 3: that they didn't wet the bed before they went to FANETI,
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 3: started wedding the bed when they were there. So either
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 3: it's is it because of whatever they were given?
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: Is it the stress?
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 3: The stress? So of course they got punished for wedding
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 3: the bed. But then also the ones that remember sort
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 3: of waking up in the middle of the night in
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 3: we'll call them parties for the what we think maybe
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 3: you know, establishment men who were there doing what to
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 3: the girls, whatever they wanted to do. So they have
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 3: some of them very vague memories of smelling alcohol or smoke, smoke,
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 3: the worst, some of the worst things possible, which you
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 3: can imagine, of course happening to them that they remember saying, well,
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what sex was before I went to
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 3: for Nethi, but somehow I knew what sex was by
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 3: the time I left.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: Right, and interestingly particularly interesting for me because I've watched
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: the way that the police investigation has gone and then
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: the formulation of the of the case to be taken
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: to court, and it appears appeared to me quite early
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: on that they were focusing on being provocative here the
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: cruel undone natural treatment, whereas all of the memories.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 9: And the.
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: Statements that survivors were making about much more sinister abuses
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: and sexual abuses and the possibility of being drugged, All
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: of that was stripped out of this for Nethi court.
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 3: Case, including the not proven charges, where if there were
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 3: the more serious charges that were put against Robertson, memories
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 3: of what happened in the showers, memories of once they
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 3: started wetting the bed, teachers including Robertson, putting hands between
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 3: the girl's legs to see if they had wet themselves,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 3: all those things that could be considered sexual abuse. Those
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 3: kinds of things were the parts that were not included
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 3: in anything that she was found guilty of, as well
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 3: as whatever the role would have been in getting them
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 3: delivered to these men and the parties that happened, so
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 3: you know, they would have had to have been the
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 3: ones to give them the so called milk and biscuits.
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 3: If they were drugged and put to sleep, the teachers
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 3: would have had to do that and then to have
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 3: them be delivered to whoever was there.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: Because quite a few of the women did talk about
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: a man or maybe it was men, but a man
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: being present sometimes at shower time.
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah right, and as well as there's an article from
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 3: I guess it might have been twenty twenty three on
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 3: the UK COLLM website that David Scott wrote about Nicholas
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 3: Fairbairn and potential connections with him being at one point
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 3: potentially the most powerful man politically in Scotland and his
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 3: role and was he there and who were his connections
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 3: and how who were these other men that might have
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 3: been present. We know even we can't make any potential claims.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 3: It can't prove anything, but it is worth noting that
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Savel had a house in Scotland. Have been that
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 3: difficult for him to have been involved. We just don't know,
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 3: and without any evidence or documentation.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: But all full investigation because this is this is something
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: where we have to be careful and measured because we
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: simply do not know what Police Scotland did and did
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: not investigate. But talking to the women, at least the
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: women's impression is that Police Scotland when they dealt with
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: the survivors that they seem to believe they dealt with
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: them in a several women have said they were very
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: good in the way the police dealt with them, compassionate.
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: But the overall impression of the women is that Police
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: Scotland have not to this day done a full investigation
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: into abuses for NEPHI when we know the facts are
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: some two four hundred girls went through per year over
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: thirty years, and therefore we're looking well over sixty thousand
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: potential victims and that doesn't seem to be in gripped
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: by Police Scotland. Nor does that figure or nor has
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: that figure ever appeared in the national press north of
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: the border in Scotland.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 3: No, because even some of the mainstream sources that have
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 3: reported on this were still using That's why I'm constantly
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 3: getting upset about the lives and appearcing it was a
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 3: summer holiday camp, it was a year round operation, so
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 3: there were constantly getting girls coming in and out. At
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 3: even some of the documentation that I found in the
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 3: archives when I was doing the background working all this,
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 3: seeing that they had come up at one point with
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 3: the system for passing out children faster, which meant, you know,
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 3: how can we get new ones in so deciding when
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 3: it's time for them to leave, so they're six weeks
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 3: are up, so we can send them home faster to
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 3: get in the next round of girls. What's the motivation
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 3: for that? Why do we want to girls get different
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 3: girls in and out faster?
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 9: Right?
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: And yeah, an increased turnover is commercial terms. And of
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: course the other thing that we've heard from some of
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: the women is that they went there several times. It
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't just that they did one They went and had
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: a terrible time, and then the next minute, or the
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: next year, or a couple of years later, they go
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: again and again.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 3: Right right right, and you know, going between between the
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 3: ages of five and twelve, so that could have been
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 3: over some of the most formative years of their childhood
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 3: when they would have gone two or three times. So
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine going the first time when you're five
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 3: and then told it two years later, going back again,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 3: or whatever the pattern was. And also the loss of
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 3: their education, so they weren't taught anything when they were there,
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 3: so they were taken out of their primary school where
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 3: they would have been getting their usual bath English lessons,
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 3: and then they were just there officially enrolled in the
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 3: as of the primary school because it was under the
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 3: control of the Education committee, but there was no education happening.
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: Overwhelmingly, the women have expressed intense disappointment at the trial.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: They are clearly very very upset that having gone through
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: the trauma, and it was trauma for them to relive
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: memories and sit through the court case and see this
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: woman that had abused them in the flesh for the
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: first time many years. This was very very emotional and
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: damaging to them. And then the judge sums up where
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: he clearly appears we can read it in paper, he
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: grasped the severity. Although there's no mention of child abuse.
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: It's all cruel and unusual treatment. So there is some
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: playing with the words, but nevertheless, in what he does say,
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: he appears to grasp much of the severity of what happens.
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: And then he suddenly switches and she gets a non
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: custodial sentence that really has upset the women.
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 3: That was the turning point and the sentencing day where
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 3: we had to be there early in the morning and
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of anticipation. It took a long
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 3: time to actually get into the sentencing and it started,
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 3: I think later than it was expected because there were
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 3: so many women that were coming in, so we had
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 3: to go through all of the normal security screening, and
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 3: they were particularly going through everyone's bags in tremendous detail.
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 3: I'd spent the nights, but I didn't take my overnight
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 3: big in because I didn't want to have anything to
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 3: go into any longer. So I put my my overnight
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 3: bag in one of the cars of one of the
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 3: ladies to keep it there. I just had my smaller
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 3: bag in with me, and they went through every item
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 3: in my makeup bag and actually to make sure that
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 3: some of my makeup items are actually make up. That's
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 3: the detail that they were going through. So it took
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 3: almost two hours for everyone, and because there was a
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 3: large number of them coming in, so it took a
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 3: really long time.
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: A terrorist trial, yeah, yeah, it was.
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 3: It was really incredible how how that was all happening
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 3: and so but the whole time, there was a lot
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 3: of the right word buzz conversation, we really hope that,
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 3: you know, she gets locked up for the rest of
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 3: her life, and and there was a lot of still
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 3: even at that point, I think, a certain level of
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 3: hoping that something was going to happen. So they had
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 3: all that time to build build it up psychologically. They
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 3: go I can't wait to hear her get.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, sorry, dying. And the point is that as
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: a seventy seven year old lady, so she is quite elderly,
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 1: but she's just going to be at home, So what's
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: changed in her life?
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: And then they are all of the ladies that we've
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: spoken to outraged at the fact that she was ordered
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: to pay the main victims one thousand pounds each, which
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: the women regard as an insult because the suffering that
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 1: they've endured has lasted a lifetime thirty forty sixty plus years.
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 2: For some of them.
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. And the other thing was she can't work
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 3: with children any longer. Well, she's been retired for a
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 3: long time, so saying that she's no longer allowed to
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 3: work with children, it is also just kind of makes
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 3: absolutely no sense to me. Why would that even have
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 3: been included when she's been retired for several years. So
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 3: that all just felt like a bit of show my opinion,
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 3: just when I heard it, like, why is this even
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 3: coming up?
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: So this is interesting time because you've just used the
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: word show And what came into my mind immediately was
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: show trial. This was a show trial. It was they
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: had to have a trial because there were too many
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 1: women had come forward. It was impossible to suppress all
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: of the evidence that the women brought to the police,
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: so they had to have the trial. But to my
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: mind it was a show trial because what they did
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: is absolutely refused to acknowledge the scale of the abuse
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: that must have taken place, involving not hundreds, but thousands
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: of little girls. And then they stripped away all the
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: allegations of serious sexual abuse, which the women themselves were
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: clearly bringing evidence for. And then you run a show
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: trial where you are able to inverted commas show justice
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 1: being done for some cruel and unnatural treatment of small children,
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: where the accused doesn't even go to prison. Job done.
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And the mainstream sources all were using
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 3: this word evil to describe that Patricia Robertson Baxter evil woman. Well, no,
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of evil around the whole thing,
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 3: but it was around the entire system. It wasn't just
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 3: the one woman, so it it you know, it also
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 3: takes away from, I guess, the the responsibility that the
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 3: head teacher had. So Fletcher Pearl Fletcher was the one,
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 3: the most recent one, one of the ladies we spoke
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 3: to this morning who was there earlier on. She remembers
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 3: Nellie Bremner and Nelli Bremner was one of the first
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 3: head teachers. Because so the head teachers were the ones,
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 3: let's say that, it's imagine that they were the ones
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 3: interfacing with whoever was running this back down in Glasgow.
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 3: So of course they've passed away. Fletcher passed away, think
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 3: about four years ago, I think it was twenty twenty one.
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 3: Bremda was older, so she's been gone longer. But there's
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 3: no mention of those people because again, you know, Robertson
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 3: was just one of the teachers, but there were several
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 3: people involved. There was also a caretaker gardener, a man
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 3: who was around and some of them have memories of
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 3: him and he's again passed away. But what was his
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 3: role as well. Obviously that the teachers were female teachers,
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 3: but he was there as the caretaker of the building
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 3: who lived nearby. There's I feel like if they were
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 3: going to do an actual investigation, there's because I've been
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 3: up to the site before. There's a farm nearby, Middleton Farm,
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 3: and it looks like it's been a family that's been
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 3: around for a long time. They could talk to some
• 2:08:02
  Speaker 3: of the farmers in that area. They could talk to
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 3: the people that live in the nearby village, because apparently
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 3: some of the teachers did attend a church nearby in
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 3: the village, a Church of Scotland, because this was set
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 3: up for Protestant girls, so they would have been Protestant
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 3: teachers attending the local Church of Scotland parish church. If
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 3: they really wanted to do an investigation, they could still
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 3: talk to some people that even though the school closed
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety one, there's still going to be plenty
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 3: of people alive that would have been there in the
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 3: vicinity that they could talk to if they really wanted
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 3: to get more perspective on just what happened. I think
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 3: relying on any sort of official records, despite all the
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 3: work I did in the archives, it only tells part
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 3: of the story. It tells the official story that they
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 3: wanted to have recorded. But again, even some of those
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 3: official records told us a lot more than what's coming
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 3: out out in the mainstream press, which we're going to
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 3: put un a written report in the future, but that
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 3: I know the two of us are working on. But
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 3: the thing about some of the factual evidence that was
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 3: in some of the official documentation. I had to work
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 3: very hard with the archivist in the Mitchell Library Glasgow
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 3: City Archives. She didn't want to give me a lot
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 3: of it, so there were some things I had to
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 3: keep pushing for and over and over again, asking what
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 3: else is there? Why can I why can you not
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 3: get this for me? What is available? So one of
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 3: the key documents for me was an Education Committee handbook
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 3: that suddenly appeared on my trolley one day. Because every
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 3: week when I went she would set out a trolley
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 3: of things I was allowed to look at. The only
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 3: thing that was available for me to just reach off
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 3: the shelves was the minutes from the Glasgow Corporation Strathclyde
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 3: Regional Council Committee minutes, so those have the official reports
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 3: of what they discussed at those meetings. But this handbook
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 3: was incredible because that was exactly where I found the
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 3: point that they were under their control of the state
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 3: and removed from the custody of their parents when they
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 3: were attending any of the residential schools. And I think
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 3: that was an important point because one of the things
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 3: that they were seeing in some of the Scottish government's
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 3: deliberations and petitions committees and parliament so on. Was that
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 3: well parents sent them there voluntarily and it was just
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 3: meant to be a nice holiday. But that bit of
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 3: evidence right there I actually heard them discussed in committee
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 3: where they said no, they weren't. They were in control
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 3: of the.
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: State Scottish Parliamentary committee.
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, petitions committee. So those were very important points.
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 1: And it shows that there's no ifs or buts that
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 1: the state had ultimate responsibility for for Nethee and what
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: took place.
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 3: That was a very important part of it, as well
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 3: as documents that I found in the National and the
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 3: Archives where I spent time at the National Archives in
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 3: Edinburg as well as in the Mitchell Library to get
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 3: all of this official evidence together. And the idea of
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 3: the scheme of residential education, which is what they called
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 3: it was set up post war that was meant to
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 3: set up these locations. But they the way in the
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 3: original documentation which from the late nineteen nineteen forty seven
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 3: forty nine something like that, where they said that these
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 3: were all meant to be sites that were easily accessible
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 3: from Glasgow, potentially on the seaside, so the children could
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 3: enjoy the beach. None of that was true with for Nethie.
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: You know, because it was very isolated and it was
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: in a what was in a remote and rather dark setting.
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 1: The girls of all or the women have all talked
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: about this, of yea, how they found it very going
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 1: to use the word foreboding when they got there. It
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: was dark.
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, And you know we've covered this as well when
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 3: you talked to Natasha, the urban explorer who kind of
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 3: released the video and got into the building. But when
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 3: you go out there, it's way off of b road,
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 3: remote Scotland. The area is gated off. I I don't
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 3: know if the gates were there, but there's gates. Nothing
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 3: is labeled, so you have to park your car and
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 3: then walk in about fifteen or twenty minutes to even
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 3: find it. And even then, it's inside a forest in
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 3: a little valley. It'd be easy to walk past it
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 3: and dis miss it because it's so hidden behind these trees.
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 3: It's just the perfect place for something very evil to happen.
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. The other bit that I'm thinking about at
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: the moment is the women talked about support they had
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: and had not had from members of the Scottish Parliament,
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 1: and so although there was one particular meeting where there
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: was a unanimous declaration of support for the women. Yeah,
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: that all seemed to fade away. You correct me if
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: i'n't got this right, But that seemed to fade away.
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: There was one particular MP whose name escapes me, who
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: stayed with them for the duration, Allen Smith Colin Smith. Yeah,
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: but the overall impression of the women was that the
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 1: Scottish Parliament was not really interested in what happened, and
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: it wasn't interested in supporting them, and it wasn't interested
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: in giving them any sort of support to press their
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: case forward.
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 3: No, I think the Petitions Committee had spent enough time
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 3: looking at the evidence. So I want to give credit
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 3: to Fergus Ewing particular, who was he's kind of known
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 3: as a S and P member, Gane Rogue, very senior,
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 3: very experienced politician who was one of the ones who
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 3: tried to bring voice of reason into looking at the evidence.
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 3: There was also Alex Coloh Hamilton, who I got to
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 3: know a bit because when I was still living in Edinburgh,
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 3: he was actually my local MSP. So I went down
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 3: to meet with him in person and that was very
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 3: effective because he and Alex clah Hamilton called Smith had
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 3: been to Farinetti on a visit with some of the
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 3: survivors previously, so they were aware of it, but just
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 3: keeping it in their heads. It was I think a
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 3: really important piece. So both of them, Colin and Alex
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 3: needed constant reminders, I think, to not forget that this
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 3: was happening. And so once they got the evidence, including
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 3: the evidence that I submitted and that some of the
• 2:14:48
  Speaker 3: solicitors submitted, the women and they're at their statements, all
• 2:14:52
  Speaker 3: these different pieces of evidence, if the committee actually read
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 3: all of this and said there's absolutely, in no way
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 3: that we can deny that this needs to be dealt with,
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 3: there was really no way around it. And I felt
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 3: like they were actually questioning the criteria that had been
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 3: set up by Dressed Scotland, for example, for the redress scheme.
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: And this is what that's a compense for people that
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: don't know, that's a compensation of financial compensation scheme for
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: survivors of abuse that's already set up in Scotland.
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that has been going on for a few years.
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 3: It's cost just like an inquiry, it's cost several million
• 2:15:42
  Speaker 3: billion whatever pounds just to do that. To do that.
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 3: It's mostly the legal fees that the Scottish Ripment have
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 3: had to pay. So you can get a couple of options.
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 3: You can either get kind of a single fixed, one
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 3: off payment of ten thousand if you don't have evidence,
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 3: or you can apply for up to one hundred thousand
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 3: depending on and then they'll sort of it's very it's.
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 1: Very it's a cold system.
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you have to sort of say, well, I
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 3: had this type of abuse and this is when it
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 3: happened in this type of So basically there's like almost
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 3: a formula for okay, if you had sexual and emotional
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 3: and physical then you get more money. Right. But when
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 3: we went to that first the first meeting that I
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 3: went to and the Petition's committee was very difficult because
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 3: that's when Johana Robinson was still Deputy First Minister and
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 3: she was there with representatives from Address Scotland saying well,
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 3: they can't qualify because there's no records, and she kept
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 3: saying that over and over again.
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: So women can't callify, right, yeah.
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 3: There's no records. And then also the point about it
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 3: being short term, so the the redressed scheme qualifications say
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 3: that you have to have been in long term care settings,
• 2:16:57
  Speaker 3: which is ridiculous. You know, if you've been abused one time,
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 3: you should be just as qualified to apply as someone
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 3: who's been abused.
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: For you, we've heard from the survivors it's the effect
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: of abuse on their lives, on the length of time.
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: So your abuse badly short time. The Scottish government, oh
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: well then you haven't suffered very much. Yeah, not enough
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: that could affect your whole life, your whole education, your
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: whole life from child into adulthood is compromise or destroyed
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: for some of these women. Some of them are no
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: longer with us.
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 3: And you know, I'm happy to go on the record
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 3: in a bit of a personal note. I'm happy to
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 3: share this that I survived rape when I was nineteen,
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 3: and I attempted to take it to trial and thought
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 3: I was going to be the strong woman and push
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 3: it through. But actually it turned out that I was.
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 3: I would have been allowed to do it. But basically
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 3: they said, well, it's your word against his, because they
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 3: could have said, well, you know, redating him, did you
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 3: was it rape? Was it not? Well, then you get
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 3: into your word versus his, and then how do you
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 3: prove that? And so I dropped the charges, but that
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 3: has also affected my whole life as well. And that
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 3: was just one night, right, So if you're saying, well,
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 3: six weeks of abuse wasn't long enough, but I just
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 3: know what one night has done to my entire life
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 3: for the past thirty years. So how can we say
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 3: that this is not enough abuse to be qualified.
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: It's a very cold statement.
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: Another recollection of the women's comments were that overall they
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: came out feeling that justice had not been done. They
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: also commented on really the almost total well, there was
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 1: some reporting, but the reporting by the mainstream press and
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: media north of the border and in England has been
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: very very small, yeah, measured against the size of this
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: abuse case, it is, yeah, And so the women were
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: very disappointed about that.
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah. And I was paying very close attention to
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 3: the all of the different mainstream sources in the days
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 3: immediately following the sentencing, and I collected as many as
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 3: I could. The same thing was repeated throughout the country.
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 3: So if you see like the Plymouth Live, the Devon Live,
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 3: of Glasgow Live, it's also of the same company, same
• 2:19:32
  Speaker 3: story over and over again, evil woman, so vilifying this
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 3: one particular woman, which.
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: As if there were no other staff and nothing else happened.
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one evil woman force feeding some children. Oh that's yeah,
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 3: so that that actually takes away from the larger system
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 3: of abuse. But it was the same story all over
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 3: the country. There was no in depth reporting other.
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: Well, particularly but the BBC.
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the BBC's was terrible.
• 2:20:01
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 3: When I was there, there were several as. The Daily
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 3: Record was there on the sense in the court. Yeah,
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 3: I was sitting next to them because I I have
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 3: a you could call them lanyard, and so I told
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 3: them I was pressed, and the sat next to the
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 3: BBC and the Daily Record, and we were all sitting
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 3: in the press section, and they were even they you
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 3: could see when the sentencing was announced, the actual sentencing,
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 3: you could even see shock in their faces because I
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 3: was watching them as well.
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 3: It didn't come out in the reporting that they did,
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 3: but you could see on a human level that those
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 3: reporters as well were still affected.
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: The leniency of the sentence.
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, now that not it didn't necessarily come out
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 3: when you know, when the stories were released to the public,
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 3: but you could see that they were on a human
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 3: level just as affected as the rest of us.
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: The women were talking about the potential for a review
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: of that sentence on the basis that it was too lenient.
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: They're not sure whether there is going to be a review.
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: There's an intimation that a review process is being considered,
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: but clearly for the women, they want that review to
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: happen because they're desperate to see a proper sentence being imposed.
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's been announced. We'll see what happens, but
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 3: it seems as it's going to be a review of themselves.
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 3: So there was quite a bit of public outrage because
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 3: when I was collecting these stories in addition to the
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 3: report I did for us on the News, I was
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 3: sharing out the mainstream stories on my social media account,
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 3: so everyone that was following what I was posting, everyone
• 2:21:51
  Speaker 3: was comedy on how what a ridiculous, insulting outrage this
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 3: was based on the sentencing, including a lot of our
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 3: audience members who have been following the case along with us.
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 3: So maybe if there was any sort of public outrage
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 3: and response to not just people that I follow or
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 3: follow me, but anyone who saw this, who would have
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 3: been commenting on the BBC's Facebook posts or wherever they
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 3: found this, that maybe they saw enough to say, well,
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 3: at least we need to we need to at least
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 3: say we're going to do something, because you know, getting
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 3: the word out there is so important.
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: But it's it's I think it's right to say that
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: once again, there doesn't seem to be any real urgency
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: or no, there's no what's the word, There's no mph
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: drive behind what they're doing. It's going through the motions
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: to try and do the right thing to keep as
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: many people happy as possible. That's how I see it.
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 3: And I'm just hoping it's not going to give the
• 2:22:55
  Speaker 3: women a false sense of hope.
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:22:58
  Speaker 3: I have to say that after the guilty charges came out,
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 3: and based on conversations that you and I had as well,
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 3: that I was afraid that they were. They were understandably excited,
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 3: but that maybe not understanding what could have come after that.
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably to end, the women made some
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: comments on how they see themselves at the moment and
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 1: what they want to do into the into the new year.
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: This is this is a positive part of the story
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: because these women have come together, they've been very in general,
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: they've been very supportive of each other, and they they
• 2:23:47
  Speaker 1: have no intention of going away. So how did you
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: what's your take on what they had to say about
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: how they move forward from here.
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 3: I think it's they still have that attitude that they're
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 3: going to keep they're going to keep going, I would,
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 3: I would say. After the sentencing hearing, despite the emotion
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 3: that was so high from that result, we all stood
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 3: outside the front entrance to the High Court in Glasgow.
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 3: I did a few short interviews mainstream sources did. They
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 3: had a little bit of conversation, and then they had
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 3: already planned, even before they knew what was going to happen,
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 3: that they were going to go to this pub just
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 3: around the corner. And Sharon Cruden, who we've talked to
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 3: you before and talked to you this morning, she used
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 3: to be catering business, and so she catered a whole
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 3: bunch of sandwiches for us. They were beautiful, beautifully cut,
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 3: you know, great sandwiches and homage short bread and coffees
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 3: and teas. We got from the pub and some women said, Okay,
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 3: I'm in the pub, I'm going to get a double
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 3: gin and tonic. I'm like, completely go for it, right,
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 3: you might as well. Yeah, And so we just sat
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 3: there and that that in itself gives me the hope
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 3: that they will continue to do whatever they can for Yeah,
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 3: because they all now have connections and relationships with one another. Yeah,
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 3: And so that in itself was gives me, gives me
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 3: some hope that they will continue to fight and that
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 3: they they kind of have brought me into it as well, obviously,
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 3: because I've worked with them for so long, and you know,
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 3: for all of us, it's been a lot of ups
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 3: and downs. It's been a lot of for me, sleepless nights.
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 3: I've had my own share of sleepless nights over the
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 3: whole thing, wondering what was going to happen, and you know,
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 3: was I always doing the right thing? And but I
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 3: think with any of these battles, as long as we
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 3: keep that going and continue the battle, even if we
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 3: do have ups and downs and it's not all perfect,
• 2:26:03
  Speaker 3: but no relationship, nothing is ever perfect. But you have
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 3: to just keep doing it and stay connected and just
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 3: having each other. And they've you know, it's been a
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 3: great personal experiments for me as well, because they've also
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 3: said to me, well, you're a survivor as well. They said,
• 2:26:22
  Speaker 3: you didn't go to for Nethew, but we know that
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 3: you're a survivor of sexual abuse and so we want
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 3: you to know that we are here for you as well.
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is lovely, it really is.
• 2:26:32
  Speaker 3: And so that's what we need, is this sense of
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 3: human connection. But I you know, none of this would
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 3: have happened if they didn't have each other.
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 1: And they are still chasing justice, and for me, a
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: key part of them getting justice is exposure of what
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 1: really took place at for Nefi and the sheer scale
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: of it and what I believe we're witnessing, which is
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: that the Scottish government is so desperate to cover up
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: the scale of this abuse that we run a show
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: trial to give the public what they think the public
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: needs to hear.
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 3: Right, And I think, yeah, going back to what I
• 2:27:11
  Speaker 3: said at the beginning about the policeman controlling individual responses,
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 3: is are part of managing that that show narrative.
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: Right, final comment because I thought it was so amazing,
• 2:27:26
  Speaker 1: such a poignant thing that the one of the ladies
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: said to us earlier was that they would have liked
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: to have seen a custodial sentence because she the member
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: of staff, would have been in prison and experienced the
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: prison door clanging shut. In a way that for the
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: girls when the front door of for Nethie House closed,
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: they were locked into this world of fear and hurt.
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: And I thought, my goodness, what an amazing statement, because
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: it really brought it home. You know, she goes in
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 1: a cell and the cell door goes clunk. Yes, she
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: would have she would feel, would have felt, Yeah, something
• 2:28:16
  Speaker 1: of what the little girls felt under her control.
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is a bit esoteric, and this is
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 3: but this is something that I've been trying to find
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 3: for a while and maybe we have some audience members
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 3: out there who would know how to do this to
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 3: find this or understand what this means. But the you
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 3: can still see it on the photography if you zoom
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 3: in the front doors to uh, these are these this
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 3: round door locker. So it's round like this, so but
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 3: the both sides of the circle are snakes. So you
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 3: have two snakeheads facing each other and then two snake
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 3: tails at the bottom, and that creates the door opener
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 3: for the front doors TOOI and I just can't help
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 3: but think who put those there? What does that mean?
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: The sinister and particularly for a young child, it's the
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: sort of thing children notice in it and some weird
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: thing at their oie level.
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 3: And that's yeah, And that's why I knew about it,
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 3: because one of them asked me about it, one of
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 3: the survivors who remembered it and sent me the photo
• 2:29:20
  Speaker 3: that she took when she revisited the place. She took
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 3: a photo of it, because she still remembered those two snakes, right,
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 3: and asked me if I knew about it. So I've
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 3: been trying to do. There's you know, the ouroboros, the
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 3: sort of snake eating its tail. We know about that one,
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 3: but what are the two snakes facing each other?
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: And why are they there?
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 3: Why would you put that on a mansion?
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Right, Diane, thank you for the for the chat
• 2:29:46
  Speaker 1: about this. You've done some great work. The women are
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: relaxing for Christmas and Hogmanay, and the overwhelming statement was
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: they will be back in twenty twenty six fighting. And
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: the really love thing is they said that they were
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: grateful of the sport UK column had given them and
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: we've pledged to excuse me, we've pledged to keep going.
• 2:30:09
  Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, So we'll we'll make that our pledge for
• 2:30:12
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six.
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 3: Absolutely great. Thank you, great.
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, brilliant, Thank you,