Fornethy House survivors should be eligible for redress scheme, say MSPs

Survivors of historic child abuse at an all-girls residential school should be eligible for compensation, a Holyrood committee has said.

The Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee considered a petition from the Fornethy House Survivors Group which urged ministers to widen access to the redress scheme for victims of child abuse.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney has said he rejects the view that the scheme excludes Fornethy victims.

More than 200 women have come forward with claims they were sexually, physically and mentally abused at the residential school in Kilry, Angus, in the 1960s and 70s.

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

Survivors have said they are unable to apply to the Scottish Government’s Redress for Survivors scheme – which pays out up to £100,000 to those abused in residential care.

The eligibility criteria includes those who were abused as a child in a relevant Scottish care setting before December 1, 2004.

Jackson Carlaw, committee convener, wrote to Mr Swinney to say the evidence they had heard from survivors and from the local authority – then known as the Glasgow Corporation – had been “compelling” and “indicates support for widening the eligibility criteria” to include victims and survivors who experienced abuse during short-term respite or holiday care.

Mr Carlaw said the facility had been acting similarly to parental responsibility while the girls – mostly of primary school age – were in their care, and therefore the women should be able to qualify for the payment.

The letter went on to say that the definition of eligibility, which limits redress to those establishments providing long-term care, is too “narrow”, and that “those abused at Fornethy House should be eligible for redress”.

In response to a question from Labour MSP Michael Marra at the Education, Children and Young People Committee earlier this week, Mr Swinney said: “I do not believe there is inherently an impediment to applications coming forward from people who spent time at Fornethy within this scheme, as things currently stand.

“I do acknowledge that the nature of the environment in which individuals were spending time at Fornethy could be considered as falling within the ambit of this scheme.

“The idea, if I can put it slightly more bluntly, that this scheme is not for Fornethy survivors, I reject that view.

“I think that it is possible for Fornethy survivors to be successful in this scheme.”