I support what David Whelan has said. David and I have been on this journey together for 15 years. This is the first time that I have ever exposed myself to the cameras. The issue is so important that I felt that today I had to come out into the open. I have a public face as well as a private face, which I have tried at all times to defend and protect. Today, because of the importance and significance of the dimension of access to justice for survivors, I wanted to come here to speak to you.
I support the bill on a number of grounds, but primarily because it has come at long last, after all our campaigning and our discussions across the spectrum—with Cabinet ministers and MSPs and with the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the centre for excellence for looked after children in Scotland at the University of Strathclyde. We have spoken to all those agencies about access to justice, which is a fundamental requirement for survivors and the fundamental right of survivors.
So many barriers have been placed in the path of survivors—it has been a diabolical disgrace to the people of Scotland. The rights of survivors have been infringed; every impediment has worked to their detriment. It seems quite easy for a care provider to lodge a plea of time bar and then leave it to the courts to deal with, while the prejudice to the survivors in that situation is tantamount to further abuse.
David referred to Dr Janet Boakes. She absolutely abused people who had been in court and who had gone through all the child abuse, retraumatising them and causing so much consternation in the minds of survivors and the community that very few of them have come forward since that time.
However, on the books of Cameron Fyfe, a Glasgow lawyer, we have 1,000 survivors who were prepared to come forward when they thought that there would be an opportunity for access to justice. However, as soon as legal aid provision was removed, those 1,000 people were abandoned.
On the time bar and the discretion of the judiciary, in not one case from a historical situation in residence was the discretion of the judge invoked since 1973—not one case. That was from 1973 until 2013—40 years. Lady Smith presided over eight cases lodged by former Quarriers residents. In each case discretion was refused. Four of them had already been proven in the criminal court; the former residents had secured convictions against their abuser, but still discretion was refused. It was only in October 2013 that Lord Kinclaven saw the light and said, “This is the time when the discretion must be invoked. That is my power.”
Lord Kinclaven gave that opportunity to a well-known case of an uncle versus a niece. There was child abuse in the home—it was a kinship care abuse situation, not a residential care situation. Lord Kinclaven said that there was sufficient evidence from the criminal court to proceed with the case and, more than that, that there would be no prejudice to the defendant. There was no prejudice to the defendants that we had to face in our cases, yet Lady Smith presided over those eight cases and not one was allowed to proceed.
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Therefore, we advise the bill, we recommend it and we support it. It will have a dramatic impact on the lives of survivors—the thousands of survivors in this country who have suffered the most terrible and horrific abuse. They are still suffering from that abuse to this day. That becomes much more evident as we get older. As they grow older, every survivor loses resilience and resource, and the effects of the trauma that they suffered in childhood surface. They have tried at all times to protect their families and friends. However, ultimately, the trauma surfaces. Do you know what happens to the survivors? In many cases, they end up in hospital, the criminal justice system or prison. Worst of all, there are friends of ours who have suffered so badly that they have taken their own lives.