Statement - Lord and Lady Polwarth Home
Published on 1 May 2019 1 minute read
Further to yesterday's announcement regarding the Lord and Lady Polwarth Home case, please see a statement from the Church of Scotland.
Viv Dickenson, Chief Executive Officer of the Church of Scotland's social care council, CrossReach, said:
"The abuses perpetrated by Ian Samson at Lord and Lady Polwarth Home in the 1970s were acute and have had long lasting effects for the survivors.
"We acknowledge the failures which occurred at that time which are matters which have also been examined by the criminal courts and by the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
"We do regret these failures and are truly sorry that children were not given the care and protection they deserved.
"Whilst the settlement which we reached can never undo what has been done, we hope that it finally brings a sense of justice to the individuals affected and provides some small redress for the trauma which they experienced while in the care of The Church of Scotland.
"We became aware of the full facts in 2013 at which point we offered our full support to the victims and began a full independent inquiry to ensure that we could learn any lessons for our safeguarding practices today.
"While Samson's abuse of children was wider than his activity in Lord and Lady Polwarth Home, it felt important to us that we fully acknowledged the harm which did occur in our care at the time, and the longer term consequences for three siblings involved.
"While we had no direct line of contact with the family affected we did offer them sight of our report through Police Scotland and again invited them to be in touch either with us directly or through an independent agency. However we are not aware of whether they have seen it. The offers of contact were never taken up.
"We encourage anyone affected to be in touch with us directly or to make contact with the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry"