SCOTLAND
The Evening Express
January 10, 2018
Denying the “orchestrated” abuse which took place in child care homes across Scotland should be a crime, an inquiry has heard.
A former resident of Smyllum Park in Lanark made the claim before the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh on Tuesday.
He described his time at the orphanage as a “Holocaust of developmental trauma” and said Scotland has to “face up” to its past.
The witness, who lived in the Catholic-run home between 1961 and 1965, said his head had been left “spinning” after reading an article suggesting abuse claims about such places were exaggerated.
He added: “What was happening there was a crime against humanity. It was orchestrated.
“It went on for years. I think it was a Holocaust of developmental trauma, inflicted upon thousands of children over decades.
“In Germany it’s a crime to deny the Holocaust and I would like it to be a crime for academics to deny these years and years of abuse.
“Scotland has to face up to this – if you don’t know your own country’s history, you don’t know anything.”
Now in his sixties, he said he still has a recurring nightmare about his time there and wakes up screaming.
According to him, the nuns were “quick to aggression” and “quick to anger”, describing constant physical and mental abuse.
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