Abused by Dunblane school killer at age of 9, condemned to wretched life of drug abuse.. and now denied life-saving treatment
Francis was abused by the Dunblane school killer as a boy and the guilt and shame he felt led him down a grim path of drugs & crime. Now his plea for rehab to turn his life around has been met with a resounding no
SEXUAL abuse by Dunblane killer Thomas Hamilton condemned nine-year-old Francis McGowan to a desperate life of drug addiction, crime, jail and despair.
Now 52, Francis has blasted the Scottish Government for shutting the door in his face when he’s been begging for help.
Just weeks ago he was told there was “no funding for rehab” – despite an announcement of an extra £250million for drug programmes, including £100million for rehab.
Francis believes his early life trauma, compounded by his own parents’ addiction issues, meant he had zero chance of a “normal” existence.
Most of his life has been spent behind bars after racking up an endless rap sheet for drug offences, shoplifting, fraud, assault, breaches of the peace and housebreaking.
Francis now lives in Shotts, Lanarkshire but was targeted by Hamilton in the tough Raploch area of Stirling in 1978, when he was just nine.
Eighteen years later Hamilton carried out the Dunblane shooting atrocity, killing 17 people, mainly children, and injuring 15.
Francis said: “I’ve had a life of guilt and shame due to the sexual offences committed against me and I also carry the regret for all the crimes I’ve committed, which gets worse every year.
“But I look back on my childhood now and think ‘what chance did I have?’
“I’ve had a chaotic life, utterly dedicated to obliterating the memory of what happened to me as a child.
“I still haven’t been able to face up to it but I’m 100 per cent convinced that a proper term of rehab and therapy will help me finally get off drugs.
“I’ve written to Nicola Sturgeon and begged my MSP and my drug worker for help but all I’ve ever been given is an hour a week of group therapy, which has brought my trouble to the front of my mind. Then I go home in a worse state than when I went in.
“It’s methadone or subutex (heroin replacements), no counselling after it and an appointment every two or three months to get a 10-minute talk to let me pick my script up.”
He added: “I read in the Daily Record about the big funding for rehab but I’m told there is none for me.”
Francis was recruited by Hamilton to his Sea Rovers club at eight and was soon being taken away to places like Loch Lomond on camping trips.
Hamilton would hit boys with metal rods to supposedly toughen them up before insisting on rubbing sun tan lotion on their bodies.
He isolated Francis and committed serious sexual assaults on him which he has never discussed in detail with a therapist. Francis said: “Hamilton was a bully and it seems nuts to think of it now but he’d take us to the range in Stirling and let us fire guns.
“I wanted to go with the Scouts but he’d been bombed out of that because of his sleazy behaviour and set up a Sea Rovers club. He actually turned up at my front door to take me away.”
Francis said the abuse became a shameful secret and stopped him from sleeping. He said: “It was all I thought about, that I was dirty.
“I was drinking alcohol by the time I was 10 and I’d overdosed on painkillers at 12 after breaking into a house.”
He added: “I told police about what Hamilton did to me when I was 13 and they accused me of making it up. I’ve spent so much time thinking about how he could have been stopped. It is hard to take.”
Francis’s list of convictions spans 10 pages, with almost 100
offences. He said desperation to get drugs or cash to buy them led to him offending.
He said: “Crime was a way of life for me. I never considered the effects on other people. I feel ashamed of breaking into people’s houses. That’s a crime committed when you have no pride left and are chasing drugs at any cost.
“I started drinking as a child and I knew I wasn’t doing it in the same way as other boys. I was chasing oblivion.
“Now I’m at a crossroads. I’ve brought myself down gradually from 130ml to 30ml of methadone a day in the last six years. I fit the criteria to get in rehab yet I’m still told I can’t get a place. I was told seven weeks ago that North Lanarkshire has no funding for rehab.
“But I know I can make it work for me. If I can’t get a place, who does qualify?”
NHS Lanarkshire clinical director for addictions Dr Adam Brodie said: “The Lanarkshire Alcohol and Drug Partnership has initiated a test of change, supported by the Scottish Recovery Consortium, for people with substance use problems to look at providing recovery support and to help identify those at most risk.
“This includes facilitating residential rehabilitation, if that is appropriate, in collaboration with local statutory drug and alcohol treatment services.
“We would encourage Mr McGowan to contact us directly through his addiction service contact to allow us to address his concerns.”
The Scottish Government said: “We’ve allocated an additional £250million over the next five years to increase access to services for people affected by addiction.
“Residential rehabilitation should be part of drug prevention and treatment services.”