Apology to victims of horrors at Aston Hall
HEALTH SECRETARY ‘DEEPLY SORRY’ FOR ABUSE BY DOCTOR
THE Government has issued an apology to 80 victims of horrific abuse at the hands of twisted physician Kenneth Milner. Milner drugged scores of children sent to Aston Hall, Aston-onTrent, during the 1960s and 1970s. The apology comes in a letter from Health Secretary Matt Hancock, whose department will be liable for legal claims. The abuse was brought to light by the Derby Telegraph in 2016.
TRAUMATISED victims of horrific sexual abuse at a Derbyshire psychiatric hospital have received a letter of apology from Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
The letter has been sent to 80 victims who stayed at Aston Hall, in Aston-on-Trent, which took in vulnerable children during the 60s and 70s.
Victim Audrey Poxon said that the Government apology felt empty, although she was grateful to receive the letter.
She was one of scores of children who were drugged and abused by head physician Dr Kenneth Milner, crimes that did not come to light until early 2016 when the Derby Telegraph published the first of many stories about the horrors that took place at Aston Hall.
The letter comes as the liability potentially arising from victims’ legal claims has been transferred to the Department for Health and Social Care from now abolished health authorities.
Ms Poxon, who was abused multiple times at the hospital over three years she was there, says nothing can make up for the impact it’s had on her life.
“I am grateful to get the letter,” she said. “It’s taken a lot of effort to get to this point. I know Matt Hancock probably means well, but does he really know our stories?
“I appreciate I got a letter, but it feels a bit like empty words.
“The thing that would help things for me is if someone who was working there at the time came out and spoke about what happened, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
The 65-year-old d says the physical abuse she underwent, which ich included being g strapped down and people sitting on her chest, leaving her unable to breathe, has left a huge impact ct on her life.
She said: “I do tend to be overprotective, especially with my grandkids.
“If I see anything to do with sexual offences, I get very angry. I think everybody had just got it into their heads that it had happened and didn’t realise how bad it was. We can’t change what happened, I just hope it never happens again.”
Dr Milner’s experiments have been exposed as having been a means to abuse vulnerable children rather than therapy.
Victims have said they were injected with a drug called sodium amytal, known as “truth serum”, leaving them traumatised, with others saying they were sexually abused while under the drug’s influence.
In August 2019 victims of the sc scandal became el eligible to receive tho thousands of pounds in co compensation for the abuse they suffered. Allegations into Dr Milner’s behaviour were first highlighted by an investigation by the Derby Telegraph in February 2016. It led to dozens of other victims coming forward and Derbyshire police launching its biggest ever child abuse investigation.
A 2018 report by the Derbyshire Safeguarding Children Board said these claims were credible, while Derbyshire police said it had recorded 33 physical assault and 40 sexual assault allegations.
These are alleged to have taken place while patients were injected with the serum during narco-analysis treatment, a type of therapy conducted while a patient is in a sleep-like state, supposedly to unlock repressed memories.
Medical experts interviewed during the police investigation said the use of the drug to knock out the children was not a recognised treatment during that time period and was therefore not being used appropriately.
Dr Milner died in 1975, meaning the allegations could not be put to him, so no criminal prosecution could take place.
However, police say that if he were alive there would be enough evidence to interview him and question him over allegations of rape, indecent assault, child cruelty and assault.
In the meantime, victims have continued to speak out about the abuse they suffered and the heartbreaking effect it has had on their lives.
In August last year dozens of victims who were being supported by Derby law firm Nelsons received some compensation when the Government announced a settlement scheme.
Victims became eligible to receive at least £8,000 if they could prove they were admitted to Aston Hall during the 60s and 70s, and that they received at least one treatment of narcoanalysis as a patient.
Now victims who have come forward and been identified as a result of the investigation have received the letter of apology from Mr Hancock.
Diane Collins, personal injury solicitor at Nelsons who has been helping the victims, said 80 people are known to have received the letter.
She said: “Throughout this entire process, all the survivors have wanted are answers to their questions, an admission that what happened to them as children should never have been allowed to happen, and an apology. The civil claim has been a difficult process for our clients to relive, and we are pleased that, thanks to the many survivors who found the courage to come forward, all those things have been achieved and they have now been given the justice they deserve.
“While no apology or amount of compensation can change what happened to these people or make up for how they have suffered since, I hope the settlement and the end of this long legal claim will help to give them closure and enable them to move forward.”
She said that victims who have not yet come forward can still do so.
“What happened to those children at Aston Hall in the 1960s and 70s is appalling.
“Sadly, at the time, there were no safeguarding procedures in place to stop it from happening. Moreover, if these very vulnerable, young people tried to tell anyone what had happened to them, they were not believed.
“It is important to note that it is not too late for survivors of Aston Hall to bring a claim under the settlement scheme. If they received narco-analysis treatment while a patient at the hospital and the records exist that document those treatments, they will be entitled to compensation under the scheme.
“Although many survivors may be disappointed that no criminal prosecutions are to be brought, it is always important to report any abuse that has happened, however long ago it was.
“Abusers have to realise they are not in the clear simply because of the passage of time.”
The Department for Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.