Care home paedophile refuses to say sorry to victim he preyed on
A CONVICTED paedophile has refused to apologise to the man he sexually abused – and yesterday boasted to an inquiry about ‘stringent’ child protection measures at his former care home.
John Porteous, 85, was jailed for the abuse of David Whelan at Quarriers Village.
At the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) yesterday, Mr Whelan, 61, listened as the statutory probe’s chairman Lady Smith said Porteous had refused to apologise for the sexual abuse.
She said the inquiry accepted the offences of which he was convicted as ‘fact’, but added that Porteous’s position was that ‘no apology is offered or is due’. Earlier Porteous told the hearing in Edinburgh that he was a child at the village, near Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, until the age of 15.
He returned to work there as a fire safety officer but also helped to run a ‘cottage’ where vulnerable children were looked after, between 1969 and 1974.
Porteous said there was strict discipline when he was a child at Quarriers, and youngsters were subjected to punishments that would now be seen as ‘beatings’. He said he could remember children ‘screaming’ and he was belted by a ‘wicked’ individual.
When he came back to work there, he was given a fortnight’s training in childcare.
Under questioning by the inquiry’s senior counsel James Peoples, QC, Porteous said child protection measures had been ‘stringent’. He said when it came to protecting children, ‘every precaution was taken’.
Porteous denied having routine access to children in his care while he was on his own, but under further questioning he said: ‘It could be possible.’
Later a witness using the name Jack was confronted with physical abuse allegations relating to his time on the staff at Quarriers.
He denied abusing children, but when asked if he had slapped a child said it was ‘possible’, adding: ‘Oh, [it was] just a smack in the arm, just to make the child aware that they’re doing wrong.’
The inquiry continues.