Children’s home manager abused young residents

Fife: Trevor Francis, who was awarded an MBE for service to Aberdour, now faces jail

An “upstanding citizen” given an MBE for services to a Fife town has been exposed as a child abuser who battered and sexually attacked youngsters in his care at a notorious children’s home.

Trevor Francis was given an MBE in the 2012 Queen’s Birthday Honours for his services to the community in Aberdour, where he worked as a station master.

But his community-spirited facade hid the reality of the abuse he doled out to vulnerable children in his care at the St Margaret’s children’s home in Elie in the mid-1970s.

Francis, a qualified nurse, took over as a manager at the home in 1973 after paedophile David Murphy was forced out of a job at the home, after allegations were made against him that were never followed up by police.

He was finally jailed in 2002, for 15 years, after admitting 14 charges of lewd and libidinous practices and behaviour and 16 charges of sodomy spanning 30 years of his work at St Margaret’s and at another home.

Francis was part of a new regime at the home that should have removed the children from the threat of abuse.

But instead he subjected children there to brutal physical attacks and sickening sexual assaults.

Francis’s name came up during the probe into Murphy in the late 90s. But it was only when one brave victim came forward in 2014 that police were able to build a case against him.

They proactively visited former residents of the home, who told their stories of abuse at his hands.

Now, Francis has been warned he faces a jail term when he returns to Dundee Sheriff Court to be sentenced next month.

Three girls – aged 14 to 16 at the time – told a jury that Francis would creep into the girls’ dormitory at the home in the night and sexually assault them.

Other victims told how Francis slapped them in the face and beat them with a slipper in violent rages.

Depute fiscal Eilidh Robertson told the jury: “He is a manipulative, violent and predatory person who abused the trust of these vulnerable people who he was paid to protect.

“We are dealing with an intelligent, manipulative man who can turn on and off that predatory, violent behaviour.”

Giving evidence in his own defence Francis said he was “relatively easy going” and claimed to have had a good relationship with children at the home.

Francis, 71, of Manse Street, Aberdour, denied a total of nine charges on indictment.

However, a jury of eight men and seven women at Dundee Sheriff Court took two and a half hours to find him guilty by majority of two offences of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour towards young girls and three assaults.

Sheriff Alastair Brown deferred sentence until next month for social work background reports and released Francis on bail meantime.

He said: “A prison sentence serious possibility.” is a

Trevor Francis denied all of the charges levelled against him.