Why are we betraying the victims all over again?
SUSIE Henderson was three years old when Scotland’s Attorney General Sir Nicholas Fairbairn first abused her. Over a period of eight years Susie was systematically abused and raped by a number of high profile members of the Scottish legal system, including her own f ather, t he l ate QC Robert Henderson.
Susie is now 49. Earlier this year I sat with her and she told me, in unflinching and horrific detail, the appalling abuses of her childhood. Since her shocking accusations have gone public, Susie has drawn strength in the fact that finally, after 46 years in the shadows, she has been believed.
Last month, we revealed that ten police officers are working full time on her case. A second victim has now come forward.
None of this, however, is good enough for the Scottish Government, which this week announced an inquiry into institutional child abuse which will not, it now seems, cover her case.
Don’t get me wrong. This inquiry is important, necessary and long overdue. But it is also not enough.
There are two points here. The first is the creeping realisation that there was a time in this country when child abuse was so horrifyingly widespread it was almost systematic.
What we are talking about here are not isolated cases. There are thousands of children who were forced into terror by those who were supposed to care for them and still bear the scars, both physical and mental, today. It is nothing less than a national scandal.
The second point is that child abuse was so widespread, and included abuses in the Catholic Church, the Scouts and organised rings of paedophiles such as in Susie’s case, that many abusers will now not be called to account. Because these cases do not count as ‘institutional abuse’, the perpetrators will get off scot-free.
It will be April before we know the full parameters of the inquiry, and I understand that trying to address every incidence of abuse may result in an inquiry that achieves nothing.
But I hope that the Scottish Government will bear in mind Susie’s words when it makes the decision about who, and who will not, is going to be called to account.
‘Does this mean that what has happened to children in their homes is not as important?’ Susie asked me when we spoke this week.
‘Nobody is too powerful to be named and put under scrutiny.’