Children’s Panel boss gets 12 years for sex attacks on vulnerable boys

A FORMER Children’s Panel chairman who abused two boys he met through the hearing system has been jailed for 12 years.

Daniel Ross attacked one victim just moments before a meeting to decide the youngster’s future in the early 1990s.

Ross had by that time already preyed on another vulnerable boy while he was based at the panel’s Glasgow headquarters.

The 62-year-old returned to the High Court in Glasgow yesterday after earlier being convicted of six sex charges.

As well as the two boys, Ross was found guilty of sexually assaulting a young man he met at a gay club in the 1970s.

Lord Matthews told Ross, who continues to protest his innocence, that he was guilty of ‘very grave offences’.

Referring to Ross’s involvement with the Children’s Panel he went on: ‘It was your position which gave you access to the young vulnerable boys who were entitled to look to you to make important decisions for their welfare – decisions which should have enabled them to make the most of the poor start they had been given in life.

‘Instead you grossly abused your position of trust and made decisions for your own benefit.’

Ross, now of Oldham, Greater Manchester, showed no emotion as he was led handcuffed to the cells.

The trial had heard how he targeted a teenage boy at the Children’s Panel offices in Glasgow’s Albion Street in the 1990s. The victim, now 38, told how the abuse started before a hearing when he was aged around 14.

‘The first time was like a grooming session,’ he said. ‘I was in a room and he put his hand on my lap. This was in the room just off where the panel was to be.’

Ross told the boy, who had been in care since the age of 11, that ‘because of his position’ he would ‘deny’ what happened.

The victim wept as he remembered a time Ross forced himself upon him. He told the trial: ‘I was frightened of him as he knew what home or wherever I was in. I was upset.’

Ross, who was also a special police constable, had earlier abused another young boy between 1985 and 1988.

This was John Stewart, who has waived his right to anonymity. Ross also met him through the Children’s Panel before giving the boy a job at a cafe he ran – allowing him access to prey on the troubled youngster.

Mr Stewart said he was around 13 when the attacks began and that it became a ‘regular thing’.

The abuse occurred at the Glasgow cafe and at a flat in the city.

Mr Stewart, now aged 42, told the court: ‘I felt as if I had no choice. It was just through fear and threats. I just did not say no. I was basically a kid. I did not know any different.’

Ross’s first victim was sexually assaulted after they met at a gay club in the late 1970s. The man, now aged 55, told the court how he had moved into a flat in Glasgow with him, saying: ‘I was very much like a slave. I did not have a life.’ He later added: ‘Danny is evil in every way.’

Police investigated Ross in 2001 but did not bring charges. In 2012 Mr Stewart again spoke to detectives. ‘The Jimmy Savile thing started up and brought everything flooding back,’ he said.

Ross was charged at that time along with Donald Finlayson, 55, who died before standing trial.

Brian McConnachie, QC, defending, said: ‘Mr Ross maintains his position [of innocence] in relation to these matters.’

Ross was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for an indefinite period.

‘Danny is evil in every way’