Victims’ fury as abuser to take stand
Lawyers acting for abuse victims have expressed dismay that a convicted paedophile will give evidence to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry next week.
John Porteous, known as the Beast of the Belltower because he abused youngster in a church tower at Quarriers Village children’s home, Bridge of Weir, takes the stand on Thursday.
But victims fear that he will use the occasion to once again deny his guilt – and blame his victims.
Lawyer Patrick Maguire of Thompsons Solicitors, said: “Campaigners fought for decades to have this inquiry, and for many it may be their only opportunity to tell what happened to them during one of the darkest eras in Scotland’s past.”
He said that allowing abusers to speak would be “equivalent to their survivors being abused all over again”.
He added: “I suspect they will try to use the opportunity to deny what a criminal court has determined.”
Porteous, 82, was convicted of sexually abusing two boys at Quarriers in the late ’60s and ’70s, where his wife Helen was “house-mother”.
Jailed for eight years in 2002, Porteous refused to take part in paedophile retraining programmes and used a discredited BBC documentary Secrets Or Lies to deny his guilt.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry said: “Extensive efforts are made to ensure the hearing’s process is dealt with thoroughly but sensitively.”