The conviction of two former staff from Kerelaw School would appear to be another miscarriage of justice in a major Scottish case of supposed child abuse. Now other former staff from the Ayrshire school, and staff at similar Scottish care establishments, fear the police knock on the door, as potential accusers seize their opportunities. The defendants, throughout their ordeal, consistently protested their innocence. The trial resulted from a large trawling operation for complainants by Strathclyde Police, backed up by a social services team ‘fact finding’ across Britain, in a manner similar to the trawling experienced in English and Welsh cases. This netted the usual collection of murderers, robbers, burglars, prostitutes, drug dependents and others, formerly resident in this secure unit, willing to make the accusations. People, whose protestations of innocence the police would be unlikely to believe if they arrested any of them as a suspect for a crime, but amazingly are prepared to believe them when they make allegations of child abuse. But then convictions are easier to come by in child abuse cases and it looks good on the police success rate statistics.

Campaigners, for those falsely accused in care home cases, have the names of 820 complainants from across the UK, who have made allegations of child abuse on an indictment against care home staff and teachers. Another 4200 people have made witness statements, the vast majority of which are hostile. Then there are a considerable number of care home cases for which the campaigners have no information on numbers of complainants and hostile witnesses. The accusers are operating in mini-conspiracies, often from prisons or in ‘survivor’ groups, across the country. The campaigners believe by far the vast majority of the allegations are false. Interestingly, it is those former care home residents who have generally failed in life, not those who have made something of their life, who make up over 99% of the accusers. Compensation prospects, as elsewhere, were a factor in Kerelaw. In echoes of the case of the former Everton footballer, Dave Jones, the Kerelaw investigations have also led to accusations against former professional footballers.

One ‘expert’ reported (although he had never met them) that he thought the accused were ‘hebophiles’ (his word for those who desire young adolescents as against paedophiles who desire children). While self-declared expert, Ray Wyre was in court throughout the hearings. In contrast, one of the most disturbing aspects was the clearing of the public (but not the media) from the court, every time there was a complainant who made accusations of a sexual nature. This action, which is perfectly permissible, is a reflection of the Scottish Judiciary’s involvement in the Scottish Executive’s drive to ’secure more convictions’, no matter how much this may undermine the accused’s entitlement to justice. This meant that any supporters of the accused in the public gallery, who may have been able to respond to the complainants’ testimonies, because of their knowledge of the school or other factors, were unable to pass information, had it been relevant, to the defence team to help the defendants. (This is in order so long as it is not given to a witness in the case - and it has been done in the English and Welsh courts.) We know of a similar exclusion of the public that took place in another Scottish court but have no knowledge of an instance in an English or Welsh court.

Police and social workers in Ayrshire have been involved in searches for imagined paedophile ‘rings’ before – and got it wrong then as well. In 1990, at the height of the satanic panic, social workers came looking for a devil-inspired ‘ring’ and took children from their homes. This debacle, where the children, now adults, are suing the local authority for wrongful removal from their families, was followed by another Ayrshire case, which began in the late 1990s. The police were in the lead role this time, again looking for a supposed paedophile ‘ring’. This led to 35 men, who in the main had never met each other, being accused, and of the nine charged, six went to a trial which eventually collapsed. Angered at this, there were plenty among the authorities and the media perversely suggesting that the defendants had got away with it. Child protection fanatic, Sandra Brown, inferred they were guilty. She did so again in a recent letter to the Glasgow Herald, while talking of her involvement in the cross-party group on Survivors of Childhood Abuse and praising the work of her fellow traveller, Sarah Nelson. However, the truth hidden in this Ayrshire case was that a family break up was behind the huge number of false accusations made by a young brother and sister. With the investigators’ minds set on their guilt, this became yet another tragic fiasco. For legal reasons, the accused are prevented from putting the full details in the public realm that would refute Brown’s ridiculous assertions and have people asking why, in a case where the defendants were acquitted, Brown can boast of her role in the case and the children receiving compensation. As an indication of belief in their innocence, the Kilmarnock football team sent a signed get-well card to one of the main defendants, when he was later ill.

Although Kerelaw is a non-denominational institute, there is a long history of false allegations against care workers in homes under the auspices of both main religious traditions, with the Catholic Nazareth and De Las Salle Brothers’ Homes and the Protestant Quarriers’ Homes subjected to similar treatment and resulting injustices. As with the rest of the UK, Scotland has a virulent child protection industry, often working with (P2) the like-minded in other parts of the country. Their influence extends to the top of Scottish government. Sue Richardson, the social worker who caused the Cleveland scandal, has had a disturbing sway in Scotland, through involvement with NCH Action for Children and in academic work. Ray Wyre has been consulted on the Western Isles case and the second Ayrshire one, amongst others. Beatrix Campbell, the child abuse theorist, and Judith Jones, discredited in both the Shieldfield Nursery case and the Nottingham satanic case, have tried to restoke the Orkney controversy. Marietta Higgs, the consultant who caused the Cleveland tragedy, got into trouble for interfering in a Scottish case, although she was prohibited from doing so by Dumfries and Galloway Health Authority. Scots living in England, such as Marjorie Orr, who seeks out child abuse ‘astrologically’, and Sheila Youngson, a hospital therapist and believer in satanic abuse, are active in England and no doubt in contact with like-minded cohorts in Scotland. One example of the madness that surrounds such people was a report of Edinburgh police, in 2001, digging unsuccessfully, not surprisingly, for the bodies of ten children, on the say so of a woman - who later disappeared into a refuge!

Scotland does appear to be a relatively safe haven for child abuse zealots, many with North East England links to Dr Camille San Lazaro. Some of them have been severely criticised in cases south of the border. There has been much less attention paid to what has been going on in Scotland. As a result, they were able to get close to the Scottish Parliament, so that government officials, pressure groups, social workers and other child protection 'experts', and some ministers, have become a cabal dominating the child protection business. This seems to prevent any independent thinking by Scottish politicians. For example, why is there little sign of dissent at the Scottish Executive’s endorsement of the work of Sarah Nelson, gender warrior, child protection zealot and believer in organised ritual and satanist abuse.

Nelson, from Edinburgh University sociology department, co-authored a major booklet with Sue Hampson, a ‘person centred counsellor’, for the Scottish Executive’s child protection strategy, A Can of Worms: Yes You Can! Working with Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse (December 2005). It makes preposterous and dangerous inferences by linking psychiatric disorder in general to childhood sexual abuse. The booklet, intended for social and health workers, also suggests persistent offending and homelessness are signs of having suffered childhood abuse. When Private Eye recently highlighted this and other activities, she responded with bluster in a letter defending satanic abuse chaser, Laurie Mathew, who runs Tayside Ritual Abuse Support Helpline (TRASH) and Ritual Abuse Network Support (RANS), both of which have received Lottery funding. Mathew works with the Scottish police, which probably means some of them share her views on satanic abuse; for example one officer investigating the Western Isles case (see transcript of police interview below). That case is another one which exemplifies the ‘groupthink’ of national and local Scottish politicians and those like Nelson who have a pervasive influence on them. Barnardos and NCH’s child protection squads were implicated in this case. After the charges were dropped, the Social Work Investigation Agency stated that the children were abused by some of the accused. However, the authorities continue to refuse to answer the request from the accused to name the ones they deem guilty. The accused are sure that no one is guilty but the authorities by not naming names can use this as cover for their indefensible position.

One of the accused in the case, who could not give his name for legal reasons, has written publicly. “I am the uncle of the three girls at the centre of this case and the brother of their mother. My concerns for my nieces’ well-being led me to offer help, as a worried family member, knowing that my sister and her husband were very neglectful. I have no reservations in stating that her family undoubtedly needed help from social services and brought to the attention of the child protection agencies. My sister had a history of making false allegations of abuse before coming to the islands, where she continued to make them. When the recent Social Work Investigating Agency (SWIA) Report concluded that the children were definitely sexually abused, I and the others falsely accused were extremely depressed knowing that the message going out, in order that the authorities could be let off the hook, was that we had got away with it. The inference was that the guilty had escaped because the authorities had made mistakes – not that the we were innocent and the investigators had displayed unbelievable gullibility and credulousness

As a close family member I have no hesitation in saying that the children suffered from very serious neglect regarding their basic welfare and their mother and father had inadequate parenting skills. However, in all sincerity I do not think they were sexually abused, despite the findings of the SWIA Report. My wife and I had extensive knowledge of their situation, as we looked after them for a considerable time, trying to show them that there was a better way of upbringing than they received from their parents. The sad fact is that the problems of a seriously dysfunctional family, which we tried to help keep together, spread out to embrace a number of perfectly innocent people. They were caught up in the zealotry of the investigation agencies influenced by the corrupting, and often insane, beliefs of those who educate and train them.

(P3) In our case it was the mad ideas about organised, satanic paedophile rings, hidden in God-fearing society, practising ritual abuse on children. In echoes of the much earlier Orkney’s case, where they played up a mysterious minister with his sinister cloak and stick, we had investigators and social workers fixated on Pagans, cape and mask-wearing Mormons who slaughter cats, other animal sacrifices and human killing, and confusing Paganism with Satanism. Throughout our ordeal, I thought we were going to be caught up in that huge injustice within the British judicial system, which I believe is much greater in numbers than those wrongly jailed for murder, armed robbery and IRA bombing, namely wrongful conviction of child sexual abuse.”

The following transcript from the interview of one of those falsely accused exposes the lunacy in the investigating police officer’s mind. This, and the other aberrations in the case should have been at the heart of the SWIA Report, exposing the recklessness of the investigators and the childrens’ charities’ workers in the background. Significantly, they were not. The transcript is ample proof of the evidence, that the accused were caught up in the bizarre thinking on satanic paedophile rings of those determined to jail them, no doubt convinced by the lurid tales they had encouraged the vulnerable children and unbalanced mother to tell.

Police Officer. Do you know anyone else who, or have you heard of anyone else who, practices the occult?

IC. No. I don’t know of anyone who practices that kind of religion.

PO. Have you any knowledge of the use of statues in practising the occult? What about the ritualistic killing of animals? Ritualistic dress, as in gowns, that type of thing? Do you have any books about witchcraft?

IC. Umm, Wicca witches and things like that? Yes in the kitchen?

PO. Wicca witches? What’s that?

IC. Well paganism, you don’t know about paganism?

PO. I don’t.

IC. It is not against the law. Paganism is basically about people who believe in mother earth. It’s not witchcraft as in, you know, flaming voodoo sort of things.

PO. I have information that you were involved in devil-worshipping ceremonies. Have you ever been into devil worship?

IC Not at all.

PO. The information we have is that it has taken place and that you did use it to dress up in a long white gown and wore masks, as did your wife, and that you carried out some sort of ceremony during which there was dancing, and that your children were dressed up in a similar manner to yourselves and there was music being played, described as Indian music. And also that during this, some form of chanting and praying took place. Further to that, there was information given to us that whilst this was being conducted, it was being videoed on a camcorder.

Have you been in a position of seeing any videos which would depict serious sexual abuse? People being killed, and I’m not talking acting here? Have you ever drank the blood of a chicken? Have you ever witnessed anybody else doing that? Ever drink the blood of any other animal?

The interview ends with a howl of anguish from IC as he is charged with rape.

Below is a ‘sermon’, (author unknown) that satirises the historic, fire and brimstone culture of the Wee Free Presbyterians of the Outer Hebrides. It is a reminder of possible influences on the police officers and others who went after the ‘unbelievers’ and the ‘incomers with their heathen ways’ - the pagans, mormons, unconventional Christians, agents of the devil and those with no religious faith, they were convinced were fomenting child abuse in satanic circumstances. Two hundred years ago, Robert Burns called these preachers and their followers, Holy Willies, the ‘unco guid’ – a description that may still fit some of them today with their unctuousness and strict Calvinist condescension towards the ‘unelect’.

The Meenistur Tae His Floack

“Aye - yir oot enjoayin yirsels an geein in tae the Devil and his Satanic weys - oan yir nichts oot at the picturs an the dancin - wi yir drinkin an gamblin an smokin an hooerin – an neglectin yir weans - an yir laffin awa wi nivur a thocht fur the wurd o God an his great and terrible laws. Bit whin yir doon below in the fiery pit o Hell – an yir screemin an yir burnin an yir roastin an yir yellin – Oh Lord Lord – we didnae ken - we didnae ken – the great Lord in his infinite mercy will ben doon frae Heaven and say – Well ye ken noo!”