This is Jim Fairlie's Story

Jim was a prominent MSP untill his life took an horrific turn. Injustice is no respecter of persons.
What is worse, to be accused of killing a six-year-old girl with an iron bar, or to be accused of leading a paedophile ring, subjecting your own daughter to more than twenty years of violent rape and the most obscene and unspeakable sexual crimes? Having been accused of both, I am still uncertain, such is the climate which has been created in this country by the problem of sexual abuse.

It is more than a decade since my youngest daughter was taken to hospital, complaining of abdominal pains, had her appendix removed, only to be told there was nothing wrong with it and then had her gall bladder removed to be told there was also nothing wrong with that, despite the existence of a lab report which stated the exact opposite. The failure of the medical team to read that report led to the chain of events which almost destroyed my family.

Failure to read the lab report led to my daughter being given an inappropriate drug, pethadine, for pain relief, which in turn, caused pain and cramps in the bilary system and since the medical team had convinced themselves, erroneously, that there was no physical cause for her pain, they concluded her problems must be psychosomatic. She was referred to a consultant psychiatrist who immediately decided that her condition could be caused only by some early childhood trauma. Her medical notes highlighted that two abdominal operations had been carried out but that “no pathology had been found”. The psychiatrist also failed to read the relevant lab report and treated my daughter with recovered memory therapy, something which the NHS Trust still denies.

After two years of internal inquiries in which the NHS Trust and the Social Work Department of Perth & Kinross, decided that all persons “had acted appropriately”, the family decided to go public in October 1997. Since then the problems associated with recovered memory therapy, leading to false memory syndrome, have been given a wide airing. The controversy surrounding false memory should not be confused with claims of recent abuse which has actually taken place, nor should allegations of abuse simply be dismissed. False memory concerns allegations of abuse by mainly women, who had no memory of the abuse until undergoing therapy.

Since our decision to go public the trauma and distress to which my family were subjected, have been well documented by a media which has been both sympathetic and sensitive. Several television and radio programmes during the last eight years have covered the details of the story in some depth, particularly since I was the first person in the UK to sue a Social Work Department (SWD) and a psychiatrist for the damage they had caused by their own negligence.

No matter how often the story has been told, it does no harm to remind people how the “system”, the agencies on which we rely for help, not only caused the nightmare by a combination of professional and bureaucratic arrogance, but were able to call on their legal back-up teams with unlimited access to public funds, to defend the indefensible. Arrogance and stupidity can be a dangerous cocktail and unfortunately some of the people with whom we had to deal, had both in abundance. Their great mistake was to assume that their victims were also stupid.

The details of our case, which have been brought into the public domain do not cover all the accusations which were levelled at me. But they were more than sufficient for people hearing them to ask, “How could anyone with an iota of common sense believe them?” Anyone who has had to deal with the recovered memory lobby or a SWD on the trail of suspected child abuse, can confirm that common sense is their first casualty.

That begs the question of how my eldest daughter and my three sons could have been persuaded to believe the accusations, even for a short time. The answer is that they were never given the whole story. They were drip-fed selected information over a period of three months, always told there was more evidence which could not be divulged because of patient confidentiality. Thus the authorities used a patient’s right to protection and privacy as a weapon.

My family were not predisposed to think of me as an abuser. They are educated and intelligent people who are all successful in their chosen careers. But they were assured there was no other explanation for their sister’s condition, their protestations that their childhood memories of me were of being loved and feeling safe, were dismissed as just that –childhood memories. Only their youngest sister’s childhood “memories” were deemed valid.

When they suggested speaking to their mother they were warned not to as she would tell me and I would tell the paedophile ring. It was impressed on them that their siter’s life was in danger, either from her own hand or from mine. They contacted an alleged witness to my alleged crimes, who offered to speak to the psychiatrist and testify it was nonsense. The offer was turned down and the “testimony” dismissed.

On first being brought into the limited confidence of the psychiatrist and the SWD, my eldest daughter was warned not to tell her brothers, as having been brought up in a culture of abuse, they were possibly also abusers. They were all warned that unless they gave a guarantee that I would not be given unsupervised access to their children, “other measures would be taken”. When they finally confronted me it was out of sheer desperation. The pressure had been intolerable.

My wife, who at no time had any doubt about my innocence and whose fury and outrage on my behalf has often been greater than my own, and I, were not allowed to be concerned parents. The very first letter we received from the psychiatrist (December 1995) warned us that our daughter’s recent attempted suicide had been prompted by our request for a second opinion. He omitted to mention that less than twenty four hours before the attempt, the psychologist who was part of the psychiatric team, had told our daughter that if she wanted to commit suicide it was her right to do so, but that she should prepare herself for death by writing letters of farewell to her family and friends. We still have those letters.

Ours is not the only family which has suffered and many are still estranged from daughters and sisters. Since its foundation in 1992, the British False Memory Society has been contacted by over 1400 families who have been affected in one way or another. The Brandon Committee Report, published in March 1998, completely discredited the whole idea of recovered memory therapy and the idea of repression. Therapists in the USA have paid out millions in compensation to their patients and, in some cases, the families of their patients, who were subjected to this therapy. But what is at stake in this country is the whole idea of natural justice.

Does the law permit a psychiatrist to proceed on the basis of a discredited theory, to set out to persuade the rest of an accused’s family, the SWD and the police that the accused is an abuser? Is a psychiatrist protected by law from being held accountable for the collateral damage he causes to the family of one of his patients?

Does the law permit a psychiatrist to say anything he wishes, about anyone about whom he chooses to say it, on the basis of no evidence other than his “professional opinion”? Does it permit him to dismiss evidence that alleged incidents of abuse could not possibly have taken place on the grounds that he “cannot comment because he was not there” and at the same time swear to the certainty that abuse did take place, although he did not witness it?

Does a SWD have the legal right to refuse to explain its actions to someone who was falsely accused, shred all original notes and maintain a file that is a complete fabrication, on that person and his family? Unfortunately in this country, the answer to all of those questions is “Yes”. After eight years and five court appearances, my case was finally struck out by Lord Kingarth in the Court of Session in Edinburgh in March 2004.

Although expressing sympathy for my position his Lordship felt he had to stand by existing law on the duty of care to third parties, and rule that my case should not be allowed to go to proof. I had hoped to push the boundaries of existing law to new parameters and make authorities such as SWDs and Health Trusts accountable to those they harm, but the law as it stands argues that unless they have a duty of care to their victims, they are immune from accountability. I am pursuing this through the Scottish Parliament.

Did the actions of the psychiatrist and the SWD breach natural justice and if they did, does it matter? It certainly matters to me and it should matter to all of us. There is something inherently evil in a system that chooses to destroy entire families rather than admit a mistake has been made. The bureaucracies would have us believe we live in a blameless society, where no one is responsible for anything that goes wrong – particularly when the finger of blame is pointing at them. That system must be challenged and then changed.
Jim Fairlie is our political correspondent, we look forward to hearing what he has to say soon.