Cole-Hamilton to Swinney: Do the right thing and give Fornethy survivors access to Redress

Ahead of a members’ business debate in the Scottish Parliament, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has urged John Swinney to do the right thing and grant the Fornethy House survivors access to the Redress compensation scheme.

The Scottish Government’s Redress Scheme pays out up to £100,000 and offers support to those abused in residential care.

More than 200 women have now come forward alleging that they were sexually, physically and mentally abused in the 1960s and 70s at Fornethy House- an all-girls residential school in Angus.

The Holyrood Petitions Committee has concluded that the women should be granted access to the scheme.

In 2023, John Swinney said that there is no “inherent impediment to applications to the redress scheme coming forward from people who spent time at Fornethy” and that “the nature of the environment in which individuals were spending time at Fornethy could be considered to fall within the ambit of the scheme.”

However, the Scottish Government has now told Fornethy survivors that they do not qualify for the Redress scheme because their visit to the school was only “short-term”.

Ahead of the members’ business debate, Mr Cole-Hamilton said:

“The Scottish Government’s continued denial of Redress to the Fornethy House survivors is a palpable unfairness.

“This scheme is specifically designed to support victims of abuse, so it is galling that the Fornethy women are excluded from it.

“How can the length of time they spent at Fornethy possibly matter when they were abused while there and forced to bear the trauma of that abuse for the rest of their lives?

“These women should not have to fight such an uphill struggle for the recognition and compensation they deserve.

“The Scottish Government has sent mixed messages to survivors, with the First Minister having once indicated they could be successful under the scheme, only for his Deputy First Minister to subsequently reject that notion.

“I am urging both he and the Deputy First Minister to look again at the Fornethy cases, do the right thing and grant these women access to Redress. It is the very least they deserve.”