Gordonstoun royal school - sexual abuse files 'lost'

[TonyGosling]

Police files on child sex abuse at Gordonstoun school have vanished
Victims of teacher at school that taught royals are frustrated in search for truth
Alex Renton Sunday 28 June 2015 00.05 BST
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/28/gordonstoun-child-sex-a buse-search-for-victims

Official files on police investigations of child abuse at Gordonstoun, the school in the Scottish Highlands that educated the Queen’s sons and Prince Philip, appear to have gone missing or been destroyed.

In a case investigated by the Observer, a teacher named Derek Jones seriously sexually assaulted a number of children attending the junior school around 1990. He was twice questioned by police in the following years after the children told their parents what had happened. Files were forwarded to the Procurator Fiscal, Scotland’s prosecution service, but it was decided not to prosecute. The files would normally be retained, but Scotland’s Crown Office says they now cannot be found.

Jones died in a car crash in Kenya six years ago. But two of his victims, now in their 30s, want to discover why he was not prosecuted. Gordonstoun sacked Jones, who had been an English teacher in the junior school for three months. The school’s bursar told the boys’ parents that the school would ensure he never taught again.

One of the boys, John Findlay, was drugged, photographed naked and sexually assaulted in his dormitory bed at Aberlour House, Gordonstoun’s junior school. He told his parents what had happened soon afterwards. A police investigation was launched, but the Findlays decided, after pressure from the school, not to press for a prosecution.

Another man, who does not want to be named, has told the Observer he was groomed and taught to masturbate by Jones when he was 12. He said that Jones also performed oral sex on him and showed him pictures of boys at another school who had also been the teacher’s “favourites”, implying that they also had sex with him.

He told his parents about the assault a year later. His family went to the local police, who mounted an investigation and assured them that a prosecution would happen because other complaints had been received about Jones. But shortly before the court date, the Procurator Fiscal told the boy’s mother that there would be no prosecution. No reason was given.

Findlay believes that Jones did go on to teach again. He has already served a freedom of information request on Police Scotland. He asked the force to reveal the details of all their inquiries at the time of Jones’s assault on him, first detailed in an Observer magazine investigation in April that also uncovered allegations of the rapes of two 12-year-old girls at Aberlour House.

The FOI request was refused on grounds of privacy and excessive cost. Findlay plans to appeal. “If there has been a tradition of abuse and cover-up anywhere children are looked after by people who aren’t their parents, it needs to be known by the public,” he says.

The Procurator Fiscal’s office told the Observer: “We do not have a record of a case against Derek Jones on the system and we are unable to establish at this stage if we did receive a report from the police and if so what the reason was for not prosecuting.”

But police in Elgin have assured the victims that files did go to the prosecutor, and found the reference number of one of the original complaints.

The Procurator Fiscal’s office said that such files would normally be kept, even if the decision was made not to proceed with a prosecution. But the cases all precede computerisation of the prosecutors’ archive.

The office was unable to say whether all records relating to abuse complaints at Gordonstoun, of which there have been several since the 1970s, had gone missing or just the documents that were concerned with the Jones allegations.

In England and Scotland, lost police files have been a recurring problem in the current wave of revelations around historical abuse in childcare institutions.

One of the reasons for setting up an inquiry, which is soon to begin in England under a New Zealand judge, Lowell Goddard, was the fact that the Home Office had lost files of allegations concerning important people given by Geoffrey Dickens MP to the then home secretary, Leon Brittan. Both men have since died.

The Scottish government has announced its own inquiry into abuse of children in institutions. After protests, its remit was extended to private boarding schools. Police Scotland recently announced that its National Child Abuse Investigation Unit had started inquiries into 45 institutions, including 17 schools.

A spokeswoman for Gordonstoun said: “It is absolutely right that any allegation of abuse is thoroughly investigated. We have recently taken a number of steps to address any allegations of historic abuse proactively, including writing to former students urging them to come forward if they were affected. We will continue to help any former student as best we can.” Gordonstoun’s junior school was separately managed until 2004.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Fettes, Gordonstoun, Loretto and Merchiston Castle named among schools being probed in national child abuse inquiry
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/fettes-gordonstoun-lor etto-merchiston-castle-9728238

The inquiry is also investigating faith-based organisations run by religious orders including the Benedictines, Sisters of Nazareth and the Christian Brothers.

BYHILARY DUNCANSON Daily Record 15:09, 31 JAN 2017 UPDATED15:10, 31 JAN 2017

Fettes, Gordonstoun, Loretto and Merchiston Castle School are involved in the probe (Photo: PA/Daily Record)
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More than 60 residential care establishments for youngsters are being investigated by the team working on Scotland's national child abuse inquiry.

Lady Smith, the inquiry chairwoman, has revealed they are among more than 100 locations where the abuse of children is alleged to have taken place.

Boarding schools, institutions run by religious orders and local authorities are among the establishments being probed.

The schools specifically being investigated by inquiry staff are Fettes College, Gordonstoun, the former Keil School, Loretto School, Merchiston Castle School, and Morrison's Academy when it was a boarding school.

Some of the school named are amongst the costliest fee-paying educational establishments in Scotland.

The fees for Fettes and Gordonstoun are more than £31,000 a year for a boarder while Lotetto and Merchiston Castle are around £30,000.

Faith-based organisations being looked at include those run by religious orders including the Benedictines, Sisters of Nazareth and the Christian Brothers.

The inquiry is also investigating the relationship between the Catholic Church in Scotland and these religious orders, as well as three establishments run by the Church of Scotland.

Lady Smith named the list of places being probed as she provided an update on its progress during a preliminary hearing in Edinburgh.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry is examining historical allegations of the abuse of children in care and has been taking statements from witnesses since the spring of last year.

Lady Smith told the hearing at Parliament House that the inquiry is "determined to get to the bottom of any systemic failures that occurred".

Merchiston Castle costs £29,000 a year on a boarding basis
She appealed to anyone with relevant evidence to come forward and speak to the inquiry.

"We are determined to find out the truth about what happened to children in care, where, how and why," she said.

"We want to find out why the abuse was not prevented, why it was not stopped, and what needs to be done to protect children in care in the future."