Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry chair Lady Smith has concluded that children living in the Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark were subjected to despicable physical, mental and sexual abuse.
The home, which was run by nuns, shut its doors more than 40 years ago and most of the former residents are approaching pension age, or are sadly no longer alive.
Should we therefore turn our backs on its nightmarish past and move on? The answer must be a resounding no.
Despite the passing of time, the spectre of Smyllum – and other accused care institutes – still haunts surviving former residents and their families.
The black and white picture of Patricia Meenan, who died at the age of 12 in 1969, might hark back to a bygone era.
But questions surrounding her death still haunt her family half a century later.
Today, we reveal how another former resident who was homed with Patricia has begun legal action against the religious order who ran the home.
She hopes – after decades of trying – now is the time to finally get justice.
It is in everyone’s interests that she gets it, and as a society we owe it to those who suffered in silence to hear them now.
It would be folly to believe atrocities like these could never happen again in Scotland.
The only way to reduce the risk is to learn from the past and hold those individuals and institutions responsible to account, no matter how long has past.
Shame of the SNP
Malcolm Kerr has been in the SNP for 54 years, but has concluded he would be “ashamed and embarrassed” to make it 55.
The 68-year-old doctor, a former Holyrood candidate and party official, believes complaints over the alleged conduct of Cunninghame North MSP Kenneth Gibson have been ignored by Nicola Sturgeon.
He is clearly not alone in feeling that the party’s leadership has lost touch with the rank and file activists who put them in ministerial jobs.
Dissent has been growing and the First Minister will be hoping her conference speech tomorrow can bring her party back together.
It will be difficult because the one thing she will not be delivering is a date for Indyref 2.
