Scot repeatedly raped at boarding school 'denied compensation' for horrific abuse

25.03.2022 - 11:51 / dailyrecord.co.uk

A man who was repeatedly raped as a child at a Dumfries school has been told he’s not entitled to compensation for the horrific abuse he suffered.

The 62-year-old was one of the pupils targeted by sexual predators when St Joseph’s College was run by the Marist Brothers between 1950 and 1981.

A scheme to provide survivors of historical child abuse in Scottish schools and care homes with redress payments of up to £100,000 opened for applications in December.

But Andrew, who lives in the region, has been barred from a payout because St Joseph’s was a fee-paying residential boarding school at the time.

He said yesterday: “I’m absolutely disgusted that the survivors whose families paid for a so-called education are being treated differently to the ones who didn’t.

“If somebody wasn’t at a residential boarding school and was abused once, they’re entitled to compensation.

“I was at a residential boarding school and my mother paid through the nose for an education for me that included being raped, tortured physically and mentally and fed food that you wouldn’t put down to a dog.”

The Scottish Government last year earmarked £400 million for compensation to victims of child abuse in Scottish institutions.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney said at the time: “We cannot make up for the pain and we cannot take away the devastating impact it has had on people’s lives.

“But we can provide acknowledgement and tangible recognition of the harm caused, by offering redress to survivors through this scheme.”

However, the scheme only applies to “abuse that happened when the survivor was in a relevant care setting and below the age of 18, and where the abuse happened before December 1, 2004”.

It states on its website that a care setting is a