7. RANGE OF ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSE
7.1 A report prepared by Glasgow City Council for the Minister for Children and Young People dated August 2007 (which we refer to as "the Glasgow Report") noted that there had been between 350 and 400 allegations from 159 complainants and that:
The complaints and allegations upheld either through the Court process or the Council's disciplinary processes, show that the majority of physical and sexual abuse can be attributed to around 40 individuals over a 30-year period. However, the investigations, through interviews with a range of staff and young people, also identified that a far larger number of staff had knowledge and information about abuse and potential abuse, which was not appropriately dealt with.
For practical reasons associated with tracking down potential witnesses the internal investigations on which the report relied were weighted towards alleged incidents in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Police investigations and Court cases
7.2 The police inquiry - named "Operation Chalk", and which was conducted alongside, not jointly with, the Council's internal investigations - resulted in April 2006 in the conviction of an art teacher and a unit manager on charges of physical and sexual abuse. The teacher had faced an indictment of 49 charges of assault relating to the period 1975 to 2003, including 2 joint charges with the unit manager. Of those, 18 were of a sexual nature or had sexual elements involving allegations of actual sexual contact with young people. The unit manager's indictment covered 38 charges of assault on a number of occasions between 1983 and 2003, including the 2 joint charges with the teacher. Of those, 16 had a sexual element.
7.3 The teacher was convicted on 18 counts relating to incidents between 1975 and 1995, half of which contained a sexual element and related to the period 1977 to 1990. The unit manager was convicted of 4 charges containing a sexual element, relating to the period 1992 -1994. The teacher was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. He was released on interim liberation in December 2007 pending an Appeal which at the time of our writing this report had not been heard. With this Appeal outstanding it would be inappropriate for the Inquiry to make comment on the individual concerned or his conviction, other than to note that the police inquiry into the allegations against him did not arise from fact-finding by the Council's internal investigators. No fact-finding in relation to him was carried out by the investigation team.
7.4 The unit manager was sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment and served his time. Unlike the teacher, he had been subject to investigation by Glasgow City Council in relation to staff complaints about his management style and to allegations of abuse of young people. He was referred to the police along with a number of individuals following an internal report to the Directors of Social Work and Education in June 2004.
7.5 In total, 21 individuals were reported to the Procurator Fiscal, mainly for physical abuse of young people. Two of those were convicted, as noted above, in 2006. As a result of a police report not related to "Operation Chalk", another individual, a night worker, had been convicted in 2004 of physically assaulting a female resident. He had already been subject to a disciplinary procedure which resulted in a Final Written Warning, which was revisited but not changed after his conviction. He remained in employment with the Council but was then paid off. A fourth individual died. A female care worker at Kerelaw was also prosecuted, but was found not proven and acquitted in 2007 on charges relating to sexual relations with a minor while he was resident at Kerelaw School. This worker had previously been twice investigated, eventually disciplined by Glasgow City Council for gross misconduct, and dismissed. The Inquiry confirmed that by 2008 decisions had been taken by Crown Counsel following consideration of the report of the Procurator Fiscal not to proceed with any of the outstanding cases.
Allegations of abuse over the years
7.6 Kerelaw, like other child care establishments, was no stranger to complaints and allegations over the years, both before and after Glasgow City Council took responsibility in 1996. There is evidence that some of these were investigated, at least internally. Prior to 2004, a variety of concerns about how Kerelaw operated, about "what was going on" and about the behaviour of some of Kerelaw's staff, had been expressed by external managers, by Kerelaw staff, social workers, and by others who had contact with the school. Again, some of these were looked into. However, none of these individual issues at the time sparked the scale of investigation subsequently undertaken by the Council. It is not possible to follow a single chain of events directly to the Council's 2004 investigations. Rather, the evidence points the Inquiry to the coincidence of a number of related events, and a determination on the part of key individuals in and around Kerelaw to make themselves heard and to persist in ensuring that a thorough investigation was undertaken at last. Examples of relevant events are described below.
7.7 While the complaints system, as discussed at paragraphs 12.5-12.21, was inconsistent and in important respects deficient, it was used by some residents, and many complaints were followed up. A number of those involved complaints by non-Glasgow residents to their placing authorities. Between 1996 and 2000 a neighbouring local authority's CRO became increasingly concerned about patterns of complaints about inappropriate restraint practices and physical assaults from young people placed at Kerelaw, and the unsatisfactory outcomes when these were investigated internally. These concerns were voiced to managers in Kerelaw to little effect, and escalated and reported to Social Work HQ in Glasgow. Although investigations of allegations in late 1997 did attract follow-up by external management, there was very little evident lasting impact. In August 2002 and in early 2003, the CRO detailed concerns in writing in SWSI questionnaires prior to inspection of the Kerelaw Secure Unit, but there appeared to be no substantive follow-up.
7.8 Those who investigated the 1997 allegations had concerns about aspects of practice and the possibility that staff were covering up for one another. They concluded that a number of practices in Kerelaw Open School needed to be urgently reviewed. A recommendation for disciplinary action was made in respect of one of the care workers concerned, but this was modified with the agreement of the Head of Service to management action by the then acting Principal. The rationale for this was to allow the individual concerned an opportunity to improve practice. The management action was properly followed up some time later by the acting Principal, and formally recorded.
7.9 Complaints and allegations which were investigated were dealt with as they arose and, in keeping with Council disciplinary procedures, warnings were considered "spent" after set periods of time. As a result, even though certain employees were the subject of investigation on more than one occasion, any pattern of past complaints or allegations was not usually taken into account. Although the neighbouring authority's 1997 complaints had been investigated and followed up by the Head of Service, the Inquiry found little evidence of systematic senior internal or external management monitoring of the frequency of complaints against particular individuals, or of alarm bells ringing as to individuals' practice. There were some concerns over certain night staff, about whom there had over the years been a number of complaints about heavy-handed treatment of residents, but any action tended to be ad hoc.
7.10 Growing concern about night staffing, particularly after a major disturbance ("the Kerelaw riot") in May 1998, led to a review of night care arrangements. Among other things, this resulted in additional staff cover at night in each unit. This was a positive development, but complaints continued to surface. For example, in September 2001 two girls made allegations against a member of night staff who had previously given cause for concern. A further allegation was made against the same individual in December. However, fact-finding did not take place until the following June, by which time it was difficult to obtain evidence. In July 2004, another night-shift worker was, as noted at paragraph 7.5, convicted of assaulting a female resident, having previously been disciplined.
7.11 Complaints were not restricted to night staff. In 2001, for example, a unit manager was subject to a disciplinary hearing over an allegation of inappropriate restraint and was given management counselling. In January 2003 there was fact-finding into the "aeroplaning" of a boy by five Kerelaw staff. In March 2003, the same unit manager who had been given counselling as a result of the 2001 disciplinary action was again the subject of allegations, as was another member of the unit. This resulted in an investigation which did not end in disciplinary action. However, it was again decided that there should be a management discussion with the unit manager to deal with practice issues. This was led by the external manager, in the presence of the Principal. The manager was then moved and put in charge of the Millerston unit, where complaints in early 2004 about his management style set off a chain reaction of allegations of abuse carried out by a number of staff.
7.12 In the Summer of 2003 there were various complaints from young people of assault by members of staff during restraints, but investigations failed to obtain corroboration. In late October a teacher was investigated for inappropriate restraint, but again there was a lack of corroboration. In the Autumn and Winter a range of allegations by former residents and employees began to emerge. This coincided with clear signs that a number of staff felt under pressure as the proportion of difficult young people admitted to Kerelaw, and those aged over 16, grew. In December 2003 an ex-employee made a formal complaint through SIRCC about an assault on a young woman in which he alleged there had been a cover-up. This was followed up a few days later in an interview with the external manager.
7.13 There was also an issue around staff drinking on night duty over the New Year period. In January 2004 the external manager raised his growing concern over Kerelaw with the Head of Service and the Depute Director, Children and Families and Criminal Justice. With their agreement, he began to prepare a paper setting out those concerns and the basis for them. In February a female employee in Millerston unit alleged bullying by the manager, and made a formal complaint. She was joined by another female employee and an addictions worker, one of whom also alleged abusive behaviour towards a resident.
7.14 A former resident also came forward to allege abuse by a manager in the early 1990s. A former Deputy (Open School) raised concerns about oppression and bullying during the same period. A visiting SVQ assessor complained about the way a care worker spoke to a young person. A fourth female member of staff came forward with information relating to the manager of Millerston unit. In April a care worker in an exit interview with the external manager alleged that a boy in Millerston unit had "received a kicking".
7.15 Despite the emerging allegations of abuse of residents and the growing concerns of the external manager, the initial response was to begin a fact-finding investigation of the allegations of bullying of staff by the manager of the Millerston unit. This began in April 2004 and was led by two Council officers from the Social Work Department. The unit manager was moved pro tem to Centenary House in Glasgow.
7.16 In May, not long after the publication of the report of a Care Commission/ HMIE Inspection carried out in November 2003, a former resident of Kerelaw, who had visited the school the previous year, contacted Glasgow City Council alleging abuse by a teacher in 1979. Although the person concerned was shortly afterwards interviewed by two members of Council staff, his allegations were quickly passed to the police, who began the investigation which led to the teacher's conviction.
The Millerston investigation
7.17 During the fact-finding into the allegations of bullying of staff, employees raised a number of concerns about how young people at Kerelaw were cared for. Some residents then began to speak to the investigators. This was reported to the external manager and the Head of Service, who instructed the fact-finders to carry on with their investigations and consider the young people's complaints. Young people consistently mentioned 4 staff at this stage and said they had complained in the past. They talked about a "zero tolerance" policy in Millerston Unit associated with an oppressive culture and inappropriate restraints. Staff used the same term to describe the policy. There were also suggestions that some unit staff engaged in a "worst worker" competition and that abusive language was regularly used in references to young people.
7.18 The investigators fairly quickly formed the view that the police should be informed. So far as we can establish, the external management view was that further internal work was needed. The Director of Social Work was not informed at that stage. The internal investigation continued. Having interviewed staff and residents, the 2 investigating officers completed their report in May and sent it to the Head of Service. They continued to argue that the matter should be escalated within the Council and that the police should be informed.
7.19 On 15 June the external manager, drawing on the findings of the Millerston investigation, on his own experience of Kerelaw, and on his interviews with individuals who had come forward to him over a period of several months, made a report to the Directors of Social Work and Education, and senior Department managers. This outlined the findings of the Millerston investigation. It made serious criticisms of local management, and referred to poor relations in Kerelaw's SMT, cliques and undermining gossip to which these were said to be related, and poor communications between the Secure Unit and Open School.
7.20 His report also noted failures in the response to previous complaints about the unit manager on whom the investigation had initially focused. It referred to a number of flawed disposals in other disciplinary cases, including those related to night-shift workers. The report recommended further investigations, including investigation of senior management failures at Kerelaw. This was agreed, and the Director of Social Work decided that the police had to be involved. A number of staff had already been suspended and further suspensions were to follow, including that of the Principal of Kerelaw, on grounds of management failure.
Establishment of the joint investigation team
7.21 More allegations emerged. In Summer 2004 the Council set up a joint investigation team to consider current and historical allegations of abuse against a number of Kerelaw staff and managers. Initially, the expectation was that the Council investigators would work jointly with the police, and that only a few months would be needed to complete their work. In practice, police and Council investigations ran in parallel, and took significantly longer than a few months. We discuss the investigations in Chapter 15