Submitted by CRIN on
[30 April 2014] -
Disabled children at Kingspark School in Dundee have suffered a four-year period of “abuse”, a group of angry parents have alleged.
At least seven families have taken legal advice and are pressing for a full, independent investigation into their allegations which, they say, have been covered up by Dundee City Council.
Police Scotland have also been asked by Police Investigations and Review Commissioner John McNeill to hold a fresh inquiry and a spokesman said the force is considering his report.
A previous investigation was held into the claims that disabled children have arrived home with unexplained bruising and other injuries.
The force took no action then but one family says they were not even interviewed by police.
The furious parents also say the council has blocked every attempt to get the alleged abuse properly investigated and stopped.
Last night, however, families were given letters from director of education Michael Wood explaining that the council was holding its own investigation into the allegations.
The parents of one young boy, who suffers from epilepsy, said they first raised concerns about unexplained bruising on his body in 2010, which they say the council tried to blame them for.
The boy’s mother said they finally took their child out of the school last year after she personally witnessed an episode of “abuse” in a corridor.
The father said they and other parents have raised concerns over their children coming home with unexplained bruising and scratches and tales of them being nipped, while some children have had teeth broken.
He said: “There are at least seven families we know who are formally working together and hopefully with the story going out others will feel confident enough to come forward.
“I would estimate there are about 14-16 families with concerns and the Kingspark roll is 160, that’s 10% of the school roll.
“The thing is, as our children are bussed and taxied to the school, there are no parents at the school gates to chat about things, so nobody really knew what was going on.
“It’s only really in the last year that we began to find out that lots of other families have raised concerns.
“This is not about us suing the council, the only way we felt we could move forward was to make it a legal issue as we have been denied a proper investigation by the council.
“It’s about getting this stopped and the people responsible being dealt with. It’s not about policies and procedures, which is all they’ve investigated. Policies and procedures did not injure my child.
“One of the injuries he received was a crushing injury to the chest which came from him being pinned face down on the floor.
“We’ve been fighting the council since 2010 and if we just wanted to go to court and sue them we would have done it then.
“But that’s what they want, just throw some money at us to get us to shut up and go away. But we’re pushing for an independent review by people with nothing to do with the council because we believe there has been a huge cover-up by the council.”
A spokesman for Police Scotland Tayside Division said: “Police Scotland acknowledges the report of a complaint handling review by Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC).
“Police Scotland is currently considering the report and will respond in due course.”
Council response
A Dundee City Council spokesman said: “The investigations and inquiries which have been carried out are ones the council is satisfied with.
“Each of the individual family concerns were addressed through child protection procedures and the Initial Referral Discussions (IRDs) from each of these cases required no further action to be taken.
“As a result of the families’ continued concerns about the objectivity and decisions from the child protection procedures, the Child Protection Committee requested an independent review of the responses and decisions taken in relation to the collective concerns the families have raised.
“This independent review, which has taken place over the last two months, is due to report soon and the findings from the report will be shared with the families, all of whom were invited to be interviewed as part of the review but declined.”
'People are scared to raise the issue'
Some of the parents told The Courier about the allegations they had raised with the school.
One boy’s mother said: “They will say we refused to take part in their investigation but we were denied the chance because the man they put in place to conduct their investigation, a former HMI inspector, phoned us on February 27 to say he was going to talk to the families over a two-week period in February.
“We said, ‘which two weeks in February, it’s the 27th’, and he said he would call us back the next day. He didn’t and he didn’t call us again until March 9, when he said the consultation period was over.
“The council has just put loads of obstacles in front of the parents and some people are actually scared to raise the issue.”
It is claimed one child suffered 63 separate injuries while a cerebral palsy sufferer was strapped to his wheelchair and dumped outside the school.
The mother said: “It’s horrendous, we’ve tried everything we know but we’re not giving up on this.”
Fighting back tears, she added: “I’ll never forgive myself for not taking my son out of that school before I did. It was only after I saw for myself what those other parents were going through that I took him out.
“We want cameras in every special care classroom in that school to protect the children and we want justice.
“Somebody has to protect these children. They are the most vulnerable. They deserve care and nurturing and that’s not happening.”
Another woman said she had more than 80 photographs of bruising on her daughter and said the child told her she had been pulled out of her seat by her ponytail.
“I’ve taken her out of there lots of times and complained and they have a meeting and say they’ll get it fixed, but nothing ever happens.”
Country:
Settings: