A report investigating allegations of horrific historical abuse against vulnerable children at Derby’s Aston Hall Hospital has accepted claims were and are ‘genuine’.
Following a major inquiry, reports by both Derbyshire Police and Derbyshire Safeguarding Children Board – a multi-agency body including police, health and social services – have been published today (Wednesday, 25 July).
In the report, the Derbyshire Safeguarding Children Board said dozens of former patients – who were vulnerable children at the time, some as young as 10 years old – in the 1960s and 70s made genuine claims. Derbyshire Police also recorded 33 physical assault and 40 sexual assault allegations after taking witness accounts from 140 people.
Nelsons’ Personal injury solicitor Dianne Collins is representing several claimants who were admitted to the hospital when they were children.
Speaking following the release of the report, Dianne said: “While no criminal prosecutions are to be brought, the civil claim relating to Aston Hall is ongoing. What the survivors want most of all are answers to their questions – an admission that what happened to them as children should never have been allowed to happen – and an apology.
“Nelsons is working very hard to achieve those things for our clients, plus the compensation they deserve for the abuse which they suffered. I would encourage anyone out there who suffered abuse at Aston Hall Hospital as a child and now wishes to speak out to come forward and report the abuse to the police – it is not too late.”
The former patients have previously claimed they were experimented on with a drug called sodium amytal, which is commonly known as a “truth serum” during narco-analysis treatment, a type of therapy conducted while a patient is in a sleep-like state to unlock repressed memories.
Medical experts were interviewed as part of the police report, including a Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, who said the use of the drug in order to render a child unconscious was not a recognised treatment in the period the police were investigating and therefore it was being used inappropriately.
He also concluded that the use of straitjackets with young people was not a normal or accepted practice even at the time and it was not acceptable for intimate examinations to take place under these circumstances.
Dianne said: “Narcoanalysis fell out of fashion after the war as psychiatrists became concerned about the lack of supporting evidence as to its success as a treatment. However, evidence from Aston Hall Hospital shows it was being used into the mid 1970s on vulnerable children and adolescents.
“Dr Milner had a lot of power over very vulnerable children and young people, who were not believed if they tried to tell anyone what had happened to them. Sadly, it appears there were no safeguarding procedures in place to stop the abuse from happening.”
The doctor at the centre of allegations – the hospital’s head physician Dr Kenneth Milner – died in 1975, making it impossible to put the allegations to him, therefore no criminal prosecutions are to be brought.
However, Derbyshire Police’s senior investigating officer said there would have been sufficient evidence to justify interviewing Dr Milner under caution if he was still alive in relation to a number of potential offences – namely rape, indecent assault, child cruelty and assault. But the report also states no inference can be drawn as to his guilt.
Dianne added: “Although many survivors may be disappointed that no criminal prosecutions are to be brought, it is always important to report any abuse which has happened, however long ago it was. Abusers have to realise that they are not in the clear simply because of the passage of time.
“Nothing can change what these people went through at Aston Hall Hospital but an apology would help to give them some closure.”