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Sir Nicholas Fairbairn in child abuse scandal link & he was embroiled in the Carol X case
SOURCE
Then when he REFUSED to prosecute the 3 rapists he was forced to step down The devil in old Nick’s sordid details
SOURCE
‘If the families want justice they must fight for it’ AUG 22ND 2015
THE system turned its back on Carol Douglas, known to the world as Carol X, when she was savagely raped and mutilated on the streets of Glasgow.
But the mother of three fought bravely and doggedly for justice – and got it 19 months later through a private prosecution.
Carol died 12 years ago, aged only 51. But her sister hopes relatives of the Glasgow bin lorry victims will be inspired by her courage to follow her example and try to put Harry Clarke in the dock.
How the Daily Record told the story of Carol X
Carol was living on the street and addicted to alcohol in 1980 when three thugs dragged her into a workmen’s hut in a yard in Parkhead in the east end.
She was repeatedly raped and brutally slashed with a razor, leaving her needing 152 stitches. The case left Scotland horrified.
There was a wealth of evidence against the attackers, led by rapist Joseph Sweeney.
One of them confessed. Carol named them all and picked them out at identity parades, and there was a fat file of physical evidence. She was desperate to see them convicted. But despite all that, the Crown caused public fury by refusing to put the men on trial. Prosecutors made the decision after a psychiatrist claimed a court case could damage Carol.
Mary said: “She was generally referred to as a prostitute but that wasn’t the case. The truth is she was homeless and had a terrible dependency on alcohol and as a result she was ruthlessly exploited by men. She would only be interested in where her next drink was coming from. And on the street, that would lead to dealing with some very bad people. But don’t be under any illusions. Carol was a hero to me and all of us for her bravery in going against the State to get justice. She put up with so much and she was so focused on what she was doing.”
Mary said: “People knew her as Mrs X or Carol X, but she was a mother, a daughter, a sister and an aunt. And she really struck a blow for women when she testified against those boys.”
Carol’s private prosecution – supported throughout by the Daily Record – was one of only two to succeed in Scotland in the 20th century. The other involved a fraud case in 1909. It led to Sweeney, then 18, and his two 16-year-old accomplices being put on trial at the High Court in Edinburgh. Sweeney got 12 years for rape and his brother Gordon and John Thomson, both 16, were convicted of indecent assault.
Crucially, the Lord Advocate of the time, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, effectively allowed the private prosecution by deciding not to object to it.
Carol’s loved ones make no bones about how painful and difficult her life was. She grew up the eldest of 10 children in an east end tenement and had to give up her dream of going to art college to get a job to help feed the family. But she fell in with a bad crowd and fell victim to alcoholism. She insisted throughout her adult life on living on the streets. By the time of the rape, all three of Carol’s children were in the care of relatives. She loved them, but she couldn’t look after them. She got £25,000 compensation after her court victory but her addiction took every penny. And when she died in 2003, she was still on the streets – even though the council had given her a home. read in full
Source Ian Pace: Desiring Progress
SEPT 11TH 2016
call-for-inquiry-into-scots-historical-sex-abuse
scotsman
- 23.02.15
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- 29.01.02
Aye the man was a pure delight. Fairbairn was pals with Robert Henderson QC who was also a paedo & embroiled in Fettesgate & & both Fairbairn & Henderson raped Henderson’s daughter..
Scottish lawyer avoids investigation despite paedo allegations Sun, Aug 23, 2015
A TOP Scottish lawyer accused of being part of a VIP paedophile ring was branded a danger to children in court documents, yet no investigation was ever launched.
Robert Henderson QC is alleged to have sexually abused his daughter, Susie, over a period of many years and also allowed her to be raped by his friend, Sir Nicholas Fairbairn.
Ms Henderson first reported her claims to the police in 2000 and then again last year, with detectives now investigating the pair as part of the wider probe into historic child abuse.
“The pursuer [Olga Henderson] claimed that the defender was quite unsuitable as a custodian of [his eldest daughter] or any of the children in that he regularly drank to excess, that he was extremely sexually promiscuous, that he was involved in pornography, that he was generally ‘immoral’ and that he associated with people of a type who it was most undesirable should come into contact with the children of the marriage. In particular she alleged that [Miss X] who is in the defender’s house almost every day, is a well known Edinburgh prostitute. She also alleged that on at least one occasion in the past the defender had violently assaulted her in front of the children.” I knew them a little after I called to the Bar in 1987 & I acted for one of the individual’s wives in a routine divorce” Susan O’Brien QC
The Reporter adds that the allegations were supported by Mrs Henderson’s parents and by two family friends
He kept the family mansion in the New Town while his ex-wife and three children shuffled around various temporary homes, on one occasion even having them evicted from a “dilapidated” flat he owned.
The papers state: “On September 12, 1979 the defendant called without warning at said flat, behaved in a threatening and aggressive manner towards the pursuer, smashed furniture and placed the pursuer and children in a state of fear and alarm.”
The documents even chart a worrying change in Miss Henderson’s personality, from a “bright, charming and intelligent child” at 10 to concerns over a “lack of attainment, lack of interest and frequent unexplained absences from school” four years later.
The 48-year-old, who now lives near Inverness, said last night: “Because there is an ongoing police investigation I don’t think it would be right for me to make any comment.”
However, friends have told the Scottish Sunday Express that she is “relieved and delighted” to discover that contemporary evidence exists to support her claims about her abusive father.
Police Scotland has also been made aware of our findings and it is understood that officers have already spoken to Miss Henderson about the new information.
The divorce papers further reveal that Henderson was visited at the family home by a private investigator who found him engaged in a tryst with a “girl” wearing only a negligee.
The investigator wrote: “Henderson said the girl had on one occasion previously stayed overnight at the house and it was their intention to stay overnight together that evening. The bedclothes were in disarray and it appeared to have been recently occupied. There were articles of female clothing lying about the room. This was identified as clothing belonging to the young lady in the house.”
Henderson was 38 years old at the time and the incident was used to support his wife’s application for divorce on grounds of adultery.
The custody battle was also settled in Mrs Henderson’s favour, although her ex-husband was allowed to remain in regular contact with his children.
However, despite their serious nature, Mrs Henderson’s extraordinary allegations were put down to the “personal bitterness” between the couple.
The report, by Angus JE Foster, concludes: “If the allegations made about the defendant and his girlfriend by the pursuer and others are true, Your Lordship’s Reporter would accept that they throw considerable doubt on the defendant’s suitability as a custodian.”
Despite the reporter’s findings, Henderson went on to take silk in 1982 and acted in some of the country’s biggest court cases.
He was also a key player in the ‘Magic Circle’ affair involving claims of a secret list of gay judges and other senior establishment figures.
The lawyer went into semi-retirement in 2001 and later lived in Dubai and France, where he died in December 2012.
The National Archives also holds records from Henderson’s divorce from his second wife, Carol Black, although they are not yet available to the public.
Susan O’Brien QC, the lawyer who will head the Scottish Government’s inquiry into historic child abuse, is understood to have acted as “junior counsel” in this case.
- Susie Henderson, 48, says she was raped by Sir Nicholas Fairbairn
- Tory politician was solicitor general for Scotland, and Perth and Ross MP
- MP died in 1995, aged 61, and was a favourite of Margaret Thatcher
- Miss Henderson says she was abused by late father, a prominent QC
- New evidence suggests Fairbairn visited Elm Guest House
- Property is the focus of investigation into alleged paedophile ring in 1980s
Susie Henderson claims she was raped at the age of four by Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, a senior Tory MP who was one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest allies
A woman last night claimed she was raped at the age of four by a senior Tory MP who was one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest allies.
Susie Henderson waived her right to anonymity to describe the appalling abuse she alleges was inflicted on her by Sir Nicholas Fairbairn.
The late Conservative politician, who was appointed solicitor general for Scotland by Mrs Thatcher when she became prime minister, has been linked to the child abuse scandal threatening to engulf Westminster.
Last month evidence came to light which suggests Sir Nicholas may have visited the Elm Guest House which serial abuser Cyril Smith attended. The property in Barnes, south-west London, is the focus of a Scotland Yard investigation into an alleged Establishment paedophile ring in the 1980s.
The evidence emerged weeks after Home Secretary Theresa May announced a Hillsborough-style inquiry into claims of paedophile activities in Parliament and other public institutions.
Now, Miss Henderson, 48, has told the Mail that she was raped as a young child by Sir Nicholas – and that she also suffered years of sexual assaults by her late father, prominent Scottish QC Robert Henderson, who was a friend of the MP.
She said of Sir Nicholas: ‘I hated that man,’ adding: ‘More than I hated my father. He just really wasn’t a nice man.
‘I want it acknowledged that my father and Fairbairn did something very evil. Not just to me. There are other children out there.’ Miss Henderson first made her allegations against Sir Nicholas – famous for his outspoken views, frock-coat suits and tartan trousers – and her father under the alias of ‘Julie X’ in 2000 but an initial police investigation did not lead to any charges.here
Daily Mail
- Alleged in the 1990s that ‘magic circle’ of judges conspired to fix sentences
- But Crown investigators found in 1992 the was no evidence of conspiracy
- Detective’s report into claims was stolen from Fettes police HQ in 1992
- Defence lawyer Robert Henderson let it be believed there was a magic circle
- His record of legal figures compromised by their homosexuality did not exist
- Henderson’s daughter Susie has accused late father of abusing her
It was the scandal that shook the Scottish legal establishment to its foundations, leaving no senior figure in the judiciary untouched by the whispering campaign it triggered. And, it appeared, there was not a shred of truth in it.
Exhaustive inquiries by Crown investigators in 1992 found no evidence whatever that a so-called ‘magic circle’ of judges, sheriffs and advocates was conspiring to ensure that homosexual criminals were given soft-touch treatment by the courts. Talk of senior judges in the magic circle being blackmailed by ‘rent boys’ was dismissed by the investigators as fanciful – and claims of corruption and collusion in the judiciary rejected as the ravings of conspiracy theorists. Yet there was just one element in the ‘Fettesgate’ scandal that did not seem to gel. Why was one of Scotland’s most admired and respected defence lawyers so keen to put it about that there was indeed a magic circle?
That man was Robert Henderson, a lawyer so lauded in his profession that fellow advocates used to make a point of slipping into court just to watch him in action. During the 1980s, after a particularly stirring closing speech to the jury in a murder trial, the presiding judge remarked that Henderson’s oratory had been ‘nothing short of masterful’.
Rumours: Robert Henderson QC (left) seemed to want people to believe there was a ‘magic circle’ of judges conspiring to fix sentences, but Lord Nimmo Smith (right) found there was no evidence of a conspiracy
He was charismatic, cultured and clubbable. And yet he seemed to want the world to know that the information he was sitting on would ‘blow the lid off’ the legal establishment.
Today’s revelations, detailing the sickening abuse of his daughter and his procurement of the child for high-powered friends to rape and molest, provide the strongest clue to Robert Henderson’s motivation. He was issuing a veiled threat to any and all who would attempt to bring him to justice.
As his daughter Susie Henderson reveals, he used to say: ‘If I go down, they’ll all go down with me.’
The defence lawyer certainly had no shortage of dirt on friends such as former Solicitor General Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, the MP he had allowed to rape his daughter.
But Henderson’s record of senior legal figures supposedly compromised by their homosexuality never truly existed. It was a classic poker player’s bluff – an attempt to convince potential opponents he held a stronger hand than he really did. And it worked. Henderson died at 75 in 2012 with his reputation largely intact.
Retired judge Lord McCluskey was among those to write a glowing tribute to him in the national Press. Henderson the smooth, impeccably attired defence counsel never did move from the well of the court to the part of the room where he truly belonged – the dock, to stand trial. Read more here:
- 13.12.12
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- 7 Mar 2015
- 20.05 15
Former judge’s shock over QC paedophile ring allegations Friday 15 August 2014A FORMER senior judge has claimed he is “utterly flabbergasted” at allegations a prominent lawyer and close friend of his headed up a high profile paedophile ring.
Lord McCluskey said he was also shocked to hear that Robert Henderson QC had been accused of repeatedly sexually abusing his daughter from the age of three.
Susie Henderson has waived her right to anonymity to tell of her alleged ordeal at the hands of her father and several other prominent figures, including senior Tory MP Sir Nicholas Fairbairn.
Call for inquiry into Scots historical sex abuse
WOMAN’S allegations she was assaulted by her father and a Tory MP bring Magic Circle and paedophile ring claims back in spotlight
FRESH calls for a wide-ranging inquiry into historical child abuse in Scotland were made last night following claims by the daughter of a respected QC that she was sexually assaulted by her father and the Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn in the 1970s.
Survivors of institutional sex abuse have been campaigning for a Scottish inquiry similar to those being set up by Westminster into allegations that influential figures, including politicians, colluded in and covered up the systematic abuse of vulnerable children.
Until now they have been told previous inquiries in Scotland and the establishment of the National Confidential Forum – set up to give adult survivors abused in care a chance to talk about their experiences – make an over-arching review unnecessary north of the Border.
Last week, shortly after campaigners pressed their case at a meeting with Scottish government ministers, Susie Henderson waived her anonymity to allege she had been assaulted by her father, Robert Henderson QC, and Fairbairn, both of whom are now dead, from the age of four.
She said they were members of an organised paedophile ring which abused her in her family’s five-storey Georgian house in Edinburgh’s New Town and other locations.
Fairbairn, a QC and former solicitor-general, has already been linked to the Elm Guest House in London – a gay brothel alleged to have hosted parties where vulnerable young boys had sex with influential people, which is now the subject of a police investigation named Operation Fernbridge.
Henderson was at the heart of the so-called Magic Circle scandal which emerged in 1989 and centred around rumours that a network of homosexual lawyers and judges in Scotland were conspiring to “go easy” on gay criminals. The rumours led to Fettesgate – where a 1992 police report into the claims was stolen from Edinburgh’s police headquarters – and ultimately led to an inquiry by William Nimmo Smith QC the following year, which dismissed claims of a conspiracy. Read more here:
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