School abuse survivor has rejected redress application overturned thanks to Digby Brown

Solicitors at Digby Brown have successfully challenged Redress Scotland’s interpretation of “resident” and “short term care” to help a survivor access justice.

Our client was a pupil at the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh when they were subjected to severe neglect, emotional, physical and sexual abuse at the school.

They lived primarily with their parents but one day a week they stayed overnight at the school to allow them to take part in sports and help them settle into school life.

During these overnight stays they were sexually assaulted by another pupil.

The abuse was reported to the police and the perpetrator was jailed for their crimes, but it had a huge impact on our client’s life, education and future career prospects.

Our client applied to Scotland’s Redress Scheme which was set up to compensate survivors of historic abuse while in care.

To be eligible for a payment under the scheme the applicant must prove they suffered abuse while they were a resident in a care setting.

The regulations exclude any abuse which happened during short term respite care or holiday care.

This has had significant consequences for survivors with some unable to access justice under these rules, including a group of women who were abused while in at Fornethy House in Angus.

In 2025 a former teacher was convicted of crimes against the women when they were children, but as their time at Fornethy was deemed holiday care they are not eligible for redress payments.

Despite the Redress panel accepting our client was abused while they were in the care of the school the application was rejected in November 2025 as our client was not considered to be a resident of the school.

Colin Moffat, Partner with the Non-Accidental department, advised our client to ask for the decision to be reviewed.

He said the Redress Scheme doesn’t define what the term “resident” means and is open to interpretation meaning different redress panels could come to different conclusions based on the same evidence.

Colin further argued the legislation does not place minimum time limits on how long a person must be in a care setting to be considered a resident.

The purpose of our clients stays at the school were not part of a short term respite care package designed to give his parents a break. It was part of their long term living arrangements and they could be considered a resident of the school.

The team also pointed out because Redress does not publicly publish their decisions and there are no case law examples making it difficult for lawyers to assess whether or not the offers made by Redress are consistent and fair with other cases.

The review panel accepted our arguments and our client was awarded £80,000 from Redress Scotland, the second highest level of compensation available.

Colin said: “This is an important decision for a number of reasons.

“School is the one place you expect your child to be safe and our client has seen those who failed them held accountable.

“But it also challenges the law and could help other people access justice.

“We know there will be many people who have been in similar situations and have their Redress Scotland application rejected because there is no clear interpretation of the concepts like “resident” or “short term care”.

“This is why specialist legal support is crucial, even when applying to government scheme designed to support survivors.

“There may be guidance setting out the general framework, but that isn’t always clear and without publicly accessible decisions it is difficult to know how that framework has been applied.

“Sadly, this decision won’t help people who experienced abuse while in short term respite or holiday care access Redress, but they can still access justice with the help of Digby Brown.

“Not only does our team have the experience handling Redress Scotland applications, we’ve also helped people who haven’t been eligible for redress get justice and rightful compensation for the harms they suffered.”