THE exclusion of abuse survivors from a Scottish government compensation scheme is unjustified, a Holyrood committee concluded today.

More than 200 women, former residents at Fornethy House school in Kilry, Angus, have come forward to say they suffered humiliation, beatings and sexual assault during the 1960s and ’70s, when the institution was run by local authority the Glasgow Corporation.

But they are excluded from the Scottish government’s Redress Scotland scheme, which can offer up to £100,000 in compensation, because the records evidencing their stay have been destroyed or their stays were too short to qualify for a scheme aimed at people in long-term institutional care.