Woman who claims she was sexually abused at Lambeth’s Shirley Oaks children’s home still not compensated 10 years after claim

A woman who says she was drugged and sexually abused in a children’s home has still not received compensation 10 years after applying.

The woman, who cannot legally be named, was in the infamous Shirley Oaks children’s home in Lambeth in the late 1960s, where a number of children were abused and are now receiving compensation.

Lambeth council issued a public apology in three years ago and has begun compensating other victims through its Redress Scheme.

This victim was abandoned by her mother when she was a baby, and left with foster parents by her father, who could not cope – and felt his daughter needed a mother figure.

Her foster parent became ill and in early childhood Lambeth council took over her care and placed her in Shirley Oaks.

While there, the woman claims she was drugged for around two years with an anti-depressant and sedative called Tryptizol to the point that she could not move.

She alleges she was also touched in inappropriate places by a worker when he bathed her.

“There were a lot of unpleasant things going on at that time,” she said. “I was so, so young. They held me down and drugged me so I couldn’t move. I wasn’t asleep but I was paralysed. I couldn’t defend myself.

“I remember I tried to move my finger and couldn’t.

“The worker used to bathe me in the sink and touch me inappropriately. It’s a painful and sore memory.”

She was then placed with foster parents where she claims to have been sexually abused by a neighbour and kidnapped by another man who molested her at a disused railway station.

She then moved back in with her father who was newly married and lived in South London where she said she was stabbed in the arm and torso by a boy from her school as she “wandered the streets”.

“It would’ve been my heart if I hadn’t moved my arm in the way to block it,” she said. “Lambeth council didn’t remove me or check on my safety. I lived there for 10 years and left when I was 17 years old and lived on the streets.”

The woman has been pursuing justice for 10 years and said the compensation she has been offered “differs greatly from what my lawyers valued the case at.

“This Lambeth compensation scheme just makes solicitors rich,” she said. “Why would they rather spend the money on them instead of us? Spend tens of thousands on legal fees rather than justly compensate those who suffered so much due to Lambeth’s failings.

“After I left my father’s house I was homeless for a long time. Sleeping here and there.

“But I survived and I am still surviving the effects of a very traumatic childhood which, if proper procedures were adhered to, need never have happened.

“I am grateful for much help and many blessings that I have had along the way despite all that has happened. Whatever I have been through I must not and will not forget every blessing no matter how tiny – they made my life bearable.”

Raymond Stevenson, from the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, said: “Lambeth have admitted liability. This should and would have been resolved in a class action swiftly.

“The reason Lambeth came up with a redress scheme was because of the overwhelming evidence we provided which meant they would have lost in any court and it would have cost them tens of millions more.

“The council’s redress scheme states that each claim would take four months to go through the process, when the reality is the average time for a claim is 18 months.

“Instead of admitting that the scheme which they insisted on administrating is a catastrophic mess, they patronise us by saying it’s quicker than going to court.

“The reason why we and the council agreed four months would be an appropriate time was because we understood that prolonged trauma is damaging to those who have already been damaged by the abuse – hence the reason we have had one member take his life and hundreds refusing to be part of the scheme.”

A Lambeth council spokesman said: “Lambeth apologises to survivors of abuse in the borough’s children’s homes which were open from the 1930s to the ‘80s and ‘90s. We have launched the Lambeth Children’s Homes Redress Scheme in the absence of a national compensation scheme, and have encouraged all survivors to apply.

“By January 1 this year more than £30million has been paid in compensation directly to 1,306 applicants, with 80 per cent of the scheme’s costs going to abuse survivors. The scheme was established to provide compensation more swiftly than any other alternative, with less of the money going to solicitors and less risk of retraumatising survivors.

“For more details visit www.lambeth.gov.uk/redress.”

Pictured top: Survivors and their friends drop roses into the sea for the victims of Shirley Oaks