Gemma Ryder

dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-… This is just so tragic and devastating. Last night I watched Kevins interview with my friend @TheEmmapreneur who I am doing an interview with next week. Another Scottish care leaver who has spent his whole life trying to have his voice heard about the sex abuse he suffered as a child and end up being let down again and again by those who were supposed to support and care for him. I have spoke many times about how many children I met on the streets who had run away from a state run care home and ended up in the hands of evil men who further destroyed their lives just like Kevin. So many children like Kevin and myself who were moved about from home to home and fostered out to so many people that you were never in the one place long enough to bond and how this affects your whole life. So many losses of memory for long periods of time and not being able to fill in the gaps and how this also affects your whole life and still Scotland stays silent. When you watch this interview with Emma you can see the life Kevin has had and the trauma he has carried his whole life and you can understand why he would want his name removed. All he wanted was to move on with his life and put his past behind him. Not even a letter from his doctor was able to stop these people controlling his life. He had waived his anonymity but changed his mind when he realised his evidence could be seen online in perpetuity. When you meet the inquiry team in a hotel to give your testimony before you appear at the inquiry, you are on your own. Almost every survivor I have spoken to including myself goes into hyper vigilance. There is three people there and they talk about many things and it can take hours. If my memory serves me right I think I did mine over two days and then they make you sign a piece of paper. It is more than safe to say that almost all survivors will not be aware that their name and their story can and will be available to the whole world at a click of a button on google. I also tried to get my testimony removed from the child abuse web site because they had redacted so much of my story and the way I was treated leading up to and including the inquiry was inhumane and this morning I have been going back over the emails I sent to the inquiry telling them not to put my details in the public domain but they just refused and how there is not one ounce of compassion or consideration for my welfare. Just like Kevin I also sent numerous emails to the inquiry for the attention of Lady Smith. This is a paragraph of one of the emails I sent to the inquiry in 2020 Coming forward and my experience with the Scottish child abuse inquiry has left me deeply traumatised and it has become very clear that the whole thing is a cover up for the real sex abuse that was going on for decades and I am telling you that any attempt to use my name could result in further affecting my mental health.. Please do not ignore this request.. This is a paragraph of one of the emails I received from the Scottish child abuse inquiry. Dear Dave I hope you are keeping safe. I am aware you have previously expressed you did not wish to be in any publication in relation to the Inquiry. After careful consideration, I am afraid that this was not possible due to the significant contribution you made to the Inquiry and your bravery in deciding to waive your anonymity before giving evidence at hearings. When I met the inquiry team days before my appearance they magically pulled out copies of my records which I had been searching for my whole life. It hit me straight away when I read them that these records had been heavily redacted and I let these people know that I knew exaclty what they were doing, this was a clear and obvious cover up job and did not match anything like what I had said at my interview for the inquiry when I signed the paper. I couldnt pull out of the inquiry because I had become a high profile campaigner and a lot of people wanted to hear my story and that is why I cried throughout my appearance in the inquiry. The whole thing was orchestrated by this lawyer who guided the whole conversation.. What hurt even more was that they refused to tell me where they got these copies of my records from or to give me a copy. I thought that was really cruel especially after all the work I had done campaigning all over Scotland and encouraging other survivors to come forward. I was so naive.... We know that other survivors have gone through similar experiences as Kevin and I and the reason I know this is because I was the one that referred many of them. We know that there are other people who have also been denied their request to have their name removed for various reasons only to find they have no rights. I have also spoken many times about how Scottish prisons are full of men and woman who were sexualy abused in the care system and their only crime was trying to have their voices heard and I am one of them after having false allegations made against me. Just being a survivor of in care sexual abuse in Scotland puts you on a par with criminals because the whole system is set up to fail you at any point of coming forward. Our trauma is treated as a crime and many people in positions of power like the child abuse inquiry and many other organisations suddenly have complete control of which direction our life is going. If anyone wants to read more about my views on this please scroll down my tweets to Aug 23: Addiction in Isolation.. We also know that at least one and possibly more advocates/lawyers associated with the Scottish child abuse inquiry have taken their own lives because of the cover ups and this has also been silenced. For evidence of this please follow @AdvocateHalley who has written an explosive book about this called A Judicial Murdering.. We have also just found out this morning that Kevins testimony has now been removed from the inquiry web site and a full review will be held and it is just so sad that he had to die for this to happen..... 🙏 Once again I find myself crying out to the people of Scotland to come out and support survivors of in care child sex abuse. I am calling on others to help survivors who have suffered at the hands of the Scottish child abuse inquiry and help support Kevins family in getting justice. We cant continue to allow survivors to be silenced and isolated to the point of taking their own life like Kevin and so many other survivors. The voices of survivors must be heard. #JusticeForKevinSutherland SURVIVORS UNITED... R.I.P. Kevin Sutherland. @melanie14318 @_MarcelloMega

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