In 1987 a vulnerable mentally ill 21yr old was committed to an NHS mental health hospital in Carlisle, North Cumbria. She was groomed and taken advantage of by a 35yr old trainee psychiatric nurse called Robert Scott-Buccleuch. As a result she became pregnant. The nurse and his colleague, Dr T M Singh, the consultant psychiatrist treating her, arranged an abortion and withheld information to conceal what had happened.
On Friday 13th December 1991, that same young woman, more distressed and conflicted than when she had first been admitted to hospital in 1988, stepped in front a train at Rotherham railway station and ended her life. My sister Alison was entrusted to the care of the NHS because she desperately needed professional help. Instead of being helped, she was exploited by an unprincipled nurse in a hospital that turned a blind eye to his behaviour.
In May 2025, after battling for decades to obtain justice, the Crown Prosecution Service blocked our third and final effort to prosecute Robert Scott-Buccleuch, saying a trial would not be in the public interest. This website tells the story of a failed quest to obtain justice and highlights system-wide failures that enabled a former NHS employee to avoid facing justice for committing serious crimes that had devastating consequences.
Alison's Story 