In 2017, twenty-nine years after grooming Alison to have unprotected sex with him on NHS hospital premises, Robert Scott-Buccleuch finally admitted to Cumbria police under caution what he’d done. He could have told them in 2001, but his Union advised him to remain silent and he refused to be interviewed. In 2017 he told Cumbria Police he knew Alison had become pregnant and he acknowledged helping arrange the abortion to hide the result of his crimes. Alison had been a patient and his acts were illegal.
However, despite confessing to having sex with a young vulnerable mental health patient in his care, the CPS decided in 2017 not to prosecute him; they said it was not in the public interest. This absurd decision might be expected in the 70s or 80s but in a post-Saville era when victims of historical sex crimes are encouraged to come forward, decisions like this make a mockery of justice. You can bet your last penny if Alison or Scott-Buccleuch had been celebrities, the CPS would have been all over this case like a rash.
Sex crimes were committed by an older man in a position of trust in an NHS hospital which led to a crisis pregnancy and a hasty abortion, under the noses of NHS Managers and staff. They could have stopped it, instead, they colluded and concealed it. A mentally ill young woman then found herself in such a dark confused place she ended her own life and no one has been held accountable; is that acceptable? NHS Managers and staff, Cumbria Police, and the CPS, all failed Alison. If the system we fund is not interested in protecting the rights of our most vulnerable, then what is its purpose?
The CPS; has sent out a clear message, the vulnerable, the mentally ill, and the dead who cannot speak up, do not matter. The evidence is clear, a man in a publicly funded position of trust confessed to committing serious offences with massive repercussions; why is it not in the Public Interest to prosecute him? The CPS even tried to deny our right to review their decision, saying we could not prove a link between Alison’s death and the criminal acts in question…but they have never proved otherwise. Their approach to this case has ensured the farcical “investigation” by Cumbria Police in 2001 will not be subject to further scrutiny in court and those other victims from the Garlands, of which we suspect there are many, may never be discovered.
We believe the CPS made this decision not to prosecute because it is not in their or Cumbria Police’s interests to pursue it rather than what is genuinely in the Public Interest. In the wake of Poppi Worthington and other fiascos, they appear to be trying to make sure any incompetence and malpractice that has occurred, remains hidden.
Cumbria Police; it was clear in 2001 they did not want to deal with this case, and they certainly never wanted it reopened in 2015. They have made us feel they were doing us a huge favour by looking into it. Even when presented with the evidence they lost in the first investigation, they tried to avoid reopening the case. They have never clarified what happened to the missing evidence or explained the role of the Senior Police Commander who was on the board of the NHS Trust at the start of the 2001 investigation; did he influence officers to kick our case into the long grass?
Cumbria NHS; in 1988/89, Cumbria NHS closed its eyes to sex crimes being committed under its nose. In 2001 they had a chance to right this wrong. Instead, they were so preoccupied with managing their reputation, that they brushed it under the carpet for a second time and withheld evidence from the Police. Their reputation was more important than justice for a young woman no longer able to speak for herself. We were assured the perpetrator would never work in a patient-facing environment again, yet he went on to become a presenter on Hospital Radio at the Cumberland Infirmary.
Alison's Story 