Good tax payers money - some of this yours?

It's hard, if not incredible to believe that the Legal Aid Board for Scotland have granted serial sex offender Adam Carruthers yet more money, up to £100,000, to fight his way through yet another legal process to endeavour to regain the whole of his police pension from Dumfries and Galloway Council (his ex-employers) who sacked him after the court case and misconduct inquiries which found him guilty of serious crimes and dereliction of duty on numerous occasions. The Council reduced his right to a full pension and have only granted Carruthers the right to have a pension which equates to the money he paid actually into it. This will give him around £6,000 a year. The Council can not take this money from him as he paid it in to his pension fund.

So let's give just a wee bit of thought to this latest decision.
1. In the lenghty Lothian and Borders Police inquiry Carruthers was found to have stalked, attacked, raped 38 women - to my knowledge he carried out all of these incidents whilst on duty.
2. I was attacked in my own home at 4 o'clock in the afternoon when Carruthers was on duty, in uniform and he arrived at my house in a marked police vehicle. Ironically my own council tax helped to fund his attack against me.
3. The court heard that Ms X was repeatedly raped by Carruthers and, like myself and several of his victims, she also attempted suicide. It has now been reported that two of his victims did sucessfully commit suicide.
4. The day Ms X came home it was Carruthers who told her husband to take their young son out of the house so that he could speak to Ms X and take her statement. He then RAPED her again in what must have been the most horrendous ordeal at a time when she was at her most vulnerable. An ordeal that must be very hard for her husband and their now grown up son to come to terms with.
5. Another victim was stalked whilst she lived in Langholm and this happened whilst Carruthers was on duty. Her case was featured in the BBC Frontline Scotland programme.
6. Carruthers offending behaviour is known to have taken place over a 20 year period - 20 years when he was not doing his duty as a police officer in protecting the public and endeavouring to reduce or stop crime in his local patch. Earlier in his career, as a constable, he was censured for sexual misconduct and yet incredibly he still rose to the rank of police inspector before he was finally suspended from duty and subsequently imprisoned and became renowned as one of Scotland's most prolific sex offenders.

These are just a few points that this incredulous decision of giving a convicted serial rapist even more tax payers money raises.

Who really pays for Carruthers' action against D&G Council as his previous employer?
1. The tax payer in Legal Aid fees. That is you if you pay income tax. His legal aid bill already tops £110,000 - a phenomenal amount of money that some of your income tax has been used for.
2. The Council tax payers of Dumfries and Galloway, an area where many of his victims still reside, will pay through their local council tax in fighting the action and, heaven forbid Carruthers wins his case, they then have to pay more of their council tax money towards his pension which one can certainly argue he doesn't deserve.
3. Yet more trauma is added to his many victims by yet more actions of this man who so abused his power as a policeman one questions how could he even be considered to be worthy of his full pension after what he did to so many women?
4. How can a man who quite obviously did not uphold his police oath or do his duty in serving the local community be worthy of a full pension?

So let's think why Carruthers is taking this legal action.
1. He appears to have absolutely nothing to lose as under current legislation he is legitimately using tax payers money to fight his case. It isn't costing him anything. That is the system we have and we haven't tried to change .....yet.
2. Despite being a convicted sex offender who has lost his appeals against convictions of rape and indecent assaults, the legal system works in his favour and is actually aiding his continued legal actions on any front he appears to see fit.
3. He has everything to gain if he were to win his case and regain his right to a full police pension which would give him a pension of around £17,000 per annum.

What about the victims? This gives a different perspective.
The Criminal Injuries tariff for being raped at the time Carruthers was found guilty was £7,500. If a victim put in a claim for more than one serious injury, as I did, which included permanent psychological damage which requires prolonged pscyhiatric treatment (for post traumatic stress disorder and depression), then the tariff for the rape was reduced to only 10% of that £7,500 ....yes that was a mere £750 compensation for being raped in my own home mid afternoon by a police sergeant on duty paid for by our council tax. The mental scars still remain and that tariff for psychological damage was £20,000 at that time. I remain on 23 prescribed medicines a day, as I have done for many, many years I still have to see health professionals on a frequent basis for the effects of the physical and mental injuries of his attack.

When you put all this in perspective it's not hard for any reasonable person to realise that the income tax and council tax payers are losers and the victims are also the losers physically, mentally and financially. Sadly the memories of these crimes do not fade with time ....you just have to try to learn how to deal with them day by day ...or as was sadly the case with some of Carruthers victims, give up in despair, take your own life rather than try to live with the memories of his actions and also not be believed by his fellow police officers to whom you reported.

As you have read this blog entry I really hope these points raise some searching questions in your minds.
Why is this happening and have we, as a society accepted this system as is? Huge sums of money are paid to serial sex ofenders who have served minimal time in prison and now have everything to gain in financial terms by taking out such actions.
Why do decent people let it happen? May be they don't realise?
Do decent people know the system we have in this country is firmly biased towards the perpetrators?
Why isn't this level of (legal aid) money instead spent on the important (often voluntary) agencies who have to pick up the many pieces and the debris from the shattered lives of the many victims of such heinous crimes? My local rape crisis centre quite literally saved my life yet they work on a shoe string budget and struggle to provide a region-wide service which I, like other survivors know really does save lives.

These are all points that I am raising with MSP's, victims groups and other agencies. Will you raise them too?
I don't want to pay a penny more in council tax to a serial sex offender like Adam Carruthers who has been responsible for the deaths of women and for mulitple traumas to women when it was his paid duty to care and protect them. As a special constable I happily worked many hours each week as a volunteer. In executing my duties I took all the same responsibilties and risks as any paid police officer does. This is not something that I regret. I only regret that I ever met Adam Carruthers and I regret to have discovered that many decent citizens are badly let down by the social and justice systems in our country.

It wouldn't be easy, but if asked, I will stand up in the court yet again and give evidence as to how my council tax was used to pay for a police officer in the employment of D&G Council to abuse, degrade and rape me. I would do this because I believe it is the right thing to do. Serial sex offenders, like any other offender, should not benefit or profit from their crimes. Carruthers made a decision every time he atacked a women and he alone is responsible for all that entails ....including losing his right to a full pension.

"All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing."

At this time of night?

10.29 precisely (on my watch) the phone rang tonight. I hate phones ringing period, ever since I got that threatening phone call from Carruthers in November ‘98. “Number withheld” came up on the handset. I’ve gone for the caller display now and hope to work out who is calling before I answer the phone …..but it’s not foolproof.
I know the SERCO monitoring team comes up as ‘number withheld,’ but surely not at this time of night? As always and with the deepest of suspicion I answered tentatively. The voice was unknown. Yep, at this time of night it was SERCO …..and a bad line and a woman who spoke really fast and used a lot of techie language that meant nothing to me. Had I tweaked an aerial on the box when I’d got something from behind the curtains? Was that what the weird cracks were that I couldn’t figure out and had it set the alarm off in their control room? No they wanted to send somebody to come out tomorrow.
I’ve never had much notice from SERCO for anything they need to do to the black box since it was installed in the house. So me, one of the victims; me who courtesy of what Carruthers did when he realised he was being sussed and about to be suspended got a threatening phone call; me who hates phone rings with a vengeance gets phoned up on a Friday night at 10.29 p.m.
I do begin to wonder what it is about aspects of the system when comparing rights for victims and perpetrators. I maybe don’t sleep well these days, but a phone call at 10.29 means trouble to me. I get so uptight, worried …..and it turns out to be routine for SERCO. Well to me it’s not bloody routine and I don’t approve. I do think there should be a cut-off time for phoning the victims who are the ones that are to be protected. It’s a reminder to me and worst of all just before I go to bed that this is the protection that is required from the heinous deeds of a serial sex offender and no matter what I can’t get away from that fact …..not even at 10.29 on a Friday night.

This so pisses me off it’s untrue. Why am I now having to live like this when it’s my right to make my own life choices that are normal for any decent person? Do I really want to live like this? Why did the cop who came to do the security check say to me, “if you see a car coming or people you don’t know, go inside and lock the doors.” Because Carruthers is labelled as a dangerous man. I know he's dangerous man. I experienced his deviousness and his perverted behaviour at first hand. I still have the medical problems from his afternoon attack.
It’s all because of the ‘nice policeman,’ serial rapist and sex offender, they let out of prison after only 7 years and 4 months with no break between being in secure prison accommodation and being released straight into the community. The ‘nice policeman’ who still says he ‘didn’t do it;’ the man that insists he was ‘set up.’ Oh yeah, for heavens sake why would anybody want to set him up and not any other cop in the force? how can a set up man lose a court case, criminal appeals and two SCCRC appeals? The conviction rate for rape is pathetic and the number of cases that get to court is tiny when compared to the number of reported rapes. The process a victim has to go through is meticulous by the investigators and then the prosecution and defence pre-cognition agents have their go pre-trail.
Carruthers says ‘set up,’ interestingly it turns out by a vast number of women who didn’t know each other, were from all different areas in his old force region where he 'served the community/protected the public as a policeman (perhaps bar Stranraer …why no victims from Stranraer?), and 38 women found by Lothian and Borders Police came from a period of 20 years of his known offending period?
And now this phone call at this time of night to one of his victims…..

There’s been more instances this week of the obvious inequality between treatment of victims and perpetrators that I could relate to you ……..but I need to go and calm down, take my pils, try to calm the PTSD symptoms from this late phone call, try to stop it turning into flashbacks and then nightmares again intruding into my sleep, make a cuppa and get this in perspective and realise that the SERCO people are just doing their job and they seem to think that victims and perpetrators are all the same and disturbance within their hours is immaterial to either party. It’s probably fine and rubber stamped in their rule book. Maybe there's something urgent with the monitoring system? The installation man said SERCO personnel are allowed to go to a house up until midnight. Not this one!
Remember, you don’t get a choice in what happens to you when you’re a victim. Perpetrators of crime, violent criminals have choices and they know the outcomes if are caught …..especially the now disgraced police inspector who spectacularly abused his power with devastating and tragic consequences for his victims.

Valued support

I've had quite a few emails since the Sunday papers were published and they are really supportive. I can see how many decent people think the legislation needs to be changed for serial sex offenders ....not to mention the attitude towards the victims of serious crimes.

This is one from an L&B officer who was involved with looking after me as liaison officer during the investigation. We've kept in touch ever since the trial ended and her job with me finished and it meant the world to me to get it this morning.

"I have just about recovered from choking on my toast on Sunday morning, with the Sunday Mail and Mail on Sunday almost falling off the table. “I know that face!!!!”

Good on you, Kiddo

Power in your hand for a change.

So proud of you. Massive step for you but I think a good and right one."

Sunday papers start my campaign

I've thought long and hard about keeping my right to anonymity. I've nothing to be ashamed of but I accept there are some strange people out there. I've only surrendered my image, not my real name. Today there are articles in the press that I've spent the last week on getting together with freelance journalist Marcello Mega; a man who has the very best of motives. He similarly sees unrepentant serial sex offenders being released back into the community as a recipe for disaster. Ex-police inspector and serial sex offender Adam Carruthers, was released from prison on 12th September 2008, having served just over seven years of his sentence.

My motives are to help others to see that I am an ordinary woman who certainly didn't ask for what happened to my life and to the way it's afffected the family and friends I love. I am appalled at current legislation letting such dangerous people back into our communities at automatic two-thirds sentence stage when it is recognised that they still pose a serious threat to women. These deserve longer sentences and should only be released when they show positive stages of rehabilitation, remorse and a desire to change their ways. This man was let back into the community with very strict licence conditions. So much so that he can't be alone with a single woman not a relative. I believe there are also tight monitoring and surveillance measures on him - so why was he released when considered so dangerous? Because that is the current legislation.

The senior policeman who attacked me was found to have raped, assaulted or stalked 38 women over a 20 year period by the Lothian and Borders Police investigation. I know, as many others do, this figure is 'tip of the iceberg.' I have become aware of other victims since my case was taken seriously and it grieves me that people have died as a result of the actions of Carruthers and there was a failure for women to be protected by the very justice system that should protect all citizens. Lord Dawson was right:

Carruthers was "a total disgrace to the uniform he wore."

The late Lord Dawson went on to say:
"I cannot express the revulsion and contempt with which decent members of society regard you."


I believed in the police and true justice when I worked voluntarily as a special constable, serving as many as 12 hours of my free time each week for my local communities. I enjoyed the work mostly. Drunks on a weekend were a pain, but to be able to help people in distress was something that I could do. To help people in those circumstances was a pleasure, and still is, albeit I'm no longer in the special constabulary or fit to do much of use to society.

The rape has taken the issue of trust away from me. I am only just starting to see that the police force in my area is now far more professional and accountable than it was ten years ago. This is one very good thing to come from the case of rogue cop Adam Carruthers.

So many women were badly let down by the justice system in the case of Adam Carruthers. Myself and two other women had our days in court, but I really feel for those who were not give that opportunity. I can't imagine how they must feel about that lack of justice after such major incidents in their lives.

What I want is change to this legislation and changes to how many people see rape and sexual assualt. If you feel as I do - please contact your MSP and let them know how you feel. You can do this by email, in person, by letter or by telephone. Your local MSP's details are available online, in libraries in Citizens Advice Bureaus and in other places.

If you are a woman who was attacked by this man or another man, I really feel for you. I'm sad that something so devastating and terrible has disrupted your life and I understand the complex issues that rape and sexual assault brings up in your whole life. If you live in Dumfries and Galloway then there is the local South West Scotland Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Centre on 01387 253113 or online at swrcandsac@btconnect.com They saved my life and I will always be so grateful to them for the help that they gave me in some of my darkest moments. If you're not from D&G then there are other centres and National Rape Crisis Network as well as local Women' Aid centres. Please don't be alone with your thoughts and bottle them up. As I know, it's not healthy and has led to PTSD and depression in my case.

If you wish to talk your case over with the police, it's a personal decision and only you will know if it's right for you. I do know they will listen and will take you seriously, especially if you are from D&G. I eventually did speak out when I thought there was a real chance of proving the deviousness and depravity of this so called 'respectable senior cop' and despite all the hard times, I'm pleased I did - even if it only helped remove a serial sex offender from our streets for 7 years and 4 months. It was something.

I was once told;
"all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing."