Pensioner sexually assaulted boy and attacked children in care over three decades

A pensioner who sexually assaulted a boy and subjected four other youngsters who were in care to ‘cruel’ physical attacks over 29 years has been jailed.

Archibald Thorburn, 77, preyed on the youngsters, who can’t be named for legal reasons at locations in Edinburgh between July 23, 1963 and December 1992.

A high court jury in the Scottish capital heard how Thorburn started abusing his first victim in July 1963 and continued abusing him for another 29 years.

Jurors heard how Thorburn repeatedly slapped, punched and kicked the boy when he was just six years old.

He also struck him with a spirit level and forced him to run around a garden with a rope around his neck whilst carrying tins filled with concrete.

And the court heard how on various occasions between July 1963 and April 1968, Thorburn sexually assaulted the boy.

Thorburn also preyed on other children and subjected them to violent physical assaults. He hid puppies from one little girl and told her they had gone missing. She was then forced to go looking for them.

Thorburn, of Edinburgh, stood trial at the High Court in Edinburgh where he denied any wrongdoing.

However, late on Thursday, jurors returned verdicts on a total of 14 charges after hearing evidence described by judge Michael O’Grady KC as being “truly shocking”.

After hearing how Thorburn had no previous convictions, judge O’Grady said he needed a report about the accused’s background and remanded him in custody.

He added: “The complainers who gave evidence in this case are no longer young. But they were once children.

“They were rejected, damaged, unhappy and bewildered. All this you must have known.

“We now know what you proved to be to them; a petty tyrant, a torturer, a sadist and a sexual predator.

“What they suffered at your hands is unimaginable. You are a cruel and wicked man who robbed them of what remained of an already blighted childhood.

“The damage you had done is incalculable and all too obvious.”

During evidence, the victim sexually abused by Thorburn told the court of what happened to him when he was a young boy.

He was placed in care at a house in Bath Street, in Portobello, Edinburgh, where other children were also housed.

He said he shared a room with Thorburn, who was older than him, at the house in Portobello.

The man, who is now aged 69, said that the sexual abuse left him vomiting on the carpet.

He said: “I was made to clean it up.”

He said he could not tell anyone and said: “It was ‘our secret’.”

He said of Thorburn: “I was scared of him from day one. He had a temper on him. He would just lash out.”

He said that when he first moved into the premises it was also a guest house. He said: “We had chores that we had to do before we went to school.”

He was asked what would happen if chores were not done properly and replied: “Quite frequently we would get hit with slippers or shoes or belts.”

He said Thorburn would participate in disciplinary procedures such as belting the children.

He said: “He was like the enforcer.”

Sometimes he was made to run around the back garden with heavy cans of concrete.

He said: “We would put them over our shoulders and were made to run round in a figure eight shape in the garden. If we fell we had to get up and do how ever many laps we were told to do.”

The man told the court that he was also battered with a scaffolding pole.

He added: “He was hitting me on the body with it, my legs, my arms, a couple of times on the head.”

The court heard evidence about how on various occasions between June 8, 1965 and March 6, 1968, Thorburn also subjected a girl who was aged nine to violent physical assaults.

The court heard how he shaved the child’s hair, and on one occasion, forced her to remove her underwear in an attempt to sexually assault her.

Jurors also heard that during the same time period, Thorburn also forced another eight-year-old girl to take scalding hot and freezing cold baths as a “punishment”. He also forced her to stare at a photograph of him over a “period of hours’ and he struck her if she took her eyes off the image.

Thorburn also forced the little girl to go to school in soiled underwear and he hid puppies from her.

During the mid 1970s, Thorburn also preyed on a 13-year-old boy and he subjected him to violent physical assaults over a three-year period. On one occasion, the court heard how he brandished a hot poker at the boy and threatened to brand him with it.

Thorburn also struck his own father on various occasions between 1965 and April 1985 by repeatedly punching and kicking him.

The court also heard how between July 23, 1963 and January 20, 1971, Thorburn “cruelly and unnaturally” treated another boy by repeatedly slapping, punching and kicking him on the head and body. He also shaved the youngster’s head and forced him to watch while he punished other children.

Thorburn denied committing sexual offences against the boy.

Speaking about the allegations, Thorburn said: ”It’s horrible.”

However, jurors refused to believe Thorburn’s evidence and returned verdicts of guilt.

Defence advocate Brian McConnachie KC told judge O’Grady that he’d reserve his mitigation until a sentencing hearing which will be heard later this year.

Judge O’Grady remanded Thorburn in custody.

He added: “Such unforgivable behaviour has – at least in your case – a reckoning. And as you will understand that will be in the form of a significant sentence of imprisonment.”