![\"Foster](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/copfslion.jpg\")
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A former foster carer abused at least four vulnerable children in her care over a 16-year period.<\/p>\n
Gillian Murray was found guilty of using cruel and unnatural treatment towards the young victims following a trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.<\/p>\n
The 59-year-old\u2019s abuse took place in Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, between 1995 and 2011.<\/p>\n
The court was told how Murray repeatedly abused one child, who was aged between five and seven at the time.<\/p>\n
She forced the boy to eat food alone on the floor while also withholding food on other occasions.<\/p>\n
Murray refused to allow him access to other rooms in the house and prevented him from using the bathroom causing him to wet the bed.<\/p>\n
She also failed to provide him with toys and prevented him from going outside to play.<\/p>\n
The carer subjected a second boy, aged between six months and five years old, to a similar pattern of abuse as well as shouting at him and dressing him in ill-fitting clothing to his injury.<\/p>\n
Two further children were abused by Murray, who did not comfort them when they cried and failed to wash them.<\/p>\n
Following evidence from a former neighbour, Murray was also convicted of abusing further children, whose identities are currently unknown.<\/p>\n
She forced them outside whilst dressed inappropriately for the weather before refusing to let them back in.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, Murray was sentenced to 300 hours of community payback.<\/p>\n
Neil Almond, interim procurator fiscal for Lothian and Borders, said: \u201cGillian Murray was responsible for the care of vulnerable children and trusted to look after them. She instead contributed to their trauma through her cruel and abusive treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis prosecution would not have been possible without the victims reporting their experiences and giving evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is committed to robustly prosecuting non-recent allegations of abuse of children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would urge anyone who has experienced similar offending to come forward and report it, regardless of how long ago the offences took place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will be listened to and supported as we use all the tools available to us to establish a public record of the abuse experienced and the harm caused.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former foster carer abused at least four vulnerable children in her care over a 16-year period. Gillian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-327384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114992158143041246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}