How Could You? Hall of Shame-Scotland-Ruth Johnston UPDATED
This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.
From Paisley, Scotland, former foster mother Ruth Johnston,61, “has been convicted of seven offences of assault and ill-treatment.”
“Ruth Johnston, 61, beat and bullied the children she was expected to care for. She subjected the youngsters, including one as young as two, to assaults, neglect and other degrading treatment.
She looked after children on behalf of the authorities in the 1990s at her home in Paisley, the town’s sheriff court heard.
One victim, now 19 and a mother herself, told the trial how Johnston attacked her and often left her feeling alone, unwanted and guilt-ridden, after she was fostered because her parents were drug addicts.
She said Johnston had hit her several times a day and was a bully. “I was put in a cold shower and, if I wet the bed, she would rub my face in it,” the victim told the court. “She’d hit me with her hand, a slipper or a newspaper. I was told it was because I was bad and because my mother was a junkie.”
She added that Johnston had washed her in the kitchen sink using Fairy Liquid.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, added: “I got to feel it was normal. She said we were bad and if you were bad, you got punished.”
Church-goer Johnston had tried to paint a rosy picture of her home life during her trial, but was convicted of assault and wilful ill-treatment.
Another of her victims said she had been hit repeatedly by Johnston and during the two years she lived with her she ended up feeling “scared, emotional, hurt and confused”.
Her treatment left her with emotional problems and feelings of anxiety, she told the court.
Two brothers who were also fostered said they were regularly beaten. One of them said he was put in the back garden and left to sit on the doorstep in the freezing cold.
If they were given any treats such as sweets, crisps or Easter eggs, they were under strict instructions to bring them home and hand them over, he added.
Speaking about cold showers they were forced to take, one of the brothers said the temperature of the water was so intensely cold it made him convulse.
Johnston claimed in court that she was a deeply religious individual who tried to do her best for the children over almost 13 years of fostering.
But, finding her guilty, Sheriff Spy said the picture painted by the four main witnesses “would match a Dickensian description of life for deprived Victorian children”.
He added it contrasted starkly with the image presented of her to social workers, friends or those from church circles.
Some of her victims broke down in tears when the verdict was delivered. There were emotional scenes outside the court as they were embraced by friends and relatives who had attended to provide support. Sentencing was deferred for background reports.
A charge against Johnston’s husband Gordon, 63, of assaulting children in their care, was found not proven.”
Fosterer is convicted of attacks on children
[The Herald 5/30/13 by Ellen Thomas]
“A “DICKENSIAN” foster mother made a child lick urine from a carpet and left her so starved she ate from bins.
Ruth Johnston, 61, treated her own kids like royalty while beating and terrorising foster children as young as two.
Vulnerable youngsters were knocked to the ground, hit with a slipper, pinched until they bled, dragged by the hair, force-fed, put into freezing showers and forced to sit outside in the freezing garden for hours on end as a punishment.
One little girl was made to run up and down the street in her nightdress. Another had her soiled sheets rubbed in her face.
If anyone gave the children sweets, self-styled Christian Johnston would confiscate them and give them to her own kids.
She lived in comfort with her family upstairs at her home in Paisley’s Dunchurch Road while the foster kids were crammed in up to five to a room downstairs.
Social workers kept placing children with Johnston despite repeated complaints, and she got away with her cruelty for years.
But four young victims – Rebecca Forrester, 19, Adele McGuire, 25, and 22-year-old twins Kevin and Thomas Timlin – banded together and bravely told what she had done to them.
And yesterday, they held hands and wept with relief as she was convicted of physically and mentally torturing them between 1991 and 2001.
Johnston will be sentenced at a later date. It’s feared she had other victims.
Her husband Gordon, 63, a former church elder, was cleared on not proven verdicts of three charges of assaulting children.
Johnston denied all wrongdoing and painted herself as a loving mother who nurtured the children entrusted to her.
But prosecutor Stephen Ferguson told her trial she had subjected her victims to “a pattern of real and sustained abuse”.
And as he found her guilty, Paisley sheriff James Spy said the conditions the kids had described in her home “would match a Dickensian description of life for deprived Victorian children”.
He praised the kids’ courage.
Johnston showed no emotion. Kevin said: “She has shown no remorse. Her reaction was one of arrogance and indifference.”
Rebecca said: “I feel relief she has been found guilty. I feel I can breathe again.
“But now we have to ask why it was ever allowed to happen – and ensure it does not happen again. The system betrayed us.”
Rebecca was placed with Johnston when she was two and kept there until she was eight. She endured constant cruelty over those years, sometimes being hit with such force that she fell to the ground.
She said: “I was hit several times a day. She’d hit me with her hand, a slipper or a newspaper. I was told it was because I was bad. I got to feel it was normal.”
The foster kids were not allowed upstairs to use the toilet. It was reserved for the Johnstons. And like most of the children, Rebecca wet the bed.
After one such incident, her urine-soaked clothes and sheets were rubbed in her face and she was forced to her knees to lick the soiled carpet.
She was then dragged upstairs by the hair and made to stand in a cold shower.
Another time, Rebecca was put in the garden as a punishment and not allowed back inside until bedtime.
She recalled: “I sat outside with nothing, feeling completely lost and hurt. I got so hungry that I went through the bins and I ate a stale baguette.”
Rebecca would also sometimes have to find food in the bins at school. And when Johnston did give her something, she would fly into a rage and force-feed her if she refused to eat.
Rebecca said: “My throat would hurt as she shoved it down. I realised early on that to cry would make her worse.”
Johnston bought two types of groceries – one for her own family and one for the foster children. The Johnstons got the best, while the foster kids were given cheap, basic brands.
Even when they were out shopping together, Johnston would torment Rebecca. She said: “She would dig her nails into my skin or nip really, really hard and we weren’t allowed to complain. It would bleed or sting for a day or two.
“I had to be careful not to cry. If I cried, she would do it harder.”
When Rebecca was five, a wasp stung her on the tongue at school.
She had to go to hospital and her real mum was summoned to go with her, but Johnston was furious that they had spent time together.
Rebecca said: “She walloped me on the head and made me sit on the stairs.
“I wasn’t allowed to have any feelings for my own mum. She used to ask if I loved my mum and I had to say no or she would hit me.”
When it was time to wash Rebecca, Johnston would do it in the sink, using washing-up liquid.
She carried the mental scars of what Johnston did to her for years, and suffered from depression.
But she now works as a telephonist, and is a loving, dedicated mother to her own baby.
She and the other victims are making successes of their lives.
Adele is a shop manager, Kevin is in his final year of a law degree at Edinburgh University and Thomas is also at uni – studying social work.
The boys’ achievements are no thanks to Johnston, who began abusing them when they were three and continued until they left her when they were seven.
They were regularly beaten and locked out of the house.
Kevin recalls how sweets would be taken from them and put out of reach – so the Johnston kids could eat them.
In more than three years, Kevin was given two baths. But he was forced into a cold shower every three days.
And when it was time to be taken to church, the boys would be scrubbed up and made presentable. Johnston had an image to protect.
Kevin and Thomas and their birth family complained to Renfrewshire social services about Johnston, but they were not believed.
“The Johnstons were considered upstanding members of society,” Kevin said.
“We came from a troubled background but we were innocent, vulnerable children. We deserved to be loved and cared for properly.
“We don’t want any child to go through this again. We felt we had a duty to stand up and fight for accountability, not just for us but all the other children who were sent to that house.”
Thomas added: “There were social work investigations but nothing was done.
“In future I would say, ‘Ask the children if there is something wrong.’ It’s easy for abusers to put on a show.”
Adele was with Johnston between the ages of three and five, and was hit regularly.
She also recalls having to sleep on a bare mattress after soiling the bed, and being forced to run up and down the street outside the house in a twisted punishment.
Adele, who has struggled to recover from the abuse, said: “When I heard that verdict, I felt euphoria.
“We all stood together against her and we won. Finally, after all these years, we have been heard.”
Duncan Dunlop of kids’ charity Who Cares? Scotland, said children in foster care could find themselves in a “closed shop” environment.
It can be hard for them to speak out, or find advocates to speak for them.
Duncan said: “Children in all types of care need to be both seen and heard.””
[Daily Record 5/30/13 by Annie Brown]
REFORM Puzzle Pieces
Update: No jail time for Ruth because her husband has Type 1 diabetes! 
“Sentence on Johnston had been deferred so social workers could compile a report on what punishment would benefit both her and the community the most.” Excuse me? BENEFIT THE CHILD ABUSER?Since when has sentencing supposed to BENEFIT the CONVICTED???
“The court heard Johnston, who walks with a crutch, had become a target since details of the case were published in the press. Oh, CRY ME A RIVER! 
Wouldn’t jailing her keep her safe then?
Louise Arrol, defending, said jailing Johnston would affect her husband Gordon, a former church elder, who suffers from type-1 diabetes.”
“At an earlier court hearing Gordon, who was charged alongside his wife, suffered from a diabetic episode and proceedings had to be adjourned for a short while for it to pass.
Charges that he assaulted three children were found not proven.
Sentencing, the sheriff let Ruth Johnston walk free from court.
He said the amount of time he could give her behind bars was “severely limited” by the historic age of the offences, dating from the 1990s, and the fact it was prosecuted at summary level – which only allows for a 12-month prison term.
Rather than jailing Johnston he placed her on probation and ordered her to carry out unpaid work.
One of her victims burst into tears as Johnston left the dock and walked free from court.”
Victim’s tears as foster mum freed
[Evening Times 7/3/13]
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