Archibald Thorburn – Edinburgh

A 77-year-old man has been jailed after being found guilty of sexually abusing a boy and subjecting four other children in care to years of violent and cruel treatment.

Archibald Thorburn, from Edinburgh, was convicted of 14 charges following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

The offences took place in Edinburgh between 1963 and 1992 and involved children who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The court heard that Thorburn began abusing one boy when he was six years old and continued to subject him to physical and sexual abuse over almost three decades.

The boy was repeatedly slapped, punched and kicked and was struck with objects including a spirit level and a scaffolding pole.

On occasions, he was forced to run around a garden carrying heavy tins filled with concrete, with a rope around his neck.

The court also heard that Thorburn sexually assaulted the boy on several occasions between 1963 and 1968.

Giving evidence, the victim, now 69, described being placed in care at a house in Portobello, Edinburgh, where he shared a room with Thorburn.

He told the court that the sexual abuse left him vomiting and that he was then made to clean up.

He said he was too frightened to tell anyone and was told the abuse was “our secret”.

The court heard Thorburn was involved in disciplining children at the house and would hit them with slippers, shoes and belts.

Other children were also subjected to severe treatment.

A nine-year-old girl was subjected to physical assaults and had her hair shaved. The court heard Thorburn also attempted to sexually assault her.

Another girl, aged eight, was forced to take extremely hot and cold baths as punishment and was made to stare at a photograph of Thorburn for hours. She was struck whenever she looked away.

The court heard she was also forced to attend school wearing soiled underwear.

Thorburn hid puppies from the girl and told her they had gone missing before making her search for them.

During the 1970s, another boy, aged 13, was subjected to physical assaults over a three-year period. On one occasion, Thorburn allegedly threatened him with a hot poker.

Thorburn was also convicted of repeatedly assaulting another boy and subjecting him to cruel treatment, including shaving his head and forcing him to watch as other children were punished.

The court also heard evidence that Thorburn assaulted his own father on a number of occasions between 1965 and 1985.

Thorburn denied the offences and told the court that the allegations were “horrible”.

However, the jury rejected his evidence and returned guilty verdicts on 14 charges.

Sentencing Thorburn, judge Lord O’Grady described the evidence as “truly shocking”.

He told Thorburn that the victims had been children who were “rejected, damaged, unhappy and bewildered”.

The judge described Thorburn as a “petty tyrant, a torturer, a sadist and a sexual predator”.

He said the harm caused to the victims was “incalculable” and had robbed them of what remained of already difficult childhoods.

Thorburn had no previous convictions.

His lawyer, Brian McConnachie KC, said mitigation would be presented at a later sentencing hearing.

Thorburn was remanded in custody pending sentencing.

The judge said his behaviour would result in a “significant sentence of imprisonment”.