No More Silence

No More Silence by David Whelan with Marion Scott and Jim McBeth is available from amazon.com David Whelan was a successful businessman living a millionaire lifestyle when his world came crashing down. Nobody knew, not Princess Diana, not the Queen, nor the hundreds of celebrities he rubbed shoulders with, that David was hiding a dark secret. Born into a world beyond poverty, David was the youngest of five children, abandoned in a Scottish slum by his unhinged mother and brute of a father, he was seven before he learned he wasn't an orphan. Reunited briefly with his brothers and sisters on a croft in North Uist in the Hebrides, David and his siblings were plucked from the only happy home they had known and given back to an unfit mother, with disastrous results. Soon tiring of her unruly brood, David's mother took off, unwittingly setting in train a series of events which would place him in the hands of a sexual predator at the world famous Quarrier's Children's Village in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire. The bell tower of the Children's Cathedral was where David's tormentor John Porteous, 77, took him to abuse him - before the 'Beast' joined the rest of the congregation in prayer. For 30 years, David never told, until his abuser's wife called, asking him to be a character witness for her husband, the monster who had stolen his childhood. Catapulted into the biggest ever UK investigation into child abuse at a children's home, David found himself at the centre of Operation Orbona. Eight abusers were convicted. Now, as he campaigns for historic abuse victims across the world, David has seen justice at last with the publication of his life story - No More Silence. He said: "Telling my story has at long last been a huge release, and I pray it brings hope to the thousands of survivors who, like me, always thought they were alone. "My abuser was originally jailed for eight years for destroying my life and abusing another boy. "My story is my justice." David's story will resonate with victims of abuse around the world, and many Migrant Children in the US, Canada and Australia will have links with Quarriers. The charity was one of several which sent migrant children away from their families, with many ending up working in factories and farms across North America and Australia. Here, in searing extracts from his harrowing but uplifting memoirs, written with Marion Scott and Jim McBeth, David tells his story. 'I had fallen asleep on the journey to a new life that promised peace, security and safety. I awoke with a start, in time to see the words spelled out in flowers: Suffer the little children. My first sight of, and welcome to, Quarriers Children's Village. Nestling in the Renfrewshire countryside, this place was far from the grime and unpredictability of life in an inner-city slum. My older sister Irene sat next to me in the back of the social worker's car, her eyes luminous with uncertainty. We had arrived. I shrugged off sleep and wiped moisture from the car window. The first structure I saw was the bell tower of what I would learn later was called the Children's Cathedral. I had never seen anything so breathtaking. The soaring steeple seemed to point to heaven. I would find soon it was pointing the way to hell. He would see to that. His name was John Porteous. He is at the heart of this story but there will be few mentions of his given name. I once called him Uncle John but I was a child then and trusting. I had yet to be betrayed by the man whose duty it was to protect me, to keep me safe. Therefore, he is forever The Beast - it is how I have referred to him in my mind for three decades. It had taken all of my strength to banish the unspeakable things he did to me during my time at Quarriers. A phone call out of the blue would reveal that my entire existence was an edifice built on sand. In the matter of a few seconds, the façade I had built from repression and misguided shame was torn away. But the call would persuade me to stop running from the past, a race I could no longer win. This time, this time, this time, justice had to prevail and I had to play my part. I would soon be at the centre of Operation Orbona, the biggest police investigation into systematic physical and sexual abuse of children in a care home. Eight of the abusers would be convicted. The Beast and his cohorts went to jail. I thought then it would be over. I believed there would be closure but I was wrong - it was just the beginning.