Victims of Scotland's ‘Tinker Experiment' work with human rights chiefs to get formal apology
Victims of forced resettlement during Scotland's so-called 'Tinker Experiment' are working with human rights chiefs to get a formal apology.
The scheme, which ran between the 1940s and 1980s, was condemned as 'cultural genocide' after it attempted to integrate gypsy travellers into mainstream society.
Supported by the UK Government and Scottish local authorities, the programme saw families taken from their homes and forced into accommodation, including cramped huts at sites across the country.
Families have reported they were threatened with having their children taken away and put into care if they did not take up the offer.
Professor Angela O'Hagan, the Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission, said in a new blog and podcast that a team of experts are now working with traveller groups to work out how redress, including a formal apology, should be delivered to victims.
She said: 'Scottish gypsy travellers have traditionally experienced some of the most brutal and institutionalised discrimination in Scotland.
'Anything involving the community with 'experiment' in the words should rightly gives us shivers.
'People are still living that legacy in terms of their own family relations and their own physical and mental health but they are also living that legacy in terms of the culturally inappropriate and inadequate accommodation...and we're seeing that right up to the present day.'
Prof O'Hagan said experts had been working directly with victims of the 'experiment' since last summer to collate a report documenting the long-term impact on them as well as analysing how redress should be delivered.
She said: 'We're scoping out, what are the legal standards? What are the frameworks? Is the evidence meeting the threshold for cultural genocide and what mechanism for redress and apology would be most appropriate? We're trying to provide that legal analysis to support the community.'
The Commission's findings are expected to be published by the end of the year.
Shamus McPhee, who grew up on the Bobbin Mill site in Pitlochry where he initially lived in a hut with no electricity, has campaigned for a public apology for victims of the scheme that 'decimated' life chances.
He previously said it was a 'bone of contention' that formal apologies had been offered to other groups who suffered historic injustices, but not gypsy travellers.
Scottish Labour Equalities spokesperson Paul O'Kane said: 'It is welcome that the Human Rights Commission is looking at these important issues.
'This was an incredibly dark time in Scotland's history and we await the findings and recommendations of this research by the Human Rights Commission.'
Scottish Lib Dems Equalities spokesperson Christine Jardine MP said prejudicial and discriminatory behaviour had "blighted lives.'
She said: 'The 'Tinker Experiment' is an ugly mark on our history and I am glad that the Scottish Human Rights Commission are exploring this issue."
In 2021, Nicola Sturgeon said she would consider a formal apology and the Scottish Government went on to commission new research into the 'experiment' in a bid to 'understand events as fully as possible'.
A delayed report is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, it emerged last month that gypsy travellers are still being 'systemically failed' in Scotland after housing regulators found 'serious' breaches of accommodation standards.
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The Scottish Housing Regulator upheld complaints made by families at Perthshire's Double Dykes site and Bobbin Mill.
Regulators found 'serious failing' in the standards of accommodation and the authority's approach to communication and engagement with residents.
The investigation ruled that the council failed to meet its obligations under Scottish housing laws.
Perth and Kinross Council disputed the findings and requested a review.
The Scottish Housing Regulator reported failings at another Gypsy Traveller site at Tarvit Mill, in Fife, last year.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: 'Through our Gypsy/Traveller Action Plan we are driving positive change and tackling inequality for communities across Scotland.
'In 2023 we commissioned independent research to better understand the impact past policies had on our Gypsy/Traveller communities. We are committed to learning important lessons from the 'Tinker Experiment' to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated.
'The final version of the report will be published at the end of this month and we look forward to engaging with the Scottish Human Rights Commission in due course.'
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