JOHN SLATER SEXUALLY ABUSED YOUNG COUSIN IN MIDLOTHIAN FOR OVER 2000 TIMES

In August 2017, a woman from Rosewell, Patricia, who has learning difficulties, shared her heartbreaking story of being sexually abused by her cousin, John Andrew Slater. Patricia revealed that Slater sexually assaulted her more than 2000 times during her childhood, starting when she was just nine years old.

Patricia explained, “He would tell me that he loved me – I was his soul mate and his favorite. He told me that when I was older, we would be together. I had learning difficulties and didn’t have many friends. I’d been bullied and I was lonely. I know now that he used that to his advantage.”

Because she was considered vulnerable and wasn’t permitted to leave the house unaccompanied, Slater began taking Patricia to different locations across Midlothian where he subjected her to ongoing sexual abuse. She states that he forced her to perform sex acts on him and sexually assaulted her, with claims of rape that remain unproven. During her seven-year ordeal, she estimates the abuse occurred up to four times a week. “I tried to calculate the number of times he abused me, and it works out at least 2080 – but that’s being generous because it was more,” she said. “I have emotional, mental, and physical scars. The physical scars remind me every day of what he did.”

John Slater, now 55 and known as Jock, began abusing Patricia in June 1975. The abuse continued until 1982, when Patricia confided in her parents. However, they chose to conceal what happened rather than involve the police. She recounted, “After I told my parents, I wasn’t allowed to go out with him anymore. We just kept it hidden in the family. That’s what people did in those days. I had to face him at family gatherings, and I never even told my husband, who I was married to for 13 years.”

Slater has since claimed to have suffered a heart attack and to have lost his memory, but Patricia disputes this. “A few years ago, I was at a gala day with my mum. He told her he had lost his memory. But then he came up and whispered in my ear, ‘But I remember what I did to you,’” she recalled.

After his initial abuse of Patricia, Slater targeted a second victim, a girl aged 14, between October 1986 and October 1987 in the Edinburgh area. It wasn’t until 2015 that Patricia finally broke her silence and reported the abuse to police.

She told authorities, “I told the officer, ‘I was raped and abused as a child.’ The officer was very supportive and helped me explain everything. Later, he said it was the worst case of abuse he had ever encountered.”

Slater, who worked as a care assistant for vulnerable young adults, denied the accusations, which led Patricia to give evidence in court via video link. Following a trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Slater was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced earlier this month to two years in prison. Sheriff Thomas Welsh QC remarked, “You must have known what you were doing was wrong. The only sentence I can impose is one of custody.”

He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for 10 years and given a 10-year harassment order prohibiting contact with Patricia. The trauma she endured is detailed in a heartfelt letter she wrote to the court, in which she described her ongoing struggles. “For more than 40 years, I have been taking boiling hot baths and scrubbing my skin until it is red raw, trying to get him from under my skin,” she wrote. “I’ll never forget what he did to me. It will take a long time for me to heal, but I finally feel I have my life back.”