The Cruelty

Davie returns to the Unknown Bairn’s grave to address unfinished business with the family who found the boy’s body. And does a leaked report commissioned by the Scottish Government, offer hope of some form of restitution for the failures of church and state?Presenter: Davie Donaldson Producer: Kate Bissell Research: Kate Bissell and Emily Essen Story Consultants: Jack Kibble White and Kirsty Williams Music, Mix and Sound Design: Julian Corrie Executive Editor: Susie Crumless Commissioning Editor: Heather Kane Darling

Davie visits Strathmartine Hospital, a now derelict facility, where removed Traveller and non -Traveller children were sent and often never left. Davie needs to find out: what went on behind those walls?

Davie receives a text message that changes so much of what he thought he knew about the Unknown Bairn and the boy he believed him to be. As a new investigation gets underway, a different story emerges.

Bella is a young Scottish Traveller. Through the generations, her family has been broken apart by social services. She explains to Davie how she’s fought to keep her daughter from being taken into care and, in the process, been forced to cut herself off from her Traveller culture.

Rosanne McPhee’s dad joked about volunteering to be measured by a Nazi racial scientist because he knew each time his head was measured he would receive a shilling. Davie discovers this was just a part of a wider Nazi Eugenic Policy, which lead to the murder of millions of Roma in the Nazi death and concentration camps.