Paedophile pensioner abused Edinburgh church home children

A paedophile pensioner who preyed on vulnerable children in care at a church-run home faces a lengthy jail sentence.

Ian Samson, 72, serially abused young people and raped one girl at the premises where he lived in while his wife worked there as the matron.

Even after he severed links with the home, Samson continued to abuse children.

He wore a cross round his neck at his trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

A string of victims relived their ordeals from the witness box and one woman, now aged 48, told the court: "I just thought it happened because I was in a children's home."

Previous convictions

The jury found him guilty of 22 charges including rape, indecency and assault involving 12 different victims.

Eight of the crimes took place at the former children's home in Edinburgh between 1975 and 1981.

Samson, a prisoner in Glenochil jail, is a registered sex offender who has previously been jailed and has previous convictions for indecent exposure.

Judge Lady Scott told him: "You have been convicted of extremely serious charges. This was a course of conduct of serious sexual abuse and rape of children over a period spanning 30 years."

She warned Samson he faces "a serious and substantial" jail term when sentence is passed next month.

Jurors, who had to listen to "sordid and distressing events", were discharged from any further service in criminal trials by the judge.

The rape victim's younger brother - one of four siblings taken into care after they were abandoned - said he used to sleep in a dog's basket in a bid to escape the unwanted attention of Samson who had molested him in his bed.

The rape victim told police she had been assaulted from the age of 12 and said: "I remember him saying I was special to him and it was our little secret."

She became pregnant by Samson, but had a termination.

She said: "I just thought it was normal. I was young."

The woman's younger brother, now aged 45, said: "He basically said if I said anything I won't see my family again."

Samson, a former ice cream van operator, later went on to run a shop in Goosegreen Road, Musselburgh, East Lothian, and continued to perpetrate abuse.