THREE girls at the centre of an alleged paedophile ring in the Outer Hebrides were repeatedly failed by social workers and police, a report has concluded.

The girls, who have not been identified, were found to have been subjected to sexual, physical and emotional abuse over a nine-year period between 1991 and 2000.

One child was forced to eat cat food, while another was forced to sleep in a cupboard. They were burnt by cigarettes, beaten, and repeatedly soiled themselves at school. One of the children was already being abused at the age of one.

The full extent of their abuse on the Isle of Lewis was made public yesterday after the three girls, who now live with foster parents, asked for the 170-page report to be published in full.

Their precise ages have not been revealed, but they were all under 16 when seven men and an elderly woman were charged two years ago with raping them. The woman, a 76-year-old grandmother, was also charged with lewd, indecent and libidinous conduct involving underage girls.

The case collapsed last year after the Crown Office, without explanation, withdrew all charges after what it described as “careful consideration of all the available evidence”.

Yesterday’s report condemned social workers on Lewis for failing to act sooner to remove the children from their home, adding that some of the decisions made by officials in the Western Isles were seriously flawed.

“We found that professionals were too willing to believe the accounts of adult members about what was happening at home rather than the children’s,” it said.

The problems continued even though nearly 100 health professionals had contact with the group at one time or another and the main suspect in the alleged abuse case had been classified as “high risk” in England after being convicted of the indecent assault of a nine-year-old in 1986. The mother of the girls was also said to have been a victim of sexual abuse and an alleged abuser.

Alexis Jay, the chief inspector of the Social Work Inspection Agency, which was called in to review the handling of the case, said yesterday that the girls’ parents had “consistently failed” to protect them.

“We found evidence of physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect as well as symptoms and behaviour which strongly suggested sexual abuse. We believe that all these three children were repeatedly sexually abused,” she said.

The collapse of the case against the alleged abusers remains unexplained.

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