Family ‘in hiding’ after rapist brother is caged

Jul 3 2009 by Craig Robertson, Dumfries Standard Friday

RAY Fernie’s life has been a living hell since his older brother was convicted of raping him.

As a child in the 1970s he had to endure years of sexual abuse at the hands of sick sibling Gordon who was handed a nine-year sentence for the rape of Ray and two others.

Ray claims the publicity over the case has opened the floodgates to a new nightmare as locals began either mistaking him for his brother or accusing him of being a paedophile.

He feels the only way he can escape the daily torment is to waive his right to anonymity and go public with his plight – pleading with his tormentors to stop.

“If I was my brother, I’d slit myself,” he told the Standard.

“I was hoping the conviction would be a big weight off my shoulders but this is like a bombshell hitting me. Twice I have felt like topping myself.

“The only thing that is keeping me going is my wife and my kids.

“Going to court, everything came right back and now I’m getting this.”

Ray, who lives at Polbroc Place with wife Anne, is a father to six children aged between five and 14.

It is them he fears for most as he waits up every night for the return of an armed gang which came to his door one night.

“It could be any time between 11pm and 3am. Put it this way, I don’t sleep at night.

“When I pick my kids up, I come home and have a couple of hours sleep during the day. It’s getting to the stage where I’m getting no sleep at all and I’m up patrolling the house.

“This has been going on for the past five or six days.

“It is constantly at the back of my head.

“My daughter comes home from school asking what a paedophile is.

“She shouldn’t be learning that, she’s only five years old.

“I fear for my kids when they go to school so I’ve now kept them off until I get this sorted out.”

He added: “If I walk to the shop I get abuse. Sometimes I feel like a prisoner in here, sometimes I feel like I’m a jailer to my kids.

“I feel as if I’m jailing them for something they’ve no control over.”

Ray’s abuse happened during the 1970s when the family lived in Glasgow. Some of them, along with Ray and Gordon would later move to Annan.

“What happened with me and my brother I’ve kept suppressed at the back of my mind,” he said.

“If I didn’t do what he wanted me to do I was slapped on the back of the head and forced to do certain things, certain acts.

“For a while I thought it was normal, just the way of life until I started growing up and I started realising it was wrong.”

Horrific

Ray says the memory of those horrific events and the recent conflicts have taken its toll on his health and his family life.

He added: “I’m getting more and more angry at the feeble-minded people in this village.

“I just want to clear my name, I’m hoping this is going to clear my name, I really do.

“I just want be left alone and let my kids grow up and keep them out of harm’s way.”