A former north-east foster carer who violently abused children in her care has died following a fall in her home.
Sandra Harper had been appealing her criminal conviction after a jury found her guilty of eight charges, including four of assault, during two decades of shocking child abuse.
She narrowly avoided imprisonment in October last year and was instead sentenced to 300 hours of unpaid work and placed under house arrest between 4pm and 4am every day for 12 months.
The 63-year-old – who was described in court as “nasty, verbally abusive, cruel, vindictive and violent” – died in hospital following the fall just before Christmas.
On Saturday December 23 she was rushed to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary after ambulance crews were called to her home on Westhaven Crescent, Cairnbulg.
It’s understood the stricken woman suffered catastrophic injuries from a fall, including a fractured skull, a bleed on the brain and severe blood loss.
Convicted child abuser Sandra Harper fell at her Cairnbulg home
A Scottish Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: “We received a call at 00:18 on Saturday 23 December 2023 to attend an incident at Westhaven Crescent, Cairnbulg.
“We dispatched one ambulance and one Special Operations Response Team (SORT) to the scene. One patient was transported to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.”
Harper died a week later at ARI.
All sudden deaths that do not result from natural causes – including ones that appear to be accidental, such as a fall – are required to be reported to the Procurator Fiscal.
A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said: “A report has been submitted to the Procurator Fiscal following the non-suspicious death of a 63-year-old woman within Aberdeen Royal Infirmary on Saturday December 30 2023”.
Foster carer’s fall death came after Cairnbulg couple convicted of child abuse
Harper’s 63-year-old husband Andrew, who lived with her, was also found guilty by a jury of nine women and six men of three assault charges during the former foster carers’ trial at Peterhead Sheriff Court last year.
He was sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid work to be completed within 18 months alongside supervision for the same period.
Mrs Harper hit kids in the couple’s care, also shouting and swearing at them – calling them “little b******s, little pigs, little tinks” and referring to one of them as a “spastic” and a “poof”.
The pair both took the witness stand to give evidence in their own defence.
Under questioning from his advocate Jordanna Blockley, Mr Harper insisted: “I’ve never ever hit any kid … I’ve never ever smacked one of the kids”.
But then he admitted to giving them a “skelp” if they were cheeky.
The court heard harrowing evidence concerning a total of five different victims who’d suffered at the hands of the Harpers inside their Aberdeenshire home.
Upon hearing of Sandra Harper’s death, they jointly released a statement.
“The news of her death brings us no pleasure whatsoever,” they said, adding: “The cruelty that she inflicted upon us for the entirety of our childhoods and beyond will never darken our hearts nor compassion for humanity.
“We continue to battle through very poor mental health as a result of what she exposed us to.”
Among her worst crimes, Mrs Harper repeatedly struck some of her victims on their heads.
It caused one boy, who’d wet his bed and had his face rubbed in the soaked linen by her, to fall and strike his head on a wardrobe, the jury was told.
Another boy, who was learning disabled and didn’t have a girlfriend in his teenage years, was called a “spastic” and a “poof” by the disgraced foster carer.
She repeatedly seized him by the body, pushed, pulled, and dragged him out of a car.
Harper also repeatedly forced a girl to eat food that she had spat out and vomited.
The same girl was repeatedly grabbed by her hair and dragged, struck on the head and even had liquid soap poured into her mouth.
And another girl, who had clothing thrown at her and was repeatedly shouted and sworn at, urinated herself because Sandra Harper refused to let her go to the toilet.
Sheriff branded child abusing foster carer Sandra Harper ‘nasty, verbally abusive, cruel, vindictive, violent’
When Sheriff Ian Wallace sentenced Sandra Harper, he acknowledged that she had “suffered some mental and physical issues” over the period in question.
But he added: “As a foster carer, you were entrusted to look after and love the children.
“You were their second opportunity in life. There was an opportunity for a childhood full of love and care and fun. You, clearly, denied them that childhood.
“You were nasty, verbally abusive, cruel, vindictive, violent.”
Sandra Harper’s victims ended their statement with an appeal, adding: “We again encourage those with the privileged position of looking after our most vulnerable children or to anyone with concerns for kids to be alert and to speak up.
“You really can save children not just from the immediate impact of abuse but also from a lifetime of torment and struggle.”