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19 episodes

8. Truth in the Shadows
18/07/2025 | 32 mins.
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
7. Strathmartine
11/07/2025 | 35 mins.
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?
6. Alexander and Sandy
04/07/2025 | 42 mins.
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.
5. Cutting the Roots
27/06/2025 | 29 mins.
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.
4. Paper Children
20/06/2025 | 25 mins.
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.

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About The Cruelty

In 2021, Davie Donaldson sought to solve the long-standing mystery of the Unknown Bairn, a young boy whose body washed up on a Scottish beach and was never claimed. Since that time, a number of Scottish Travellers have contacted him with stories of children being forcibly removed from their families. This becomes the catalyst for Davie's investigation into why this happened and whether it was sanctioned by the church and state. Along the way, the mystery that began it all re-enters Davies' life, taking him to a truth that's been hidden in the shadows for too long.

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