Snapshots of the family from hell

But behind the innocent smiles, ten-year-old Dana Fowley and her eight-year-old sister were hiding a secret too terrible to imagine.

The picture from their family album captures just a hint of the true horror behind Scotland's worst ever paedophile ring.

Leering across at them is paedophile Morris Petch, who is today facing the prospect of life in jail for his attacks on the girls.

Another picture from the family photograph album, which we have used on our front page, shows an excited Dana opening her presents a year or two earlier. Her mother is watching her, lying in the bed where most of the abuse of the girls took place.

Petch, now 50, was warned yesterday at the High Court in Edinburgh of the severity of the penalty he faces, as the judge Lord Malcolm ordered further background reports on him.

Dana's mother, Caroline Dunsmore, 43, was jailed for 12 years for raping and abusing her, while John O'Flaherty, 50, was sentenced to 13 years for his role in the abuse.

After the case, Dana, now 26, described the sentences as "justified" and "a victory" after her "life of hell".

But the trio in court were just three of up to 15 adults who abused the girls. Some of the others are in prison for other child abuse offences, some are dead and some are still being hunted by police.

Today, Dana recalled how the horrific abuse she and her sister suffered simply became a fact of life for them.

At the time the photograph was taken, in 1991, Petch regularly visited the family's Granton home to rape her. That year, he spent Christmas with the family, having been invited to the house in Wardieburn Road by her mother and her husband, Billy King - who police believe was the head of the paedophile ring. Aged only ten, Dana was molested by the trio each day from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day back in 1991.

She said: "Me and my sister still saw Christmas as a special time. We just accepted what else would happen to us. We had no choice.

"Petch was always at the house and this was no different. And every time he was there I would be raped."

The girls faced a sickening catalogue of abuse over 12 years, starting when Dana was just six.

Today, the Evening News can reveal the faces of some of the other abusers who tormented the girls and ignored their cries for help.

Former ice cream man Billy King was said in court to have "orchestrated" the systematic abuse of his step-daughters.

King's mother and father, Peter and Mary King, who are both now dead, were involved in the first attack when Dana was just six.

Dunsmore's own lawyer, Gordon Jackson QC, described how she brought her daughter into a bedroom at the elderly couple's house in Muirhouse Green to allow the first abuse to take place.

Dana today described Peter King as the "most sadistic" of her tormentors, recalling how he forced her to admit it was her fault she was being raped.

Dana said his wife Mary, who later suffered from dementia, willingly joined her husband in the attacks, which started when they were in their early 60s.

Another of her abusers was Caroline Dunsmore's father, William, who raped and abused both his daughter and granddaughters. He is currently serving a five-year sentence for raping Dana's younger sister.

The cycle of abuse which began with William continued through Dunsmore's young adult life, even before she met the sadistic Billy King. Alcoholic Thomas Fowley was Dana's father, who married Dunsmore when she fell pregnant by him at 15.

The court heard that Fowley was "an extremely violent man" who burned his wife on the face and legs with cigarettes, hit her with a hammer and dangled her out of a window by her legs. Fowley himself was later jailed for raping Dana's younger sister.

But after escaping the abusive marriage, Dunsmore married King, a friend of her father's who was 28 years her senior, when she was just 22. Together they would create an open house for fellow paedophiles who would wait patiently in the living room of their homes in north Edinburgh to abuse the tragic youngsters.

King's friends, John O'Flaherty and Morris Petch, soon became regular visitors, whether sipping tea in the living room or joining them for family celebrations.

But their presence had little to do with spreading good cheer as they waited for the inevitable opportunity to force themselves on helpless Dana Fowley and her younger sibling. Over 12 years, the sisters were repeatedly raped by different adults and forced to watch as they indulged in group sex.

In Abernethy Caravan Park in Perthshire, Dana was aged ten when she was stripped, blind-folded and repeatedly raped by King, O'Flaherty and three other men.

The High Court heard yesterday that Dunsmore blamed her dead husband Billy King for being the ringleader, claiming she was "too petrified" to refuse his sordid demands. However, Dana Fowley today said her mother and King, who died in 1995, were "equally to blame" for the abuse, despite her denials.

She told today how she could not sleep the night before yesterday's sentencing and ran from the court in tears as Lord Malcolm handed out the prison terms.

The court heard how Dunsmore's life had been shaped by the abuse she suffered as a child. She was repeatedly and severely beaten by her father from a young age, and was raped by him for the first time aged six.

Her lawyer, Mr Jackson, said: "There was no normal family life of any kind, only a deprived childhood of alcoholism, poverty and criminality.

"Her father would have sex with her, usually when he was drunk, and she was left absolutely terrified of him."

Mr Jackson said a lodger later stayed with the family in Johnstone Terrace and "joined in" the abuse. The unnamed man was later jailed for rape and murder.

But Dana said today that her mother had continued to visit William Dunsmore in Peterhead Prison, even handing him a 100 present last Christmas.