Aston Hall victims have blasted the government’s compensation scheme as ‘an insult’ to their suffering.

More than 130 former child patients underwent sexual, physical and mental abuse at the psychiatric hospital, in Derbyshire, during the 1960s and 70s.

Many of them were stripped naked, placed in straight jackets and injected with sodium amytal during ‘treatment’ carried out by former hospital boss Dr Kenneth Milner.

An agreement had now been reached between the Health Secretary and the victims which will see the total compensation run into millions of pounds.

The government will pay £8,000 to all former patients who were injected with sodium amytal, known as a ‘truth serum’, on at least one occasion.

Those who had between two and five ‘treatments’ with the chemical will then receive an extra £2,500 for each time.

Victims who underwent between six and 15 ‘treatments’ will receive an extra £1,500 per time and after that they will receive an additional £1,000 per treatment, up to a maximum of £50,000.

It’s thought the total compensation could surpass the amount handed to the 52 victims of paedophile DJ Jimmy Savile.

They each received a total of £9,615 each, meaning almost £500,000 was paid out altogether.

But Aston Hall victim Justin Stubbings  blasted the compensation for only covering the drug abuse that took place, and ignoring sexual and physical abuse.

During the nine days he spent at the hospital in 1969, at the age of 14, he was tied up, injected with sodium amytal and beaten for ‘being gay’.

He told the BBC: ‘There seems to be no understanding of what that did to us. I just feel like we didn’t matter then and we don’t matter now.’

He added: ‘I only had the one treatment, only £8,000 for a life that was totally messed up because of what they did to me.’

Former resident Barbara O’Hare, 60, still suffers from complex post-traumatic stress disorder and flashbacks as a result of the abuse she faced during eight months in Aston Hall.

She said of the compensation: ‘What’s your childhood worth? It’s not about the money. It’s an insult, but £800,000,000 would still be an insult.’

During Dr Milner’s ‘treatments’, boys and girls were made to lie down on a mattress and questioned about abuse they had suffered.

Some victims said he would then put a mask over their face and drop the liquid ether on to the mask, while others were injected with sodium amytal, a powerful barbiturate.

The ‘truth serum’ would have left patients immobile and semi-conscious, and many later awoke to recall physical or sexual abuse while they were drugged.

Aston Hall was Derbyshire police’s largest investigation into child abuse in terms of the number of victims, making it one of the biggest scandals in a mental health institution.

Dr Milner died in 1976 but a report last year found that had he been alive, he would have been quizzed over allegations of rape, indecent assault and child cruelty.

Solicitor Dianne Collins, who has represented 64 of the alleged victims, said the sodium amytal ‘treatments’ were documented, making compensation easier as ‘we can see they took place’.

She said proving physical and sexual abuse was ‘much more difficult’ legally, because ‘Dr Milner’s not here to answer those allegations’.

Other victims from the hospital are being urged to come forward within the next 28 days if they wish to join the compensation scheme.

After that, they may still be able to claim compensation, but it cannot be guaranteed.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: ‘This is an important milestone for everyone who was affected by these terrible events and we hope that all claims can be resolved as soon as possible.’

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