Did you read the article? They are forced to pay retroactively. It's like if the government raised income tax rates and tried to collect the difference for the last 12 years from your taxes. Would you like that?
They had advice at the time that these schemes were legit (though every adviser would deliver that with a wink), any adult human must have known there was a large risk HMRC would disagree eventually (just as Apple knew they were running a risk), and now they face demands to pay the tax they failed to pay in the first place.
Are they the victims? Certainly they will tell you so. Sympathy I have for them? Nil.