hollydolly
SF VIP
- Location
- London England
I'm very happy to read this...finally !
My mother was abused by the Nuns who ran the orphanage she was in , and she was abused from the age of 2 until 16....
She and others were made to scrub floors on their hands and knees with freezing water, until their knuckles bled, and the Evil Nuns would kick the water bucket over, and they'd be made to dry it up... and given a beating for spilling it.. and they were routinely beaten with belts on the back, on the head, , on the legs . This was in a Scottish orphanage between 1936 and 1950 Might have been this same one, I don't know the name of the orphanage my mother was in..
I hope that Imprisoning these Nuns is the start of finding more, and giving them every bit of punishment they deserve..
Two nuns and a care worker who abused vulnerable youngsters at a notorious Scottish orphanage have been jailed for three years each.
Sister Sarah McDermott, 79, Sister Eileen Igoe, 79, and carer Margaret Hughes, 76, subjected children to terrifying ordeals at Smyllum Park in Lanark.
The three women denied any wrongdoing between 1969 and 1981 as they went on trial at Airdrie Sheriff Court.
But a jury took three days to find them guilty of a number of ‘cruel and unnatural’ incidents while children were in the care of the Order of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.
Sheriff Scott Pattison said there was no alternative to prison for the three women as she handed them each a three year sentence.
A number of former residents told the trial they had been mistreated at Smyllum during the six week trial.
One woman said she was beaten by McDermott, of London, after she reported witnessing her brother being sexually abused in a toilet in the orphanage.
She said volunteer worker Brian Dailey, who was later jailed for 15 years for abusing youngsters, molested the three-year-old in a cubicle.
But rather than investigate the abuse, McDermott slapped the girl and told her she was bringing her ‘filthy home habits into a good Catholic place’.
McDermott also struck another girl with rosary beads and repeatedly struck her on the head and body.
Igoe, of Edinburgh, was convicted of abuse which included force feeding children and making one eat their own vomit as well as striking one boy on the head and body.
Hughes, of Lanark, seized one boy by the hair before striking him with her arm.
She also forced a girl into a freezing bath and held her head under water.
Smyllum closed in 1981 and has been at the centre of allegations of abuse.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry said in 2018 youngsters had been sexually abused and beaten with leather straps, hairbrushes and crucifixes.
A report by Lady Smith, chair of the inquiry, said it was a place of ‘fear, threat and excessive discipline’ and that children found ‘no love, no compassion, no dignity and no comfort’ in Smyllum.
Sheriff Pattison said: ‘Each of you, in what you did and said, contributed to a culture in which children were demeaned and subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
‘While you were all younger at the time, you were all adults either in your 20s or 30s when you did these things.
‘While there was some discussion at trial about the existence of corporal punishment and reasonable chastisement, it is clear that the jury rejected that and in any event, what was described by those who gave evidence went way beyond what could ever be described as reasonable chastisement in any generation.
‘It would have been obvious to you all and anyone at the time that what you were doing was abusive and that it was criminal and you must have known what you were doing was wrong.
‘What should have been a home and a safe place, a safe haven even, for these children was a place of anxiety and fear.’
Nuns jailed over abuse of vulnerable youngsters at notorious orphanage
My mother was abused by the Nuns who ran the orphanage she was in , and she was abused from the age of 2 until 16....
She and others were made to scrub floors on their hands and knees with freezing water, until their knuckles bled, and the Evil Nuns would kick the water bucket over, and they'd be made to dry it up... and given a beating for spilling it.. and they were routinely beaten with belts on the back, on the head, , on the legs . This was in a Scottish orphanage between 1936 and 1950 Might have been this same one, I don't know the name of the orphanage my mother was in..
I hope that Imprisoning these Nuns is the start of finding more, and giving them every bit of punishment they deserve..
Two nuns and a care worker who abused vulnerable youngsters at a notorious Scottish orphanage have been jailed for three years each.
Sister Sarah McDermott, 79, Sister Eileen Igoe, 79, and carer Margaret Hughes, 76, subjected children to terrifying ordeals at Smyllum Park in Lanark.
The three women denied any wrongdoing between 1969 and 1981 as they went on trial at Airdrie Sheriff Court.
But a jury took three days to find them guilty of a number of ‘cruel and unnatural’ incidents while children were in the care of the Order of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.
Sheriff Scott Pattison said there was no alternative to prison for the three women as she handed them each a three year sentence.
A number of former residents told the trial they had been mistreated at Smyllum during the six week trial.
One woman said she was beaten by McDermott, of London, after she reported witnessing her brother being sexually abused in a toilet in the orphanage.
She said volunteer worker Brian Dailey, who was later jailed for 15 years for abusing youngsters, molested the three-year-old in a cubicle.
But rather than investigate the abuse, McDermott slapped the girl and told her she was bringing her ‘filthy home habits into a good Catholic place’.
McDermott also struck another girl with rosary beads and repeatedly struck her on the head and body.
Igoe, of Edinburgh, was convicted of abuse which included force feeding children and making one eat their own vomit as well as striking one boy on the head and body.
Hughes, of Lanark, seized one boy by the hair before striking him with her arm.
She also forced a girl into a freezing bath and held her head under water.
Smyllum closed in 1981 and has been at the centre of allegations of abuse.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry said in 2018 youngsters had been sexually abused and beaten with leather straps, hairbrushes and crucifixes.
A report by Lady Smith, chair of the inquiry, said it was a place of ‘fear, threat and excessive discipline’ and that children found ‘no love, no compassion, no dignity and no comfort’ in Smyllum.
Sheriff Pattison said: ‘Each of you, in what you did and said, contributed to a culture in which children were demeaned and subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
‘While you were all younger at the time, you were all adults either in your 20s or 30s when you did these things.
‘While there was some discussion at trial about the existence of corporal punishment and reasonable chastisement, it is clear that the jury rejected that and in any event, what was described by those who gave evidence went way beyond what could ever be described as reasonable chastisement in any generation.
‘It would have been obvious to you all and anyone at the time that what you were doing was abusive and that it was criminal and you must have known what you were doing was wrong.
‘What should have been a home and a safe place, a safe haven even, for these children was a place of anxiety and fear.’
Nuns jailed over abuse of vulnerable youngsters at notorious orphanage
Last edited:
