Nun beat boy and the next day he didn’t show up and we cheered.. we thought he had got a family, got away.. then I read that he had died

and was told his brother had been thrown on to an iron bed frame.

The witness, who entered Smyllum Park aged 10 in 1951 along with his baby brother and toddler sister, said a lay worker touched his private parts as did a nun.

He claimed the same nun also regularly beat him with a wooden blackboard pointer and kicked him, at one point dislocating his fingers. He said the nun “went into a frenzy” and the beatings could last for up to 10 minutes, during which she called him the “devil’s disciple”.

The man told how he once managed to grab the pointer from the nun and hit her – but was then so severely beaten that he couldn’t get up for two hours.

He also said he was made to eat food off the floor after dropping it, and was beaten for not finishing it.

The witness said he told the Mother Superior, his grandfather and a policeman about the abuse but was told it was his “imagination” or was accused of lying.

Colin MacAuley QC, counsel to the inquiry, put to the witness the nuns’ position is that corporal punishment was not used at Smyllum Park and the nuns were “kind” to the children. He replied: “They are dirty liars.” The man said he wanted children to be kept out of such places.

Responding to the Sisters’ claims, a third witness who described daily beatings by “inhumane” nuns, said: “We can’t all be lying.”

The inquiry continues today.

The nun went into a frenzy, beating me and calling me the devil’s disciple WITNESS