Nun walked in on priest abusing me so she broke my arm as punishment
Witness Theresa’s harrowing testimony
A NUN broke an eight-year-old girl’s arm in fury when she found her being abused by a priest, an inquiry heard yesterday. Theresa Tolmie-McGrane hoped the nun would save her when she walked in on the horrifying scene at a Scots orphanage. Instead, the nun called her a whore and slammed her against the wall so violently she broke her arm. Another nun later gave her
a “real hiding” – and threatened to break her other arm if she told anyone what had happened.
Theresa, who spent 11 years at Smyllum Park in Lanark, waived her anonymity to recount her physical and sexual torment to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
She also told how the priest, who abused her for several months, warned her: “I need you to be a soldier of God, a good little soldier.”
Theresa, now a pyschologist living in Norway, told the hearing in Edinburgh she still bears the physical and mental scars of her time in the orphanage, which closed in the 80s.
She arrived at the institution, run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, at the age of six in 1968 after an abusive early childhood.
But instead of finding refuge, she walked into a nightmare of more abuse.
On her first night there, she was slapped after waking up screaming from a nightmare, then forced into a freezing cold shower for wetting the bed.
The abuse also included beatings, often inflicted by the nuns with their heavy crosses.
“I would say every child at some point would have been hit with a cross,” Theresa said.
There were also humiliations and children being force-fed inedible food, being told to eat their vomit and having their mouths rinsed out with soap.
And two years after she arrived, the priest began to prey on her when she had a job dusting pews in the church.
He would arrive early and ask her to sit on his lap, before going on to demand sex acts.
She described how the nun discovered the abuse, saying: “I thought ‘Praise the Lord … she’s going to be angry with him and protect me.’
“Her whole face became distorted. But she was angry with me.
“She called me a whore, she took my left arm and yanked me out of his lap and flung me across to the wall (and said) ... ‘Get the f*** out of here’.”
The second nun, after warning her not to tell, assured her she would be “lying to protect a man of God, so it’s OK to lie”.
Theresa, who later graduated from Glasgow University, excelled in her studies, achieving five A grade Highers despite the horrors around her.
But she said she would have to do her revision in the toilets after bedtime and would be called names by the nuns when she did well.
Twice she approached police officers visiting Smyllum to tell them: “The nuns are hurting me” but was “marched back in” and beaten by a nun.
Theresa also recalled an occasion when, aged 13, she ran from a nun who squeezed her breasts and “was always trying to touch me”.
She said she tried to tell different priests about the sex abuse during confession – and was told: “Pray for them.”
She told the inquiry – looking into historical abuse of children in residential care – her injuries include a facial scar and broken tooth from being “slammed into a wall”.
She also had broken fingers and a broken tail bone from having a seat pulled out from underneath her.
“I have, unfortunately, physical scars, not just emotional ones,” she added.
Asked what lessons should be learned, she said: “I think it’s important the Catholic Church figures out who the bad nuns and priests are and has them removed. The child should always be believed.”
Colin MacAuley QC, counsel to the inquiry, put it to her that a particular nun has been spoken to by the inquiry and does not accept the allegations.
She replied: “All I can say is I have no reason to lie, but she maybe has a lot to lose.”
The inquiry, chaired by Lady Smith, continues.