I watched as ‘frenzied nun kicked 6-year-old orphan boy to death’
Abuse ‘covered up’ by home
A NOTORIOUS orphanage ‘covered up’ the deaths of children in its care – including a boy savagely beaten by a nun, an inquiry heard yesterday.
One former resident of Smyllum Park said six-year-old Sammy Carr died days after a nun launched a frenzied attack on him, repeatedly kicking his head.
In posthumous evidence, another ex-resident of the Lanark home described how 13-year-old Francis McColl died after a member of staff hit him on the head with a golf club.
Deaths were ‘covered up’ at the institution, run by ‘psychopathic’ nuns who meted out physical and sexual abuse – and even used crucifixes as ‘weapons’.
It emerged in September that at least 400 children from Smyllum are thought to be buried in an unmarked grave at Lanark’s St Mary’s Cemetery.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) yesterday heard harrowing testimony from Smyllum survivors.
One witness, named only as David, told the hearing in Edinburgh – before Lady Smith – that a Catholic sister kicked Sammy on the body and head.
David entered the orphanage in 1959 when he was around two, along with three brothers and a sister. In tearful testimony he said beatings were routine and that on one occasion when he was around six, Sammy was beaten after playing with a match.
He said: ‘[The sister] grabbed him and started hitting him and punching him. He was on the floor and she was kicking him on his body and his head.
‘I said, “Please sister, please don’t hurt him”. She stopped when I lay on top of him.’
He said he next saw Sammy in the sick room and the inquiry heard the boy was in hospital for around ten days before he died.
David said he remembered walking past Sammy’s open coffin and assumed the little boy had been ‘joking’ and pretending to be dead – only realising later that he had been present at Sammy’s funeral.
The nun behind the beating later took David to Sammy’s grave.
He told the inquiry he was filled with ‘rage’ for the rest of his life over his treatment at Smyllum.
This included being sexually abused by a nun – as she told him he was ‘going to Hell’.
He also said children who wet the bed had to stand with the damp sheets around their necks.
David said Smyllum had been filled with the screams of children, and he has recurring nightmares about his time there. But despite his ordeal he later went to college, telling the inquiry: ‘I do not want my life to be worth nothing.’
David was later abused at a home called St Vincent’s, Newcastle, run by the same order. He said a ‘psychopathic’ nun held a bread knife to his throat – and he ‘thought I was going to die’.
Smyllum was run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul from 1860 until 1981, looking after around 4,400 children since 1930. A campaigner who fought for the SCAI was a resident and gave evidence before his death in April. Frank Docherty, who was 74, was a founder of the charity In Care Abuse Survivors (Incas).
In 1954, aged nine, he and his siblings were sent to the home, where he said he suffered abuse, including beatings. His posthumous testimony, read to the inquiry yesterday, claimed Francis died after being hit with a golf club by a ‘psychotic’ staff member – not a nun – who cannot be named for legal reasons.
It has been reported previously that Francis passed away at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary in August in 1961 after battling a ‘left extra pleural haemorrhage’. He was 13. Mr Docherty said there were no records of his burial. He reported it to police before his death but had heard nothing from them.
It is understood there are no live probes into the deaths of Sammy or Francis. Police Scotland said a probe had been carried out which found Sammy’s death had not involved trauma or criminality.
The Crown Office is reinvestigating historical child abuse cases. A spokesman said it had instructed Police Scotland to carry out investigations into allegations of abuse at care institutions, adding: ‘It would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.’
Mr Docherty said he and other Smyllum children were subjected to freezing cold baths and beaten with a hair brush. During ‘mass punishments’ twice a week, children were beaten with sticks by nuns who ‘controlled by fear’.
Regarding the staff member who stuck Francis, Mr Docherty said: ‘There were cover-ups for deaths he caused. Children were dying of brain haemorrhages.’
He also described how ‘I got the biggest doing of my life from a holy nun... I couldn’t believe it’.
Another former resident, named only as Fergie, went to Smyllum in 1959. She recounted sharing dirty bath water – and nuns using crucifixes as ‘weapons’, adding: ‘They would call you “devil’s spawn”.’
In June, Sister Ellen Flynn, leader of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul in Britain, was asked at the SCAI about alleged abuse at Smyllum. She said: ‘We accept accusations have been made and are appalled something like that may have been acceptable, and very sorry, but we cannot confirm there was abuse.’
In opening statements to the inquiry yesterday John Scott, QC, senior counsel for Incas, said: ‘The Smyllum way became shorthand for wicked abuse.’
‘Controlled by fear’