I forgive you
Despite horror abuse, former altar boy tells probe he does not want revenge on nuns who ran orphanage
A FORMER altar boy at a notorious orphanage yesterday said he forgave the nuns who abused him and did not want ‘revenge’.
William Connelly found out for the first time that the nun he accuses of the worst abuse he suffered at Smyllum Park is still alive – and denies the allegations against her.
Colin MacAuley, QC, counsel to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI), said the sister, described by Mr Connelly as a ‘bad woman’, denied any knowledge of corporal punishment.
Mr Connelly, 69, said: ‘She’s a liar. One of the reasons I made the decision to do this was because I wanted them to know it’s me and not some anonymous guy.’
He then broke down in tears, adding: ‘I was hoping she was dead, you’ve just told me she’s still alive – she’s a liar.’
A statement was then read out on his behalf which said he forgave the nuns. But he decided to give evidence at the hearing in Edinburgh after seeing a picture in a newspaper of happy children playing with toys on the lawn at Smyllum in Lanark.
He had no recollection of toys and believed the image was ‘staged’.
Mr Connelly, who waived his right to anonymity, said he ‘began feeling sorry for the nuns and staff and forgave them for their abuse’. He added: ‘They were not happy in my opinion; some of them were quite young. As I got older, I tried to understand what their problem was.
‘I never once saw them having a conversation with me, or anyone else, I never saw them jovial, I never saw them happy.’
Mr Connelly went on: ‘I do not want revenge… [but] I would like someone to apologise to me.’
When none of the lawyers at the inquiry said they had questions after his evidence, he said he was disappointed, as he had been looking forward to the ‘challenge’.
Earlier this year, the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, which ran Smyllum, admitted that it was a ‘possibility’ that children were abused by nuns at the home, and it was ‘very sorry’. But Mr Connelly said he would have liked a lawyer for the Catholic religious order to approach him at the inquiry and apologise for the abuse he experienced.
Mr Connelly, who entered the home in 1958, spoke of almost daily beatings. He said one of the nuns seemed to get enjoyment from regularly striking out with a hairbrush and kicking him with ‘pantomime’ boots.
On one occasion, he said he was attacked with scissors and left with cuts to his scalp and hands.
Another witness, John, who was born in 1948, went to Smyllum in 1958 and described the home as a ‘concentration camp’ where nuns concealed hairbrushes, which were used to beat children, in their tunics.
He said: ‘I saw boys crippled because the sister had kicked them in the shin and it was sore for them to walk.’
The inquiry also heard from a witness, Paul, who was taken into care as a baby. He does not know his date of birth but believes he was born around 1959.
He told how he was raped by a priest at Smyllum after confessing to being sexually assaulted by another clergyman.
Paul said he was pinned down and beaten with a cricket bat by nuns, and trapped in a wicker laundry basket for four days.
On one occasion he was beaten by a nun with a length of hosepipe – and told he ‘should be grateful’.
Describing the nuns as ‘animals’, he said children were ‘brainwashed’, force-fed and had to wear soiled sheets draped around their shoulders all day, and sleep in them again until wash day, if they wet their beds.
The inquiry heard that the witness has been to jail several times, suffered heroin addiction and post-traumatic stress and has ‘suicidal tendencies’.
He said: ‘These people have destroyed me.’
In opening statements to the inquiry on Tuesday, solicitor Gregor Rolfe, counsel for the Daughters of Charity, reiterated the apology made by the order at the conclusion of the first phase of the inquiry.
Their statement said: ‘As Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, our values are totally against any form of abuse, and thus we offer our most sincere and heartfelt apologies to anyone who suffered any form of abuse in our care.’
The inquiry, before Lady Smith, continues.