I was tied to a bar stool and raped by priest in care home, says victim

A YOUNG girl was tied to a bar stool and raped by a priest at a Scottish care home after being told she had the ‘devil inside her’, an inquiry heard.

Helen Holland, who claims she was ‘regularly’ sexually abused over a four-year period from the age of eight, said she was taken to the care home changing room where she had her hands bound and a wash bag placed over her head.

Now aged 59, the tearful witness told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry how a nun then held her down while the attack took place.

Mrs Holland said the rape was a form of punishment at Nazareth House in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, where she was a resident between the mid-1960s and 1970s.

After the assault, she was called a ‘brazen hussy’ and warned to ‘keep her mouth shut’.

Giving evidence at the hearing in Edinburgh yesterday, the mother of one said: ‘I was in bed, the nun woke me up and took me downstairs to the changing room and there was like a high stool with four legs.

‘She pushed me over it on to my tummy and tied my hands.

‘She took a wash bag like you’d put your toothbrush in and put that over my head. I could hear voices, but I couldn’t really see anything, the nun was standing over my head lifting it up because I was thrashing about and then I was raped.’ When asked by inquiry counsel Colin MacAulay, QC, if the attack had involved more than one man Mrs Holland replied: ‘Yes, more than one’.

She added: ‘I know there was a priest involved at some point because when it eventually stopped I could hear the sister with the keys saying “goodnight father”.’

Mr MacAulay then asked if the witness had been raped with a bag over her head ‘regularly’, to which she replied: ‘Yes’.

Mrs Holland also told of an earlier incident when she was eight, in which she was held down by the same nun while being raped over a boardroom-style table by a priest in the parlour of the care home.

the witness said she told a priest from nearby St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church a short time later during confession. Fighting back tears, she continued: ‘I didn’t want the devil inside me so I told the priest what happened. He opened the confessional box, told me I was the most wicked child he had ever known and marched me back to Nazareth House. He told the sister what I had said, which was supposed to be sacred, and we all went into the parlour.

‘they looked at each other, the way people do when they have an understanding, and talked about punishment. I ended up over what looked like a boardroom table and [the priest] raped me.’

Mrs Holland, who waived her right to anonymity, also said children were beaten and had dirty underwear rubbed in their faces.

the inquiry, which is currently looking at children’s homes run by the Sisters of Nazareth, heard that Mrs Holland had later complained to police about her treatment, but the investigation by the procurator fiscal was dropped.

Last year the inquiry heard that the order is facing more than 400 allegations of abuse. In June, the order said it was ‘very sorry’ for any child who suffered abuse.

the inquiry, before Lady Smith, continues.