Abuse probe: Violence ‘was a feature of everyday life’ at orphanage

A FORMER resident of Catholic orphanages has compared his time at them to gritty drama Boys Town.

He said ‘violence was a daily occurrence’ and ‘there was definitely no love’.

The man, now in his late 50s, said that unlike the Oscar-winning 1938 film – in which Spencer Tracy plays a kindly priest running a home for delinquent boys – the two Catholic homes he stayed at were ‘scary’.

In a written statement using the pseudonym ‘Michael’, he told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that he was about four when he and his baby brother entered Nazareth House, in Cardonald, Glasgow. He was moved at the age of five to Smyllum Park in Lanark.

His statement, read out at the Edinburgh hearing yesterday, said: ‘Nazareth House and Smyllum were like the Spencer Tracy movie Boy’s Town but without the love.

‘It was definitely different from the film in that respect. There was definitely no love from anybody.

‘I was force-fed and violence was a daily occurrence. If you stepped out of line, you got a hiding.’

Records show that Michael, from Greenock, Renfrewshire, arrived at Nazareth House in November 1964.

He said he and his brother, who could not yet walk, were ‘thrown’ into cots and made to sleep in a room with between ‘20 and 30’ other children. He added: ‘It was scary. My brother and I were taken into a room and basically just thrown into a cot each. We were screaming.’

Michael also told the inquiry that nuns ‘don’t really like hitting you with their hands because it hurts them as well, so they pick up any implement they can find and hit you... that’s how the nuns ran all of the homes I was in’.

Michael also told the hearing that ‘if you wet the bed, you got a hiding the next morning and got put into a cold bath or shower’.

The inquiry also heard from an anonymous witness, ‘Anne’, whose written statement said she had been sexually assaulted by ‘a man in a playground’ at Cardonald.

The witness, from Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire, now in her early 60s, stayed at the home for three weeks in November 1965. She described being beaten and having to sleep in urine-soaked sheets.

A nun who had worked at Cardonald also gave evidence, in person.

Using the pseudonym Sister Elimear, she denied a claim that she had beaten a schoolgirl during a trip to Girvan, Ayrshire.

A witness had described Sister Elimear ‘grabbing the girl, battering into her’ and pulling her hair.

When asked if this had happened, the nun replied, ‘Never’.

She did admit she had been ‘too young’ for the job and while not violent, had been known to ‘fly off the handle’. Sister Elimear said no corporal punishment had been used during her time at two care homes in the late 1960s and early 70s.

The inquiry, in front of Lady Smith, continues.