Denying abuse should be a crime, special hearing is told

Denying the “orchestrated” abuse which took place in child care homes across Scotland should be a crime, an inquiry has heard.

A former resident of Smyllum Park in Lanark made the claim before the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh.

He described his time at the orphanage as a “holocaust of developmental trauma”.

The witness, who lived in the Catholic-run home between 1961 and 1965, said his head had been left “spinning” after reading an article suggesting abuse claims about such places were exaggerated.

He added: “What was happening there was a crime against humanity.

“In Germany it’s a crime to deny the Holocaust and I would like it to be a crime for academics to deny these years and years of abuse.”

Now in his sixties, he said he still has a recurring nightmare about his time there and wakes up screaming.

According to him, the nuns were “quick to aggression” and “quick to anger”, describing constant physical and mental abuse.

The witness added: “Being in a place like that was about survival, if you came out there alive you were lucky – many didn’t.”

Colin MacAulay QC, counsel to the inquiry, put it to him that nuns described the home as a “happy place”, but this was rejected.

The inquiry before Lady Smith continues.