Victims welcome jail term for monk abuser

VICTIMS of a Catholic monk who abused them as young boys when in his care have welcomed a second prison term.

However, some victims of Michael Murphy, 82, said the charges he has been convicted of “don’t even scratch the surface” of the catalogue of abuse and brutality he subjected children to at a residential school.

Murphy, known as Brother Benedict or Brother Ben to children in his care at St Joseph’s List D School in Tranent, East Lothian, was convicted of 15 charges of assault and indecent assault involving eight boys spanning the decade up to 1981.

Irish-born Murphy was jailed for seven years at the High Court in Edinburgh last week.

Victims told the trial he had laughed when administering electric shocks to boys using a hand-wound generator dubbed “The Tickler”, with one boy having his hand burned and another lapsed into unconsciousness.

One pupil was locked in an unlit cupboard overnight and another was urinated on by the De La Salle brother.

It also emerged that in 2003 he had been previously convicted at the High Court in Edinburgh for 10 assaults on nine boys dating from the 1960s.

He was jailed for two years for the crimes but the Court of Criminal Appeal reduced the jail term to 12 months.

Arthur McEwan, one of Murphy’s victims, said: “The abuse he carried out was disgusting. He was convicted of beating me, kicking and punching me, dragging me along a corridor and force feeding me my own vomit.”

Arthur’s brother, Robert, who was also subject to abuse from the De La Salle brother, said: “He is a vicious brute.”