Former nuns guilty of abuse at Nazareth House children's home

Former nuns Eileen McElhinney and Carol Buirds were found guilty of abuse at children's homes

Two former nuns have been found guilty of physically abusing vulnerable youngsters at children's homes in Scotland more than 40 years ago.

Carol Buirds, 75, and Eileen McElhinney, 78, caused several children unnecessary suffering and injury at two homes run by the Catholic order the Sisters of Nazareth.

Retired support worker Dorothy Kane was also convicted at Edinburgh Sheriff Court of two charges of using cruel and unnatural treatment towards children.

The offences were committed at Nazareth House homes in Lasswade, Midlothian and Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, and at an unknown address in Dunbar, East Lothian between 1972 and 1981.

During a five-week trial, jurors heard how Buirds had struck, punched and kicked children in her care, forced soap and food into their mouths and locked one victim inside an unlit cellar without any food or water.

The former nun, who was known as Sister Carmel Rose, also rubbed urine-soaked bedding on the head of two children.

Buirds humiliated one girl by making her wrap wet sheets around herself and walk in front of other children.

One child was repeatedly forced to eat soap and Buirds laughed when they tried to vomit. She also forced the child into cold baths.

Buirds, of Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, assaulted children with an array of implements including a belt, a stick, a wooden ruler and a slipper.

She was found guilty for 13 charges of abuse dating between 1975 and 1981, and cleared of five other charges, four of them found not proven, when the jury delivered its verdicts on Friday.

Kicked and jumped on a child

The second former nun, McElhinney, was found guilty of five charges - of assault and using cruel and unnatural treatment - towards children during her time at Nazareth House in Lasswade between 1972 and 1975.

McElhinney, of Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, punched one child to the body and assaulted a second victim by uttering threats of violence to him and repeatedly struck his buttocks with a hairbrush.

Known as Sister Mary Eileen, she forced children to stand in cold showers and one incident saw her attack a child by pushing him to the ground before kicking and jumping on his body.

The victim, now in his 60s, told the jury he remembered the nun hitting him before he fell to the ground between two bunk beds.

He said: "She followed that up with kicks and then put her hands on the bunk beds and jumped on me several times."

The man said the assault left him "crying" and "trying to protect myself" while on the ground.

Former support worker Dorothy Kane was found guilty of locking a child in a cupboard

Meanwhile, Dorothy Kane, who was employed as a support worker, was found to have cruelly and unnaturally treated children in her care at Lasswade between1980 and 1981.

Kane, 68, dragged one child along a corridor and restrained him by placing her knees on his chest and failed to step in when she witnessed a member of staff assaulting the boy.

Kane, of Lasswade, Midlothian, was also found guilty of forcing one child into a cupboard and locking him in there for a period of time. She was cleared of two further charges.

Sheriff Iain Nicol granted all three women bail and deferred sentence on them to next month for the preparation of social work reports.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which is still ongoing, has previously heard evidence of widespread abuse at orphanages run by the Sisters of Nazareth.

More than 300 people have made complaints to police, and the inquiry chairperson Lady Smith has described four Nazareth House homes in Scotland as "places of fear, hostility and confusion".