Smyllum Park: Nuns and carer guilty of abusing orphanage children

Eileen Igoe and Sarah McDermott were found guilty at Airdrie Sheriff Court

Two nuns and a care worker have been found guilty of abusing vulnerable youngsters at a Scottish orphanage.

Sister Sarah McDermott, 79, Sister Eileen Igoe, 79, and carer Margaret Hughes, 76, mistreated children at Smyllum Park in Lanark from 1969 until 1981 when it closed.

The orphanage has been at the centre of allegations of historical abuse.

The court heard children in their care were subjected to a number of "cruel and unnatural" incidents.

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One woman told the court she was beaten by McDermott after she reported witnessing her brother being sexually abused in a toilet in the orphanage.

She said volunteer worker Brian Dailey, who was later jailed for 15 years for abusing youngsters, molested the three-year-old in a cubicle.

Rather than investigate the abuse, McDermott slapped the girl and told her she was bringing her "filthy home habits into a good Catholic place".

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McDermott, of London, also struck another girl with rosary beads and repeatedly struck her on the head and body.

She also ordered a boy to carry soiled bed sheets while shouting derogatory comments towards him.

Igoe, of Edinburgh, was convicted of abuse which included force feeding children and making one eat their own vomit as well as striking one boy on the head and body.

She also hit one boy's head repeatedly on a door.

Hughes, of Lanark, seized one boy by the hair before striking him with her arm. She also forced a girl into a freezing bath and held her head under the water.

Smyllum Park Orphanage in Lanark after it closed in the 1980s

Sheriff Scott Pattison deferred sentence on the women until next month for reports and continued bail.

He added: "You have been convicted of very serious offences of the abuse of children in your care which shows you fell far short of the duty of care that you had to them when they were vulnerable when you worked at Smyllum.

"You also fell short of your moral commitment towards these children."

The three women had denied any wrongdoing.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry said in 2018 that children had been sexually abused and beaten with leather straps, hairbrushes and crucifixes while in the care of the Order of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul at the orphanage.

A report by Lady Smith, chairwoman of the inquiry, said it was a place of "fear, threat and excessive discipline" and that children found "no love, no compassion, no dignity and no comfort" in Smyllum.

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