Horrors committed by nuns at orphanage '˜absolute rubbish'

Allegations of historic child abuse at a notorious Lanarkshire orphanage have been described as 'absolute rubbish' by two former residents.

Smyllum Park.

One witness to the Scottish Child Abuse inquiry yesterday said he had been “extremely well treated” at Smyllum Park in Lanark.

The man, now in his late 60s, said the nuns who ran the home were being unfairly portrayed as “monsters and out-and-out child beaters”.

A second witness, also in his 60s, said previous evidence given to the inquiry was a “gross distortion of the truth”.

Other witnesses have recounted a catalogue of abuse at Smyllum Park, which was run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul and closed in the 1980s.

The cases included beatings, humiliations, cold showers and children being force fed inedible food. Among the allegations was a claim that a nun grabbed a child by the hair and repeatedly slammed his head on to a piano.

Yesterday’s first witness, who cannot be named, arrived at Smyllum in 1957 aged about seven.

He described his time there as “positive” and dismissed accounts of physical abuse as “absolute rubbish”. While corporal punishment was used, he said this amounted to a “tug of the ear” or the use of the belt.

“If it came to someone really misbehaving, and I mean really misbehaving, bad language or fighting, then she [one of the nuns] would have had to deal out one or two of the strap,” he said. Asked about violence inflicted by the nuns, the witness added: “I didn’t see anything like that. There are lots of lies being told.

“During my time, my window in Smyllum, I never saw any of what is being said about the nuns. The kicking and the slapping never happened.”

The witness described how he had been “shocked and horrified” to read statements from others who were children in the home.

“A lot of people I would say jumped on a bandwagon,” he said. “I think it is compensation. I really do think that is what it is about.

“There might be one or two real stories in it, but the majority in my view are untrue – out-and-out lies.”

The second witness, who also arrived at Smyllum in 1957, said corporal punishment was “used only sparingly and when children misbehaved”.

He added the nuns “dedicated themselves to the wellbeing of all the children in their care and chastised them fairly”.

“Truth has been crucified along with the Daughters of Charity and staff who worked at Smyllum Park,” the witness said.

He added: “Most of what has been said is not true.”