Nuns guilty of campaign of abuse against children at care homes

Two former nuns have been found guilty of carrying out historic campaigns of abuse against vulnerable children at care homes in Scotland.

Carol Buirds and Eileen McElhinney were found to have caused several children in their care unnecessary suffering and injury at two homes run by the Catholic order the Sisters of Nazareth.

Retired children’s home employee Dorothy Kane, 68, was also convicted of two charges of using cruel and unnatural treatment towards children.

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

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The three women have been standing trial over the past five weeks at Edinburgh Sheriff Court and were found guilty of a series of charges by a jury on Friday, November 28.

Buirds was found guilty of 13 allegations including striking, punching and kicking children, forcing soap and food into their mouths and locking one victim inside an unlit cellar without any food or water.

The former nun rubbed urine-soaked bedding on the head of two children and humiliated another by making the child wrap urine-soaked sheets around herself and walk in front of other children.

The 75-year-old, who was known as Sister Carmel Rose at the time, repeatedly forced one child to eat soap and laughed when the child was trying to vomit and repeatedly forced the child into cold baths.

Buirds, of Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, was also found to have assaulted children in her care with an array of implements including a belt, a stick, a wooden ruler and a slipper.

She committed all the offences between September 1975 and May 1981 and was cleared of a further five charges where the jury returned four not proven verdicts and one of not guilty.

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 November 1972 and January 1975.

The 78-year-old, of Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, punched one child to the body and assaulted a second victim by uttering threats of violence and repeatedly striking his bottom with a hairbrush.

McElhinney, known as Sister Mary Eileen, forced children to stand in cold showers and one incident saw the former nun attack a boy by pushing him to the ground before kicking and jumping on his body.

The victim, now in his 60s, told the jury McElhinney had assaulted him as a child while he was a resident at Nazareth House in Lasswade.

The man said he remembered the nun as “Sister Irene” but admitted he could be wrong due to the passage of time and her name may have been Sister Eileen.

He said: “I was on my own and Sister Irene (sic) came in [to the dormitory] and she hit me and I fell to the ground between two bunk beds.

“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.

Dorothy Kane, who was employed as a support worker at Nazareth House in Lasswade, was found to have cruelly and unnaturally treated children in her care between March 1980 and August 1981.

68-year-old Kane 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 and was cleared of two further charges.

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