Elderly nun denies series of abuse allegations
An elderly nun has told an inquiry she does not remember `anything about punishment' at a notorious care home as she denied a series of abuse allegations made against her.
The woman was presented with testimony from a former resident of Smyllum Park orphanage in Lanark, alleging she would hit children on the head with a coat hanger, use a steel lice comb on his head until it would bleed and that youngsters were given scalding hot baths.
The 85-year-old nun agreed with a suggestion that all the allegations against her were `pure invention' and insisted physical punishment did not really take place at the home.
Scotland's child abuse inquiry, sitting in Edinburgh, has been hearing evidence over several weeks about the institution, which shut its doors in 1981.
A number of former residents of the home have testified they received beatings and were mis-treated at the home, run by the nuns of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.
The inquiry heard that the nun, who cannot be identified, joined the religious order in 1960 and was connected to a unit at the institution.
Asked about discipline at the home, she told the hearing in a statement: `I don't remember anything about punishment, not even the word.'
If children misbehaved, they might be deprived of television or made to shine shoes but `there wasn't really physical punishment', she said.
She insisted she had never physically punished a child and had not seen anybody else do so.
Colin MacAulay QC, counsel to the inquiry, presented the witness with testimony from a man who described life when he was a boy at Smyllum as grim' and saidyou were just hoping you weren't going to get slapped or punched or beaten that day for any particular reason'.
The sister replied: `It's not true. It was a very happy place and it was always bright.'
The QC also sought her reaction to claims from the man that children would be made to lie in urine-soaked sheets if they wet the bed, in his case to the extent that his legs became chapped and red raw like a `leper'.
`It was never done like that,' she said.
The nun went on to reject allegations that she would put a lice comb through his head until it bled.
She also denied claims that she would hit children across the head and face with a coat hanger if they were found during checks to have soiled their underwear.
I've never heard such nonsense,' she said.There was no checking of underpants.'
The witness also said the children had their own baths, dismissing suggestions they were forced to queue to share the same scalding bath water.
On all the allegations, Mr MacAulay put it to her: `You would say that these are pure invention?'
`Yes,' replied the nun.
The inquiry, before Lady Smith, continues.