SCOTLAND
The Times
Mike Wade
June 14 2017
The Times
The head of a Catholic order that ran an orphanage notorious for its cruelty has claimed that allegations of child abuse there are shrouded in “mystery”.
Sister Ellen Flynn, the leader of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul in Britain, said that the order “can find no evidence” of physical abuse of the children who lived at Smyllum Park House, Lanark.
Sister Flynn told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that she accepted that accusations had been made, saying she was “appalled to think something had happened” and was “very sorry”. The elderly nuns who survived from the 1950s and 1960s were nervous about the inquiry, she added.
Sister Flynn was giving evidence during phase 1 of the inquiry in Edinburgh, a period of six weeks in which providers of childcare are offered an opportunity to lay out their understanding of the extent of historical abuse within their organisations. At a later date, conditions within individual institutions will be examined in detail and accusations of abuse laid bare.
Horrific tales of physical abuse at Smyllum were first published in the News of the World in 1998. There was public revulsion when it emerged that at least 100 children who died in the home were buried in unmarked graves near Lanark racecourse.
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