Two nuns and a care worker who abused vulnerable youngsters at a notorious Scottish orphanage have been jailed for three years each.
Sister Sarah McDermott, 79, Sister Eileen Igoe, 79, and carer Margaret Hughes, 76, subjected children to terrifying ordeals at Smyllum Park in Lanark.
The three women denied any wrongdoing between 1969 and 1981 and went on trial at Airdrie Sheriff Court.
A jury took three days to find them guilty of a number of ‘cruel and unnatural’ incidents while children were in the care of the Order of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.
Sheriff Scott Pattison said there was no alternative to prison for the three women as he jailed them for a total of nine years.
Sister Sarah McDermott, 79, is helped into Airdrie Sheriff Court, Scotland, where she was jailed for 3 years for abusing children at the notorious Smyllum Park Orphanage in Lanark
![Sister Eileen 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](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/18/14/80179731-12978667-image-a-5_1705588988716.jpg)
Sister Eileen 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
A number of former residents told the trial they had been mistreated at Smyllum during the six-week trial.
One woman said she was beaten by McDermott, of London, 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.
But rather than investigate the abuse, McDermott slapped the girl and told her she was bringing her ‘filthy home habits into a good Catholic place’.
McDermott also struck another girl with rosary beads and repeatedly struck her on the head and body.
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.
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 water.
Lawyers for all three women said they still maintained their innocence.
Richard Souter, defending McDermott, said: ‘Clearly these offences took place at a time where the treatment of children was very different from what it is now.
‘Further there was little understanding of the type of impact offending like this would have.’
![Eileen Igoe (left) and Sarah McDermott (right) maintain their innocence despite their guilty verdicts](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/18/14/78927313-12978667-Eileen_Igoe_and_Sarah_McDermott-a-18_1705589205116.jpg)
Eileen Igoe (left) and Sarah McDermott (right) maintain their innocence despite their guilty verdicts
![The two nuns and carer Margaret Hughes, 76, carried out the abuse at Smyllum Park in Lanark, where the Order of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul was based](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/01/18/14/80179775-12978667-image-a-7_1705589022854.jpg)
The two nuns and carer Margaret Hughes, 76, carried out the abuse at Smyllum Park in Lanark, where the Order of the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul was based
David Nicolson, defending Igoe, said: ‘Eileen Igoe has spent much of her life in the unpaid service of others.
‘There has been significant stress, anxiety and shame suffered by her throughout the trial process.’
George Gebbie, defending Hughes, said: ‘She has led, according to the social worker, a pro-social life which I take to mean she has led an exemplary life.
‘A number of witnesses came to court on her behalf to say she was the only mother they ever had when they were living at Smyllum and even after they left.’
Sheriff Pattison said: ‘Each of you, in what you did and said, contributed to a culture in which children were demeaned and subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
‘While you were all younger at the time, you were all adults either in your 20s or 30s when you did these things.
‘While there was some discussion at trial about the existence of corporal punishment and reasonable chastisement, it is clear that the jury rejected that and in any event, what was described by those who gave evidence went way beyond what could ever be described as reasonable chastisement in any generation.
‘It would have been obvious to you all and anyone at the time that what you were doing was abusive and that it was criminal and you must have known what you were doing was wrong.
‘What should have been a home and a safe place, a safe haven even, for these children was a place of anxiety and fear.’
Smyllum closed in 1981 and has been at the centre of allegations of abuse.
The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry said in 2018 youngsters had been sexually abused and beaten with leather straps, hairbrushes and crucifixes.
A report by Lady Smith, chair 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.
The Daughters of Charity were approached for comment.