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Decision bars abuse claims against nuns from being heard

Harrowing details of the widespread and systematic abuse of children in care homes run by nuns in Scotland will not be heard after judges rejected three test cases yesterday.

If the case by three former residents against "Sister Bernard Murray and Others" of the Nazareth House in Cardonald, Glasgow, had been successful, it would have allowed hundreds of people to detail the abuses they say they suffered at the hands of carers in the homes, run by the Catholic Church.

Appeal court judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that the three former residents were too late in bringing the case, which centres on claims of physical abuse and lack of care in the 1960s and 1970s.

Last night Chris Daly, 42, from Glasgow, a former resident of a Nazareth Home in Aberdeen who was awaiting the test cases outcome for his own legal battle, said survivors were being denied the right to tell their story.

He said: "When I was ten years old the nuns punished me by making me stand in a tiny dark mortuary containing the coffins of elderly people who had died. We were made to stand out in the snow in our underwear for having a pillow fight. We were kicked and punched as a matter of course and the nuns hit us with anything which came to hand. This type of evidence needs to be heard. The judgment may halt things a bit but we are all determined to keep going."

Mr Daly, who is on disability benefit as a result of the psychological suffering he said he endured, added: "We have a very harsh interpretation of the time bar in Scotland, whereas in England the interpretation has been a lot more flexible."

The judgment has effectively ended the action of about 450 people who claimed they were physically and psychologically abused by nuns.

However, Cameron Fyfe, the solicitor acting on behalf of the former residents, said last night he was considering appealing to the House of Lords.

Full story at The Scotsman.