Nuns Beat Children for Slow Learning, High Court Told

News Letter
September 14, 2015

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/northern-ireland-news/nuns-beat-children-for-slow-learning-high-court-told-1-6957126

Nuns at a Belfast care home allegedly beat children for slow learning in the classroom, the High Court heard on Monday.

One former resident at Nazareth Lodge is also entitled to damages for punishments meted out after boys wet their beds, it was claimed.

Counsel for Michael McKee argued: “He was a happy boy when he went in and wasn’t a happy boy when he came out.”

Mr McKee, 65, is suing The Sisters of Nazareth over the physical abuse he was allegedly subjected to during his stay as an eight-year-old boy back in 1958.

Lawyers for the congregation are defending the case by challenging the reliability of his account and questioning why he waited half a century to take legal action.

According to available records Mr McKee spent 73 days at the home after being admitted with his older brother due to their parents’ ill-health.

In evidence he claimed he was attacked on a daily basis after arriving at the home in the back of a van in the middle of the night.

Although he couldn’t remember their names, he said two of the nuns were responsible for violence in the dormitory and classroom.

One of the alleged perpetrators carried a 12 inch leather strap used to punish anyone who wet their bed or didn’t make it to the required standard, the court heard.

He claimed he was beaten about the head, grabbed by the hair, pulled to the ground and hit round the legs.

Boys were locked in their bedroom at night to await the next day’s violence, when “all hell would break loose”, it was alleged.

Mr McKee told how he came from a mixed marriage, but was baptised as a Catholic after going into the home.

He said he was fast-tracked for Holy communion, only to allegedly suffer further ill-treatment at the hands of another nun in charge of his education.

She would allegedly smack his head off the classroom board, and used a ruler to inflict some of the blows, as he learned catechisms and prayers.

In closing submissions on Monday, Ashley Underwood QC, for Mr McKee, confirmed the main grounds being claimed.

“The core complaints here are the hitting while in the classroom as a punishment for slow learning, and the collective punishment for bed wetting,” he said.

The court was told Mr McKee only wet the bed once, but was marched around in the middle of the night with everyone else any time it happened to another boy.

Mr Underwood contended that this “collective punishment” left him in fear of future violence.

All that his client experienced in the home contributed to his future difficulties in holding down jobs, forming friendships and anger towards others, he argued.

Turlough Montague QC, for the defendants, told Mr Justice Horner that the Sisters of Nazareth has accepted at the ongoing historical institutional abuse inquiry that some children were mistreated by some nuns.

But responding to Mr McKee’s claim, he contended: “The plaintiff’s evidence was riddled with material inconsistencies, not just in respect of sibling separation, but in respect of the absence of play areas, about the harshness of the regime and about the circumstances in which he alleged he was beaten for bed wetting.”

The barrister argued that an adverse inference should be drawn from Mr McKee’s brother failing to testify and corroborate his account.

He added: “The plaintiff depicted a very bleak, harsh environment where children were not allowed to speak in the dormitories and not allowed to play outside, with no areas for football.

“That is directly rebutted by the contemporaneous inspections, records that were referred to in the course of evidence and Nazareth Lodge diaries about activities children engaged in.

“That’s a stark example of the unreliability, we say, of the plaintiff.”

Reserving judgment in the action, Mr Justice Horner pledged to give his verdict as soon as possible.

In a general comment, he said: “It’s an eye-opening experience on how children were treated many years ago, and it’s certainly not an attractive one.

“One cannot have but the greatest sympathy for someone like Mr McKee, taken from his parents and catapulted into such circumstances.”