NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
By Alan Erwin
PUBLISHED
15/09/2015
Nuns at a Belfast care home beat children for slow learning in the classroom, the High Court has heard.
Michael McKee (65) is suing The Sisters of Nazareth over the physical abuse he allegedly suffered during his stay as an eight-year-old boy in 1958.
Lawyers for the congregation are defending the case by challenging the reliability of his account and questioning why he waited 50 years to take action.
According to records Mr McKee spent 73 days at the home after being admitted with his older brother. In evidence he claimed he was attacked on a daily basis. Although he couldn’t remember their names, he said two of the nuns were responsible for violence. He claimed he was beaten about the head, grabbed by the hair, pulled to the ground and hit round the legs.
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 suffer further ill-treatment at the hands of another nun.
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