{"id":663572,"date":"2025-12-31T00:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/663572\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T00:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:30:11","slug":"five-nuns-accused-of-108-charges-of-historical-child-abuse-at-nazareth-house-in-aberdeen-and-bonnyrigg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/663572\/","title":{"rendered":"Five nuns accused of 108 charges of historical child abuse at Nazareth House in Aberdeen and Bonnyrigg"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five nuns have been accused of a string of historical abuse towards several children.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Marie Docherty, 84, Mary Broderick, 83, Margaret McLafferty, 67, Kathleen McLean, 76 and Mary Doyle, 80, appear on an indictment which contains 108 charges.<\/p>\n

The alleged crimes are stated to have taken place mainly at Nazareth House locations in Aberdeen and Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, between 1965 and 1982.<\/p>\n

Court papers state that the abuse included forcing a teenage girl to sit in a cold bath and pressing a hot iron onto her hand.<\/p>\n

Another charge says a ten-year-old girl had soap forced into her mouth which caused her to vomit.<\/p>\n

The same girl was allegedly forced to drink salt which caused her to vomit.<\/p>\n

A boy was said to have been sent to a male staff member to be punished and as a result was physically and sexually abused.<\/p>\n

Another boy is stated to have had headlice lotion rubbed into his eyes and struck with a belt.<\/p>\n

Other charges say that some of the children were forced to kiss a corpse.<\/p>\n

A girl is alleged to have had wooden rulers attached to her arms and feet to prevent her biting her nails to her injury and permanent disfigurement.<\/p>\n

The same girl is further claimed to have been forced to stand over night and stopped from using the toilet.<\/p>\n

A boy is alleged to have been pushed and kicked down a flight of stairs when he was aged between three and seven years old.<\/p>\n

Another boy is stated to have been forced to stand in snow and been refused to come inside.<\/p>\n

The same boy is further claimed to have been pushed off a cliff into water.<\/p>\n

One of the nuns, Broderick, is said to have wore boxing gloves and struck the boy to his head.<\/p>\n

She is further claimed to have struck him on the head and body with a cricket stump.<\/p>\n

The same nun is alleged to have sexually and indecently assaulted other boys.<\/p>\n

A hearing took place at the High Court in Glasgow on Tuesday, where none of the accused were present in the dock.<\/p>\n

Judge Lord Colbeck\u00a0provisionally set aside eight weeks for trial in March 2027 in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

A further hearing has been fixed for March 2026.<\/p>\n

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\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five nuns have been accused of a string of historical abuse towards several children. Marie Docherty, 84, Mary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-663572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115811360732915824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}