FORMER NUN DRAGGED CHILD ALONG CORRIDOR AND LOCKED ANOTHER IN A CUPBOARD
Update 15/01/2026: Carol Buirds, 75, was found guilty of causing children unnecessary suffering and injury when she worked at homes run by the Catholic order the Sisters of Nazareth between 1972 and 1981.Buirds, who was known as Sister Carmel Rose, rubbed urine-soaked bedding on the foreheads of children and assaulted others with implements including a belt, a stick, a wooden ruler and a slipper.
She was found guilty of a total of 13 charges of abuse, but was cleared of five others - four of which were not proven.
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All the offences were committed at Nazareth House in Lasswade, Midlothian, Nazareth House in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire and an unknown address in Dunbar, East Lothian between 1972 and 1981.
Buirds was found guilty of 13 allegations including striking, punching and kicking children, forcing soap and food into their mouths, locking one victim inside an unlit cellar without any food or water.
The former nun, known as Sister Carmel Rose at the time, repeatedly forced one child to eat soap and laughed when the child was trying to vomit and repeatedly forced the child into cold baths.
She also rubbed urine soaked bedding on the head of two children and humiliated another by making the child wrap urine soaked sheets around herself and walk in front of other children.
Buirds, of Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, was found guilty of assaulting children with belts, sticks, rulers, and slippers between September 1975 and May 1981.
She was cleared of five additional charges.
The jury returned four not proven verdicts and one of not guilty.
She was one of the three women convicted after standing trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court and was granted bail with sentencing deferred.
