A FORMER monk who lived at Rogate Road, Hill Brow in Liss, has this week been jailed for two years after being convicted of physically abusing boys at a residential school for troubled youngsters in the l960s.
Michael Murphy, aged 69, and formerly known as Brother Benedict, was convicted last month of 10 charges of physical abuse at St NinianÕs List D school, Stirlingshire.
At the High Court in Edinburgh this week, he
was jailed along with co-accused James McKinstrey, 70, who was found guilty of
four sex abuse charges.
McKinstrey, the schoolÕs
former nightwatchman, also received a two-year sentence and has been added to the Sex OffendersÕ Register for 10 years.
Murphy carried out what the prosecution in the original trail called a Òcatalogue of assaultsÓ while he was a teacher at the school in the l960s.
The monk, whose duties included supervising boys in the dining hall, broke the arm of one boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, after spinning him round Òlike a rag dollÓ at dinner time.
The attack took place after the boy, who was aged 10 or 11 at the time, said that Brother Benedict had one boot bigger than the other.
Murphy forced another pupil to eat his own vomit after he was sick eating tapioca and punched the boyÕs brother around the head when he refused to eat butter beans for lunch.
He also kept a set of knotted leather shoelaces, described by one witness as being like a cat- oÕ-nine-tails.