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'Cruel Nuns Stole My Childhood'
At the age of two, Frances Reilly was abandoned by her mother and brought up in a convent where relentless mental and physical abuse drove her to the brink of despair. Now living in Essex, she's written a book about how her childhood innocence was destroyed. Steven Russell met her. These are her allegations and this is her story
"WE have a pagan in the convent!" screams Sister X - not her real name -
as she sweeps into the dormitory, waving a stick. "Where is she?" She
points at a small girl. "Reilly! You are a heathen, a child of the
Devil! Nobody is to come anywhere near you!" Frances Reilly's knees give
way and she begins to tremble from head to toe. She doesn't know what
"heathen" means and she doesn't know what she's done wrong, but she
knows what's coming. "Please, Sister . . ." she starts to say.
"Silence!" yells the nun, running towards her, face crimson with fury.
"The Devil's in you, Reilly! We'll beat him out of you now!"
She leaps at the child, bringing the stick down on her head and then
chasing her down a corridor, shouting "Demon child! Devil spawn!" Sister
X drives Frances into a room in the nuns' section of the convent, where
she begins to beat her even more viciously. Two other nuns arrive and
join in, raining blows. The girl lies hunched on the floor, while Sister
X slaps her across the face and the others hit her all over her body.
Soon, mercifully, Frances passes out.
She wakes up on the floor, alone, head throbbing with pain. She's
covered in red marks and every bone aches. Frances is locked in the room
for three days. At night she pulls two chairs together and sleeps
curled up across them, shivering without a blanket or cover. Nuns return
several times "to beat the Devil out" of her.
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'Cruel Nuns Stole My Childhood'