A Vale woman who claims she suffered sickening abuse at the hands of nuns who were trusted to care for her leading a campaign fighting for justice and compensation for abuse victims.

Helen Holland, 56, has made allegations that she endured ‘years of sadistic abuse’ at a care home run by the Sisters of Nazareth.

Ms Holland, of Alexandria, is the chairwoman of organisation Incas – In Care Abuse Survivors – and is now fighting to get compensation for hundreds of people who also claim they were abused while in the care of the state.

She said more than a decade of campaigning has eventually led to the Scottish Government agreeing to hold an inquiry into allegations of historical abuse of children in care across Scotland – due to start in October – but as the process could take years she wants interim compensation payments for victims.

Ms Holland told the Reporter: “Unfortunately the inquiry has come too late for some of those who have died in the process without receiving any justice whatsoever and I feel upset for them.

“There are many survivors who are dying and who don’t keep in good health and for their sake I would rather see Scotland do as some other countries have done and provide interim compensation.

“At least that way if people, God forbid, die during the process at least that person has received some acknowledgement for the suffering endured.” Survivors of child abuse in Ireland were paid €10,000, and similar payouts have taken place in Dumfries and Galloway.

Ms Holland said: “I think that’s right where children are concerned. To have to fight for justice is just disgusting.” The former business manager accuses the nuns of physically, sexually and emotionally abusing her while she was in care at Nazareth House care home in Kilmarnock, after her mother died.

She was in the home from aged four, in 1965, until she left at 16, and claims she spent eight of those years ‘under the sadistic care of a individual’, who encouraged a ring of people to abuse her.

She said: “The sexual abuse started when I was eight and continued until I was 11 or 11 and a half. Because I’d been abused more or less daily or every other day it became normal and as children you don’t understand what’s going on anyway.

“It just became another form of punishment, because that’s what they used as an excuse, it was because you were talking too much or something else they didn’t like.” She did not speak about it until she was an adult and heard of other survivors telling their stories to the press. She went to the police around 2000 she was initially told they would not pursue it but when she took her case to her Dumbarton MSP Jackie Baillie an investigation was carried out.

However, she was later told that no action would be taken against her abuser as she was too old and infirm – an allegation Ms Holland does not believe.

Ms Holland believes the authorities are now taking historical sexual abuse more seriously in the wake of the Jimmy Saville scandal, but in her case the change has come too late.

She said: “It’s been a long time coming and it should never have taken that length of time, when we are talking about the abuse of children. The main person who abused me was alive when I reported it. She’s dead now. She lived for seven years after I reported it.

“All I wanted was the person to know that they hadn’t had control of me indefinitely and I had the courage to speak up. I wanted to be able to face her and ask why she had allowed the abuse to happen. I wasn’t even allowed that. That hurts because I spent my whole life in terror of that person. Just to be able to stand in front of her and look her in the eye and show I wasn’t afraid of her would have meant so much.” She added: “Money isn’t the answer but the way the justice system works it’s the only way we have of the abuse being acknowledged. It’s almost like that’s the justice system’s way of not only acknowledging what happened but trying to put in place some sort of reparation. To me the most important thing about it would be an acknowledgement and belief that what happened to you did happen and that means more than any amount of money.

“If I could stand up in court and they offered me £1 million or my childhood back, I would opt for my childhood – under different circumstances.” She said it was important that a strong message was sent to abusers that no matter how long it had taken they would be found out and would not just be let off, in order to let children in care now and in the future know they would be protected.

A spokesman for the Sisters of Nazareth said they were not aware of any allegations relating to Sister Kevin. He claimed the Sisters of Nazareth had always tried to provide a ‘compassionate and supportive’ home for the children they were looking after.