The Convent: THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER: A shocking true story of surviving the care home from hell

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The years passed and Marie met the man of her life the one that would even "go after her all the way to Africa". He's actually taking them to a convent where her hair is bluntly chopped off, her clothes are taken away from her and her name is changed. The victim was updated and supported throughout the investigation and we would like to take this opportunity to reassure anyone who wants to report an allegation of any form of abuse.

EXCLUSIVEKate is reunited with her three children for the first time in two weeks after leaving hospital. Babygirl' is the new type of man that everyone loves - from Barry Keoghan to Jacob Elordi (although nobody can quite agree what it means! Now Marie has written a book, The Convent, with the help of journalists Ann and Joe Cusack, although it is so painfully evocative of the pain of her childhood years and the poverty her family had to endure, she struggles to read it. Marie, six, and her seven-year-old brother, Fred, were placed in Greenfield House when their parents, who had eight other children, were unable to look after them due to crippling poverty and her mum's undiagnosed but severe mental illness.How terrible when they find out they are being discarded and sent to a convent, at the mercy of the nuns who are supposed to be taking care of them, but they do anything but. I adored my children… I wanted to make sure they felt loved and safe; something I had never had as a child,’ Marie says. I believe that Marie also wants to help others in similar sitations to prevent other children from getting as hurt as she was.

As the eldest of six children, Marie Hargreaves would watch her mother and father struggle to make ends meet. Marie is emotionally damaged by the experience of being given up to the orphanage, the terrible abuse there, and never having been reclaimed. One day, Marie caught a glimpse of Freddie in another room with the boys – he dashed over and gave her a little kiss on the nose. She hasn't been able to find Sister O'Brien's grave to lay those flowers but Marie says she has forgiven her alleged tormentor.

The nun uses much older girls to mete out shocking physical, mental and sexual abuse to this small child. oh my goodness, I can't imagine the heart ache and torment that little girl went through, her whole life was a battle to survive,but survive she did. When she finally told the full extent of her story she learned others had made allegations against Sister O'Brien, and that she would have been charged if she hadn't died.