Domestic abuse activist found guilty after 20 year campaign of sexual and physical abuse against children

Nicola Murray sexually assaulted two victims by forcing her tongue into their mouths and freely talked about her sex life to another child including describing the size of her lover’s penis.

Murray, 46, forced one child to view an explicit sexual image she had taken of a man she was dating and indecently assaulted another after stripping them naked.

Murray’s campaign of terror also included blaming one child they had caused her to suffer a miscarriage and restricting the breathing of another by smothering their face with a pillow. She also attacked the children by punching, kicking and slapping them to the head and body over several years while she also repeatedly pushed one youngster down a flight of stairs.

Nicola Murray was found guilty of multiple charges | Alexander Lawrie

Further disturbing incidents saw Murray drag a young child out of a top bunk bed onto the floor and branded another child “a tranny” after they had styled their hair to look like their favourite pop star Pink.

All the abuse took place at addresses in West Lothian and Perthshire over a 20 year period and Murray was arrested and charged after one victim bravely came forward to report her in 2022.

Murray is a prominent domestic abuse campaigner and set up the Brodie’s Trust support group that advocates for women who have lost babies through domestic violence or forced termination.

She set the group up after suffering a miscarriage and introduced a petition to create an offence that enables courts to hand down longer sentences for violent domestic abusers who cause their victims to lose their babies.

Conservative MSP Jackson Carlaw, convener of the Public Petitions Committee, chaired a full chamber debate on Murray’s petition at the Scottish Parliament in May last year. MSPs unanimously agreed to note the petition but said further consideration would be needed before any amendments to the law are made.

Murray, from Stanley, Perthshire, denied all the abuse allegations against her and has been standing trial on indictment at Edinburgh Sheriff Court since last Tuesday.

In her closing speech on Monday, prosecutor Cheryl Porter said Murray had “systematically physically, emotionally and sexually abused these children over 20 years”.

She said the victims had been “repeatedly struck, slapped and dragged” while one child gave evidence they had been “treated like a dog” by Murray. Ms Porter said Murray had “repeatedly engaged in sexual conversations” and one victim had been left “naked, injured and distressed” on the floor following one particularly savage assault.

The fiscal said another child had been left so terrified of the repeated assaults at the hands of Murray they had wet themselves.

But following five days of evidence the jury took less than two hours to return guilty verdicts on all 10 serious charges at the capital court on Tuesday.

Sheriff Gillian Sharp said due to “the number and gravity of offences which you have been convicted” sentence on Murray would be deferred for the preparation of social work reports. Murray was placed on the sex offenders register on an interim basis and sentence was deferred to May.

Murray was found guilty of three charges of assault, two sexual assaults, two of indecent communication, one indecent assault and two offences of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner, all between December 2002 and August 2022.