30/08/2026
A mother, grandmother and stepfather have avoided jail after inflicting years of physical and emotional abuse on three children in a “house of terror”.
Julia Stephen, Shirley Freeman and David McColl’s young victims were beaten, starved and psychologically tormented between 2003 and 2012.
Freeman, 51, the children’s mother, and Stephen, their grandmother, 69, were convicted at Aberdeen sheriff court of cruel and unnatural treatment. McColl, 50, admitted the crimes.
Handing the trio probation and a combined 610 hours of unpaid work, Sheriff Craig Findlater said no sentence could “repair the awful childhoods” their victims had suffered.
A trial had heard that Freeman, now of Cullen, Moray, had created a “house of terror” for her children.
Two of her children, William and Meaghann Murphy, gave evidence that helped secure the convictions of their mother and grandmother. The third victim was their younger sister Rebekah, who said she had been left with lifelong mental health problems.
Jurors heard that the abuse took place at homes in Balloch and Aberdeen and affected all three siblings.
William, now 25, told the court he had been subjected to regular beatings with belts and pinned by the neck.
“All I remember is being followed around the room, being hit,” he said. “I was resisting, but I gave up at one point.”
Mr and Ms Murphy described how blades were left under their pillows and that Ms Murphy had once awoke to find a meat cleaver in her bed.
By 2013, the siblings had both been taken into care, amid child protection concerns.
Police Scotland launched an investigation in 2022 after Mr Murphy made a statement.
Mr Murphy, who is now 25, said: “For as long as I can remember, family life was chaotic and unpredictable, and at times quite hostile. We were often made to sleep on the floor as a punishment.
“Sometimes when we had been really bad, they called it sleep deprivation, where they got us to stand up, like in a line, and we were made to stay awake.
“Your mind starts to play tricks on you. I remember starting to see faces in the wall.
“If we were dozing off or showed any sign that we weren’t taking it seriously, things were thrown at us, or we were shouted at, and the punishment was then extended.”
He said his older sister, Ms Murphy, tried to protect him and acted as a “human mattress” when they were sleeping.
“She took the brunt of sleeping on the concrete, and she would then let myself cuddle into her and rub the back of my head,” he said.
“She tried to shield us from as much as possible. She was our protector.”
Mr Murphy described how Stephen had told him and his sister that she had met a woman in prison called Charlotte, who was said to have later drowned and dismembered her five children.
She told her grandchildren that Charlotte’s ghost was watching them constantly and could communicate telepathically with the adults in the house.
“We were led to believe that Charlotte was watching at all times,” Mr Murphy said
He also alleged that the family moved from West Dunbartonshire to Aberdeen to prevent social workers finding out about the abuse and that the former authority closed the case.
Ms Murphy, who is now 28, described being deprived of food for days at a time and said locks were placed on cupboards to prevent the children helping themselves.
She said she continued to struggle with feelings of guilt that she could not offer her siblings more protection.
Freeman was convicted of three charges, including depriving the children of food, leaving them outside on a cold veranda while undressed and repeatedly striking them with a belt and belt buckle.
She was sentenced to 18 months’ probation, 240 hours of unpaid work, and a 12-month restriction of liberty order, as a direct alternative to custody.
Stephen was found guilty of three charges, including striking one of the children with a metal-studded belt and using the Charlotte story to frighten the children.
She was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and given 18 months of probation.
McColl was sentenced to 220 hours of unpaid work, 18 months probation, and an 11-month restriction of liberty order, as a direct alternative to custody.
Alison McKenzie, procurator fiscal for Grampian, Highlands and Islands, said the trio were adults when they “knowingly and deliberately subjected these children to a horrific catalogue of mistreatment”.
She said: “The evidence showed that, rather than providing the care, affection and security every child deserves, they engaged in a sustained pattern of cruelty, degradation and harmful behaviour.”
Det Insp Kerry McCombie of Police Scotland added: “The abuse spanned across the childhood years of the victims and I’d like to pay tribute to them for their bravery to bring this case before the courts.”
West Dunbartonshire council said the children were known to social work from 2007 and that information was shared with Aberdeen when the family moved.
