A retired social worker convicted of mistreating children in her care more than 50 years ago has failed in her bid to avoid attending review hearings at a court in Scotland.

Euphemia Ramsay, 77, said it was costing her £700 each time she travelled from her home in the Isle of Man to attend quarterly review hearings at Greenock Sheriff Court.

Ramsay, who lives in Douglas, had previously pleaded not guilty to two charges relating to the cruel and unnatural treatment of children but was found guilty by a jury in August last year.

She was sentenced in September when she avoided a jail term but was instead placed on supervision and curfew order.

Ramsay was convicted on mistreating two children between 1969 and 1973 during her time working at a residential care facility in Scotland.

Known to her victims as ‘Auntie Effie’, she was in charge of one of the specially built cottages at a settlement called Quarrier’s Village - a philanthropic venture originally founded to care for homeless children in Victorian Glasgow - in Renfrewshire when the offences were committed.

Press reports detailed harrowing accounts of abuse in testimony given by Ramsay’s victims to Greenock Sheriff Court.

They included details of humiliating punishments for bed-wetting or for not finishing meals.

Her trial heard how Ramsay repeatedly punched and kicked one of her victims in the head, hit him with a slipper and spat in his face.

She also forced him to remove his nightwear and stand naked in front of other residents after he once wet the bed.

In an incident involving a separate child, Ramsay forced her onto a table before instructing another individual to force-feed her.

Following her sentencing, Peter McClelland, procurator fiscal for north Strathclyde, said: ‘Euphemia Ramsay was trusted to provide care for children who had already experienced difficulties in their lives.

‘Her mistreatment of these children may have happened some years ago, but the victims have carried the pain into adulthood.’

At a review hearing last week, the Sheriff Court was told that Ramsay is engaging well and complying with all matters of her sentence, having completed almost half of the 300 hours of unpaid work handed out.

But solicitor Paul Cook said it was costing her ‘significant expense’ to get to the court for the reviewing hearing, and it was costing ‘somewhere in the region of £700 each time’.

Sheriff McGeehan said: ‘These are serious matters for which the accused was convicted.

‘It is only appropriate that the court takes a close supervision role in relation to the disposal of a non-custodial sentence.

‘If she continues to progress next time this might be addressed then, possibly by extending the period of review thereby minimising the need to return to court.’