Chapter 14 — John Brander

Within a week of his arrival, the rumours were proved well founded. On the surface, Mr Brander was very religious, very conscientious and hardworking. However, he administered extreme physical punishment. Mr Rothe described the type of punishment Mr Brander would use: One of the punishments he had was to hit you with his knuckles on the top of the head which caused headaches ... [another was] being slapped on the hands and ending up with swollen hands ... On many days he would, before he left in the evenings at three o’ clock he would actually count the number of slaps he gave out that day. Everything revolved around physical punishment.

Mr Rothe also gave evidence of the regular sexual abuse the children suffered and said: if it wasn’t happening to me it was happening to someone else ... His MO was that he had a stool, a high stool that he used to sit on, he wouldn’t have the book so he would ask the child to come up, the child would stand, me in some instances, between his legs and he would have you reading from the book while he was holding your shoulder and masturbating against you ... It wasn’t the only place he abused ... I can remember one day a group of us around the blackboard ... and he was putting his hands inside my clothes and rubbing himself on me while other children were standing literally beside me.

He had witnessed the same thing happening to a number of other boys.

At the time he found the physical punishment more painful than the sexual abuse. Parents were happy because Mr Brander was getting great results, both academically and in sport.

Subsequently, when the witness was in secondary school, he heard that Mr Brander had been removed from the school for homosexual behaviour. He said that it was common knowledge that Mr Brander went to a psychiatric hospital for three weeks after this happened. The discovery furnished by the Director of Public Prosecutions contains a medical report from the late 1990s, which referred to Mr Brander being treated for depression in 1969.

Anja8

In the course of the Garda investigation in the late 1990s into allegations of sexual abuse in Walsh Island NS, a number of former pupils named a girl named Anja in particular as having suffered at his hands. The Gardaí then contacted her with a view to taking a statement from her.

Anja was taught by Mr Brander in her final year in primary school. She was 12 at the time. In the course of her evidence, she described a terrifying atmosphere in the classroom. She said that for failure at lessons she would receive six or seven slaps on each hand. She also described how he would strike her on the head, resulting in loss of balance. She described how her head or hands could be bruised following a beating. He was more severe in the administration of corporal punishment to girls than to boys. At the time, she felt that the boys were fortunate as she didn’t understand that they were being abused sexually. She described how the boys would stand at the front of the class, reading between Mr Brander’s legs, but she was not aware that he was fondling them.

After one particularly severe beating, her father wrote a letter of complaint to Mr Brander. The following day he slapped her again and commented: ‘Are you going to tell your daddy now were you slapped today?’ She replied that she would not.

She said that one reason why parents were reluctant to complain was that Mr Brander’s brother-in-law was a foreman or manager in a large local business where some of the fathers worked.

Mr Brander’s departure from Walsh Island NS

The Garda discovery furnished to the Investigation Committee outlined the sequence of events leading to Mr Brander’s removal from the School.

Rumours were circulating in the locality that Mr Brander was molesting boys and being cruel to girls in his class. The mothers of two pupils approached the parish priest, Fr Colm,9 in an effort to have the parents’ concerns addressed. In their Garda statements, both said that he took a note of what they had said and indicated that he would look into the matter.

Mr Rothe gave evidence that Fr Derek10 (the local curate at the time) advised him in the early 1980s that Fr Colm had consulted with The Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin about the problem.

One mother stated that she learned about a week later that Mr Brander was to be transferred. The other mother stated that Fr Colm visited her and advised her that Mr Brander was suspended. Both stated that Fr Derek, the local curate, was annoyed at the manner in which the matter was handled, and said that he would have handled it quietly had they approached him. Around this time, both women were contacted by the Gardaí but neither wanted their children to make statements.

In the course of the Garda investigation in the mid-1990s, Fr Derek was interviewed. He said that no parent approached him about Mr Brander’s conduct, and the memorandum of that interview continued: The first he knew about problems in Walsh Island NS was when Fr. [Colm] told him that he was going to the school to get Mr [Brander] to resign due to ill treatment of a boy. He, Fr. [Colm], had a document prepared for Mr [Brander] to sign. Mr. [Brander] was gone from the school overnight. Nobody in Walsh Island NS wanted to talk about the situation. I.N.T.O.11 came down to see Fr [Colm] ...

Despite the circumstances of his removal, Fr Colm, the parish priest and School Manager, furnished Mr Brander with a glowing reference: Mr [Brander] B.A. H. Dip in Ed. has been Principal Teacher in a four teacher school in this parish for the past three years. I would find it impossible to speak or write too highly of Mr [Brander’s] complete dedication to his professional duties. To visit his classes was a refreshing experience and his splendid qualities of head and heart were reflected in pupils, parents and the people of the community. His attention to even the tiniest detail was indicative of his love for and devotion to his work ... [He] engaged in extra curricular activities of inestimable value to the pupils, the youth, and the parish in general. Mr. [Brander] at his own request and greatly to my personal regret leaves to devote his wonderful gifts to the Secondary branch of Education. He brings with him my gratitude for his wonderful service to the pupils and ... the parish, my best wishes for his continued success in the higher branch of education ...