Chapter 5 — Lota

Sexual abuse

Born in the South East of Ireland in the early 1900s, he was the eldest of three children. He was recruited into the Brothers at the age of 13, and is still a member of the Congregation. He was educated in Belgium and England, and qualified as a primary teacher in the 1930s.

He told the Investigation Committee he taught in a school in the UK until 1951 or 1952, when he was brought back to Ireland to work in Lota, where he stayed for 32 years until 1984.

In the early 1950s, the Congregation were setting up a Special School in Lota and there was a need for trained teachers to enable the Department of Education to recognise the School officially. The Department gave recognition to the School in 1955, and Br Guthrie was made Principal of the School from the start until 1974, when a lay principal was employed and he took over as school manager and then Chairman of the Board of Management. He held this latter post until 1984, when he was removed from the School because of complaints made against him.

He was prosecuted for sexual offences in December 1995. He spent seven months in 1996 in Our Lady of Victory, a treatment centre in Stroud in the UK run by the Order of the Holy Paraclete for religious with psychological and behavioural problems. He returned in December 1996 to answer the charges in court. He pleaded guilty to sample charges in December 1996, and was sentenced on 14th February 1997 to four years’ imprisonment, reduced to one year. He now resides under supervision.

He accepted the description of himself as a paedophile, someone whose sexual preference was for children, in his case teenage boys. He said he had no sexual attraction to them until they were aged 11 upwards to about 14, and he was most attracted to 11- to 14-year-old boys with bright eyes and good speech. He admitted to mutual masturbation but denied ever going any further with the children. His sexual activities started in 1937, when he was around 22 years old, and continued until 1983 when he was 69 years old with, according to himself, ‘prolonged intervals’ of abstinence.

His modus operandi varied, but it usually involved isolating a child in a secluded part of the building. Aware of the ever-present danger of discovery, he found various hiding places where the abuse could take place. These nooks always had a well-planned escape route. He also admitted visiting the children’s beds at night in the dormitory where he was the supervisor.

He did not think the other Brothers or members of staff were aware of what he was doing. On one or two occasions, he did hear talk among the boys. He recalled his reaction to one particular occasion when he heard there was talk: I brought them into a classroom and I sat them down and I said to them, people are saying this about me. Any of you that like to come with me now, we will go to the Brother Superior and talk to him about it, and, of course, that shut them up for good. Nobody took me up on it.

He said that, if any boy resisted his advances, he would leave him alone, and denied ever threatening, coaxing or forcing anyone.

Despite his remarkable memory for dates and time and place, he could not recall the number of boys he abused over the 32-year period. However, on the first occasion when he gave evidence to the Commission, when asked why he could not remember individuals that he abused, he answered as follows: For one reason the lapse of time and the others, I suppose a fair number. I have no idea how many but there was a good number ... Over 32 years.

He was asked if the number would be in the hundreds, and he replied: I might stop around a hundred, but it could have been more, it could have been less even.

By way of explanation, rather than excuse, he said he believed that the separation from his parents in his early years and the loneliness and isolation of the life of a Brother was the reason why he developed in the way he did.

Br John O’Shea, outlined in the statement prepared for the Emergence Hearings, held in June/July of 2004, the reasons why the Brothers of Charity have issued apologies in respect of child abuse: When allegations of abuse by two named Bothers were first brought to our attention in December, 1995, the two named Brothers confirmed that they had been involved in the sexual abuse of children in our care. The two named Brothers later admitted in court that they were guilty of perpetrating sexual abuse on children in our care and received custodial sentences in respect of this abuse.

The statement went on to give details of the sentences imposed on these two Brothers and a third Brother who was also found guilty of sexual abuse.

At paragraph 5 of the statement, the Regional Leader explained that, when the allegations were first brought to the attention of the Congregation, the two Brothers against whom the allegations were made were immediately removed from locations where they would be in contact with ‘service users’ and were placed under strict supervision. They had also both attended a seven-month therapeutic programme for sexual abusers.

The difficulty with Br O’Shea’s statement is that December 1995 was not the first time the Congregation of the Brothers of Charity had become aware of sexual abuse perpetrated by Br Guthrie.