Chapter 5 — Lota

Sexual abuse

The third witness to give evidence to the Committee, Frank, also described being abused by Br Dieter. He told the Committee: I can recall very clearly when I was thirteen years of age in the Sancta Maria pavilion, I was bending down cleaning a bathroom when Br Dieter approached me from behind. He locked the bathroom door behind him and took out his penis and said to me "let me see yours". I said to him "no". He then said to me "if you don’t, I will give you a good hiding".

The witness went on to describe an act of masturbation perpetrated by the Brother: He then let down his habit and told me to say nothing about what had happened to anybody. This type of abuse of I having to rub Br Dieter’s penis happened on quite a number of occasions over the next number of years until I reached 15 years approx. This took place in the Sancta Maria pavilion, his own bedroom and also in the bathroom. When he took me to his bedroom it was usually in the night time. He would wake me from the dormitory where I slept with the rest of the lads and in single beds. Each dormitory had 36 beds. I slept about seven beds from the door of his bedroom which was off the dormitory.

The witness recalled other specific acts of gross sexual assault, one of which occurred on Christmas Day. He said Br Dieter engaged in oral sex and anal rape. In respect of the latter, he stated: I could not understand why this was going on and this type of abuse happened to me by Br Dieter on at least four different occasions. I can remember one day Br Dieter brought me to his bedroom and tried the same sort of abuse ... and I said "no" and I used the word "f*** it, no more, finished" as this was very very sore I said to him. He got very mad with me and I got a beating from him.

The abuse began in a bathroom, when he claimed anal intercourse took place. Thereafter, it occurred ‘A right few times, make about six months, maybe a year. I don’t know for sure, about a year’. It took place ‘Twice or three times a month or something like that’.

Br Dieter then gave evidence. He said he had a good recollection of the witness. Again, he began with an apology: The first statement I would like to make is that I feel very sad and sorry for Frank’s experiences and I regret very much the unhappiness I have caused him. In relation to today’s evidence, I am sad that he should accuse me of physical violence of beating him up and that sort of thing, because that is not the sort of person that I am. When I was accused by Frank and appeared before [A Garda Sergeant], I think it was around the end of 1995 and perhaps the beginning of 1996, I pleaded guilty, but I told [the Sergeant] and the other Gardaí that were there at the time present when this allegation from Frank was made that, yes, I did abuse Frank but that I didn’t accept and denied the allegations of anal and oral abuse, also I denied the beatings. That is what I have to say.

He then spelt out what he accepted he was guilty of doing: I know I am guilty of sexually abusing Frank by touch. He also mentions that he touched me and I encouraged him to do so, that could possibly have been the case, but I think that most of my abuse was by showing my attention for Frank, because I was very sympathetically disposed towards him. As I said in my statement, he was a lonely person and I was tended to look on him as I was myself when I was a young person and I tried to show him affection in an inappropriate way by my behaviour towards him that way ... I had a very genuine affection for Frank, yes, I had ... There was a sexual attraction as well that went with that, yes, unhappily, yes ... I have no recollection of how frequently, but at the same time I don’t think in this particular case that the incidents were frequent. ... They took place, to the best of my knowledge, in Sancta Maria pavilion, where I lived. I have no clear recollection of the locations, but they could have taken place in my room in the Sancta Maria pavilion and they could also possibly have taken place in my classroom after school hours, but I am not certain about this because it is a long time ago and because of that I have no clear recollection of the locations of my sexual abuse.

The sexual abuse stopped, he said, because the witness was moved from the dormitory over which he had control. He told the Committee: my recollection is that Frank ... wasn’t very long in Sancta Maria pavilion because he eventually was changed and I can’t remember when that took place, he was changed to St Patrick’s. So my association with him would have terminated because both pavilions were physically quite a distance apart.

Senior counsel for the Brothers of Charity, at the end of the hearings, made clear the position adopted by the Brothers of Charity on the question of whether sexual abuse took place in Lota. He said: I represent the current community of the Brothers of Charity, not all of those who were ever there historically, it is not a body corporate. I represent those who are now members of the Community which happen to include some people who have been abusers, and the Brothers of Charity have made no bones about that, we admit that abuse has taken place, of that there is absolutely no doubt, by our members and by many of our members. In terms of this Committee’s function in determining whether a particular abuse took place with a particular complainant and by a particular Brother, that is something I can have very little to do with and have avoided getting involved in whether that is true in any particular case or not. That clearly cannot be my function. ... It is perfectly clear that in all three of these cases sexual abuse took place in the most appalling nature and must be condemned and is condemned by this Community wholeheartedly and unreservedly. Whether individual acts of sexual abuse took place or not is not a matter for me, with great respect.

Following the appearance in court of a Brother on 21 September 1999, Br Alfred Hassett, the Provincial Superior, issued the following apology: We deeply regret any abuse which may have taken place and we offer our apology to any person who may have been the victim of such abuse. Our first concern is for the victims of abuse, whatever the source of that abuse ... As an organisation involved with people with learning disability we have in place specialist counselling teams, one of them in the Cork area, with back-up support from a national counselling co-ordinator. This team is ready to help any person with a learning disability who may have been the victim of abuse and this help can be offered on a totally confidential basis. I would encourage anyone wishing to make an allegation to go directly to the Gardaí.

The fact that abuse took place is not in dispute. What this apology fails to address is the Congregational responsibility for what happened in their schools. The question that arises is the extent of the abuse, and whether it was systemic.

Br John O’Shea, leader of the region that incorporates both Britain and Ireland, gave an account of how sexual abuse emerged as a serious issue for the Congregation. He told the Committee: I suppose it became a very significant issue in 1995, at late 1995 we were informed that somebody had gone to the Garda Station and had made allegations that they had been abused during that time.

Prior to 1995, he said that allegations were regarded as individual incidents: The position prior to that is that there would have been a number of individual allegations, I think they would have been seen as isolated incidents and they would have been broadly dealt with as isolated incidents, that there wasn’t the sense in which we had after 1995, that this was a bigger issue than we had imagined. I suppose prior to that, there wouldn’t have been the kind of awareness of the impact that it had on the people who were abused.

He went on to state: I feel for us that 1995 was the watershed in the sense of our awareness that we had a fairly significant issue with abuse ... It was quite a shock to us really because it wasn’t something we were prepared for, and certainly the individual incidents we would have known of previously didn’t add up to a comprehensive picture, if you like, of widescale abuse.

In the written statement prepared by Br John O’Shea for the Emergence Hearings and received by the Commission on 23rd June 2004, he wrote: Prior to 1995, there were a few isolated allegations of abuse which were dealt with as deemed appropriate at the time. However, it was not until late 1995 that there was an awareness of more widespread abuse or the damage it had caused.

He admitted, however, that their record keeping was poor. He explained: Yes, I suppose one of the things is many of our files have a limited amount of information in them. We would have some sense, again, that where allegations would be reported, I would feel that maybe they necessarily wouldn’t be committed to writing. Yes, I think maybe our broader culture or even the wider culture wouldn’t have been as it is now where every allegation would be documented, there would be less kept on files.