Chapter 8 — Cappoquin

Physical abuse

He said the beatings could be ‘Across the legs, across the backside and the hands’.

A number of older boys exercised this kind of unsupervised authority over the children during the evening. They instilled fear into the younger boys by beating them with canes.

He thought that the management of the School must have known about this: They must have known it. Yeah, they must have known. I believe they did know it ... Them boys didn’t take it upon themselves to say, "come on ... we will get the sticks and we’ll look after these boys." They obviously got authority from someone to do it and they didn’t get it from us.

The Sisters have submitted that, as only one witness gave evidence that older boys were given power over the younger boys and none of the staff or Sisters involved at the time are in a position to give evidence to the contrary, the evidence is so tenuous that no conclusions adverse to the Sisters could reasonably be supported. However, the abuser in this case gave a statement to the Gardaí, admitting the sexual abuse and acknowledging that he was left in charge of the younger boys in the evening.

Although all of the complainants from Cappoquin described physical punishment or abuse, many recalled particular nuns who were good or kind to them.

One nun who came in for special praise was Sr Isabella. When asked what it was about Sr Isabella that singled her out, one witness said: ... What was it that made Sr [Isabella] the best of them? I never actually seen her being violent with anyone. I never seen her being violent with myself. To me, she was a good caring kind of a woman. But done her job. If someone needed chastising – if someone needed chastising she would shout, point her finger. I never actually seen her hitting anyone, or she never hit me.

Another witness said of Sr Isabella: ... there is one nun that I still write to ... Sr Isabella, who was outstanding, and I would have to say that of all the nuns there, she was the one that – she ran the infirmary, I think, if my memory serves me right. But she would have been one that probably exhibited what should have been rather than what was ...

Another complainant, who made allegations against a man he was fostered out to from Cappoquin, went even further: You know, if you wanted to find good people Sr Isabella, Sr Carina and Sr Serafina24 were three walking saints. It is just the staff I didn’t like.

1.The incidents of physical punishment described by complainants went beyond what was permitted. The children were very young, and such severe punishment was uncalled for. 2.Caning very young children was unnecessary and abusive by the standards of the time. 3.Untrained lay staff were unsupervised and given too much control over the children, and this resulted in cruelty. 4.Allowing older boys to discipline smaller children using corporal punishment was reckless and dangerous.

Sexual abuse

Mr Restin was a childcare worker in Cappoquin in the late 1970s. He had previously been employed by the Sisters of Mercy in another of their industrial schools in Passage West, County Cork, during the mid-1970s.

In the mid-1990s, Mr Restin was arrested in England and charged with three offences of indecent assault on a boy under 16 and with possession of indecent photographs of children. He was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, of which he served nine months. Following his prison sentence, he spent a period of four months in a psychiatric hospital because of depression and then lived in a probation hostel for a further six months. He returned to Dublin in the late 1990s.

An ex-resident of Cappoquin disclosed to his psychiatrist that he had been sexually and physically abused by a number of named individuals, including Mr Restin, whilst in the Institution. He was advised to report the abuse and, in 2000, he made a full statement to the Gardaí.

Mr Restin was interviewed by the Gardaí the following year, and admitted sexually abusing boys in Passage West and Cappoquin. Two years later, he was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment: six years for possession of pornographic material, and two sentences of two years each for indecently assaulting a boy in Cappoquin and a boy in Passage West.

Mr Restin told the Committee that he did not know the identity of the two boys in respect of whom he had pleaded guilty: I am doing two years for a victim in Passage West and I am doing two years for a victim in Cappoquin and I do not know who either of those victims are, at this point ... I pleaded guilty ... I am convinced that whoever they are I ... did abuse them or I wouldn’t have said I did.

Three witnesses gave evidence that Mr Restin sexually abused them in the Industrial School in Cappoquin, and a further two witnesses described being sexually and physically abused by him in Passage West.