Chapter 13 — Special needs schools and residential services

Physical abuse

Eleven (11) of the religious staff reported as physically abusive were described as either being in charge of the institution or the Principal of the school. The 34 religious and lay staff, listed in Table 8 as care staff, were described by witnesses as having contact with residents in the context of their personal or everyday care. Lay staff who were occupied as night watchmen and laundry workers, and others with designated tasks, are identified above as ancillary workers. Religious and lay staff listed in Table 8 as teachers were either referred to as teachers by witnesses and/or were described as abusing witnesses in the classroom. There was one person very cruel, he was a teacher, he used to tell us he would go to hell when he died because he did not beat us enough. He had been in another school and he was dumped into ... (witness’s special needs school).... He was a very unsuitable man, he would use a full cane with the ridges on it, he would beat you anywhere. I remember him beating me around the neck, it was quite strong, he was lashing out generally. Usually it was for inability to learn Irish, I was not bad at Irish, he beat me, I don’t know why, I didn’t know what was happening to me.

Sexual abuse

This section summarises the witness evidence given of sexual abuse, ranging from contact sexual assault including rape to non-contact abuse, such as voyeurism and inappropriate sexual talk. Witnesses gave as much or as little detail as they wished when describing their experiences of being sexually abused. While some witnesses provided detailed and disturbing accounts of sexual abuse, less detailed accounts were sufficient to clarify the acute or chronic nature of both contact and non-contact sexual abuse.

The use of the child by a person for sexual arousal or sexual gratification of that person or another person.6 Thirty six (36) of the 58 witnesses who reported abuse in schools and residential services for children with special needs reported being sexually abused. The 36 reports were from 29 male and seven female witnesses in relation to 10 separate special needs facilities. Twenty seven (27) reports referred to abuse in facilities for children with intellectual disabilities and eight reports referred to facilities for those with sensory impairments. One report referred to abuse in a residential facility for physically disabled children. Eight (8) facilities were the subject of between two and 10 reports, totalling 34 reports. Two (2) others were each the subject of single reports.

The forms of sexual abuse reported by the 36 witnesses included voyeurism, inappropriate fondling, mutual masturbation, oral/genital contact, penetration with objects, kissing, vaginal and anal rape. Eleven (11) witnesses, nine of whom were male, reported being raped. With one exception witnesses reported being raped many times, in some instances on a regular basis for periods up to five years.

Witnesses reported that sexual abuse occurred in private and was most often perpetrated by specific individuals over a period of time. Witnesses from three facilities described being taken from their beds at night by male religious staff and being sexually abused in the staff members’ bedrooms. They reported being raped, fondled and molested, and some described being unable to walk following such episodes of abuse. Other witnesses reported being sexually abused by staff members while engaged in routine activity or while entrusted to their care. There was another Brother, he brought me into his room I didn’t like it, he did things, he hurt me. I was crying ... it was at night time, he made me do things.... He did things to me ... he hurt me. Sometimes he took me into his room, he slept in a room on his own off the dormitory. ... I didn’t like that going on. He was nice to me after it ...(anal rape).... • I was sexually abused by ...named lay ancillary worker... at 13 or 14 years of age, a few times. He agreed to bring me home to where I came from for a visit. I knew him so well. He started to touch me in my private parts and kissed me. He stopped in a lane on the way home ...distressed.... It’s all bad.

Witnesses also described being raped and/or inappropriately fondled in their own beds at night by religious and lay staff. Other locations of sexual abuse reported by witnesses included toilets, bathrooms, dormitories, classrooms, yards, play areas and off-site locations. Br ...X... used do dirty things to me at night when I’d get my period. He used to wake me at night and took off all my clothes and pull the things up on me. He raped me when I’d get my period, he did it 5 or 6 times and he’d touch my chest.... I told ...named lay care staff... and she put me to bed late ... (to avoid contact with Br X).... • From the time I was 7 until I was 14, maybe 3 nights a week maybe 4, 2 or 3 Brothers sexually abused me. They took turns, not every day, doing the night duty, walking around ... they had different shifts, they would enjoy themselves. They knew which boy was in the bed. ... Sometimes they would follow me behind the toilets in the day time and do it again, they would pretend to dry ...(me)... with the towel and they would do that, mess with you, kissing, touching....

Six (6) male witnesses reported that violence was a component of the sexual abuse. They were either beaten before they were abused or sexually violated as they were being beaten. Witnesses reported being subjected to extreme forms of physical violence, including having their heads held under water, being bound and gagged and otherwise restrained while being sexually assaulted and being beaten with leather straps on their bare bottom prior to being sexually assaulted. Two (2) of the six witnesses reported being physically and sexually assaulted by ‘gangs’ of co-residents.

A female witness reported being sexually abused by the father in a ‘holiday’ family to whom she was regularly sent from the special needs facility for many years. The witness believed that reports of abuse had been made in relation to this man prior to her being sent to the family. She did not understand what was happening, as she did not know what sexual abuse was. She had no family or other visitors and nobody to whom she could confide about her experiences at the time.

Three (3) male witnesses reported different forms of non-contact sexual abuse including being shown pornographic photographs, being photographed while naked and being stared at by religious care staff supervising showers and swimming activities.

Witnesses reported being forced to endure and comply with sexual abuse through threats of violence, isolation from their peers, deprivation of family visits and being threatened that they would be reported to authority figures. Witnesses also reported being subjected to various bribes and inducements, including money, cigarettes, sweets and alcohol: Another Brother ...(X)... (teacher)... he used to bring a white bag with scones in it from the Brothers’ kitchen to our rooms and he would give the scones to the children who would let him feel their legs and touch them. ... He would examine their essays, check their spellings. ... He would check us all out closely and while he was doing that he would be sitting quite close to us and feeling our legs, at that stage I was quite innocent. • One ...(Br X)... didn’t teach in class, he would look after pupils, he was a big man. ... On the day before I left I asked him for ...a book... he told me to go upstairs. He suggested he would go to the room where he kept his books, but he took me to his bedroom and he closed the door and I got a fright. ... He pushed me over onto his bed, he was wearing his habit. I was trying to resist, I could see his face, he was really red in the face. ... I couldn’t feel his private parts because he had his habit on and that was ok. ... (witness described molestation)... .Afterwards he gave me a bar of chocolate and told me to keep quiet about it, I was very shocked.

Two (2) male witnesses from one facility reported that male religious staff who were sexually abusive would select them and other residents to accompany them on outings to town where they were taken into pubs and given alcohol. One witness reported being taken by a Brother to a pub instead of the cinema and returning to the cinema before the film finished. This Brother was reported to have sexually abused the witness on a regular basis over a three-to four-year period.

One witness named a man by whom he was sexually abused. He was a member of the public who had access to the grounds of the intellectual disability service, and who befriended the witness in the course of his activities there: He ...(X)... asked me to meet him one night outside. ... I got out the window and I met him down the way, he came out in his car and he made sure there was nobody looking and he asked me to get in. He was doing his usual thing on the way across ... (touching witness).... I thought he was bringing me home but we ended up in a Bed and Breakfast. ... By that stage I knew what he was doing was wrong. He took my clothes off ... he just did what he wanted to do to me ... (witness described anal penetration).... He said if I ever told anybody he’d get me, he’d know where I was. ... He left me home to my parents’ place, they were waiting outside the door, he walked up and said “I found your son, he was walking the streets, I picked him up”. ... He never told them anything about what he’d done. ... (Witness never saw abuser again)....

The individuals identified as sexually abusive came from a wider range of occupations both within and outside the institutions, than those reported as physically abusive, and almost half of those reported as sexually abusive were co-residents.

There were 28 staff, 26 male and two female, identified by witnesses as being sexually abusive, including 19 who were named. Seventeen (17) of the named staff members were male and two were female. Thirteen (13) of those named were religious staff and six were lay care staff and ancillary workers. One male religious staff member was specifically described as the person in charge. The other religious staff were described as being in care roles at the time of the abuse although their assigned roles were not always clear to the witnesses.

There were a further nine reports of sexual abuse by religious and lay staff where the reported abusers were not identified by name. They were described by their role as Brothers, night watchmen and care staff. It is possible that there is some overlap between those staff who were identified by name and those who were not named.