Chapter 9 — Record of abuse (female witnesses)

Reported abusers

Witnesses also reported the practice of residents being sent by staff in the Schools to mind children and do housework for families during school holidays and being sent out to work for local families and clergy in the afternoons and at weekends. Twelve (12) men, including one member of the clergy, were identified as sexually abusive by witnesses in this context. All the witnesses reported being less than 16 years old at the time they were abused. The abuse reported included rape and attempted rape, digital penetration, molestation and genital exposure. One witness reported that she was hospitalised having taken an overdose of tablets in the context of repeated rape by the father of the family in her work placement. The family were professionals and made discreet arrangements for her to be hospitalised, following which the sexual abuse ceased although she continued to be sent to the family. She reported she had told the religious Sisters she did not like going to this family but they insisted she continue. I think they were very, very stupid, the people in the care home. We were very unhappy going out and they should have known that. I feel very, very angry with them.

Two (2) witnesses reported being sent at different times as the live-in housekeeper for a local member of the clergy who was identified by name. They both described being fondled by him, bringing him breakfast in bed and being forced to observe him washing and dressing himself. One witness refused to go back to his house after she woke to find him standing over her in bed one morning. Witnesses said that this member of the clergy had a reputation for inappropriate sexual behaviour and he was named in three other witness accounts of sexual abuse.

Five (5) witnesses reported being sexually abused during the night by male employers in work placements, two of whom reported being raped in these circumstances. Others described attempted rape or did not describe the sexual abuse in detail. I was working looking after the children. One time the mother had gone away. She was very nice, he... (work placement father)... was horrible.... One time she left me looking after the children. I was in bed he ...(work placement father)... came to me in to bed, I was asleep and he woke me up, and took me to his room ...crying.... I didn’t know why, I didn’t know what he was trying to do, he tried to rape me.... I was so scared, I was terrified. I couldn’t tell anyone, there was this threat of being sent to ...named laundry....

There were 31 male and female religious, including a clerical student and a novice, reported as having sexually abused witnesses during their time in Schools. Twenty seven (27) named Sisters and clergy were each identified by individual witnesses as perpetrators of sexual abuse, four others were named by more than one witness. The Sisters were all members of the Schools’ religious Communities. The clergy included priests and others of higher rank from the external community who had contact with the Schools in various capacities. The types of contact sexual abuse reported included vaginal and anal rape, oral/genital contact, masturbation, kissing and inappropriate fondling and touching.

Witnesses reported being sexually abused by 16 nuns, 10 of whom were named. The abuse included contact sexual abuse such as kissing, fondling and vaginal penetration by an object. Sexual abuse by religious Sisters was most often reported to have occurred in collaboration with another person, either religious or lay staff, in the context of personal care and preparing for bed. Four (4) witnesses also described separate instances of inappropriate fondling by Sisters. ‘At night she would come to the bedroom, stroke my breasts, and then give me a packet of biscuits and say something like it was all temptation from the devil.’

Fourteen (14) clergy, 11 of whom were named, were reported by 23 witnesses to have sexually abused them. The reported abuse ranged from inappropriate touching and fondling to vaginal and anal rape. Two (2) of the clergy were each named by five witnesses as perpetrators of sexual abuse, both of the witnesses and their co-residents. One of the priests was described as ‘thinking he owned the convent and us girls’ as a witness described: He was always there ...(Fr X)... when we were getting a bath, he was there all the time. I could see what he was doing to other girls, touching them. Nobody wanted to bring his breakfast in, none of the girls. We used say it to Sr ...Y... she was a nice nun, she would have protected us from the other nuns, she was a lovely nun. But she couldn’t see past Fr ...X... because he was a priest. We said to her what he was doing and she said “but he is a priest, he is just being friendly”. I rebelled against him then when I was I2 or 13, I fought him and wouldn’t let him go near me. He beat me then with a leather, a belt from his trousers ... on the legs, on the hand and the back of the hands.

Six witnesses reported being sexually abused when they were serving breakfast to visiting priests in the parlour. One priest was reported to have his breakfast in the parlour and ‘sent for girls every morning’. A witness described the priest as sitting her on his lap, where he fondled her, kissed her on the lips and gave her money saying ‘you’re a good girl’. This witness reported that the priest was attended at mealtimes by residents ‘who he fondled constantly’, kissing, and touching them. Other witnesses provided the following accounts of being sexually abused by local and visiting priests: The parish priest used to be always around at the time, around the convent. He used to pick me up in the grounds or if you went in to him with his breakfast, he would put you sitting on his knee and give you a kiss on the mouth. He would put me sitting on his ...(genitalia).... • There was a visiting priest, Fr ...X... he used to come in holiday time and say Mass. I had the job of polishing the sacristy, I had to peep in to see if he was gone. He called me in. He was a tall man, he called me over, I had to kneel next to him, the next thing I could feel his hand up under my underwear. I nearly died, I thought “Jesus what will I do?” I couldn’t tell anyone. They were Gods, the priests were God, no one would believe you. I was about 11.

Three (3) female witnesses reported being fondled and kissed by a clerical student and a Novice who were on placement in their respective Schools.

Witnesses reported 29 lay care and ancillary staff, 17 male and 12 female, as sexual abusers. Fourteen (14) of those reported were lay care staff, including childcare workers and 15 were ancillary workers. The 14 lay care staff were identified by name; 12 were female and two were male. Six (6) of the female care staff were described as former residents of the School who had been retained as live-in care staff.

Twenty five (25) lay staff, 11 care staff and 14 ancillary workers, were the subject of single witness reports of sexual abuse. Four (4) other lay staff were each the subject of more than one report; one care staff member was reported as sexually abusive by six witnesses and two others were each reported by two witnesses. One ancillary worker was also reported by two witnesses.

The most commonly reported form of sexual abuse described in relation to this group of lay care staff was masturbation and fondling. Witnesses reported at times being taken out of their beds to warm a staff member’s bed, where they were then sexually abused. Others reported being inappropriately fondled on the pretext of checking if they had wet their beds. One witness reported that she was sexually abused on a regular basis by a childcare worker as he drove her to school. The abuse involved fondling and forcing her to masturbate him. The following account refers to one witness’s abuse experience during the 1980s: Every night he ...(lay care staff)... used to come up to the room, there were 3 girls in it, and he used to come up to the room every night and absolutely insist that he would put Sudocreme on us. There was absolutely no reason for it, down with the knickers and all, he insisted on doing it to every one of us.

Witnesses reported 15 ancillary workers as sexually abusive, 12 of whom were identified by their occupations and three others were identified by name. Witnesses reported the ancillary workers as farm workers, gardeners, tradesmen and caretakers employed by the religious staff on the grounds of the Schools. The forms of abuse described were vaginal rape, oral/genital contact, masturbation and inappropriate fondling. As described, the abuse generally occurred in sheds and work areas used by the abuser and most often under threat not to tell anyone. Three (3) witnesses from different Schools reported being sexually abused by ancillary workers who lived on the Schools grounds. I ... used to go out to the garden, there was this man in the fields there ... (lay ancillary worker).... He’d say “howya”. ... I said “hello” but I didn’t have anything to do with him. He brought me into a room, it was kinda like a little house and locked the door and ... he raped me, he just took every thing off me and he kept saying, “you tell them and I’ll kill you”, I was only about 14. I felt dirty and to this day I feel dirty. • There was a man there, he worked as the...lay ancillary worker... there. He had a shed, he would get you in there and feel your breasts and your privates, feel you all over, he was just ...ugh... he used to do it to all the girls. You’d know because all the girls would be talking about it. You daren’t tell the nuns they wouldn’t believe you, they all liked him.

Reports of sexual abuse by co-residents were concentrated in particular Schools at particular periods of time. There were 46 witness accounts of sexual abuse by male and female co-residents, 38 of those reports related to abuse by older girls and eight reports were of abuse by older boys. Two (2) male co-residents who were identified as abusers were described as having learning difficulties. The most frequently reported circumstance of co-resident or peer sexual abuse was of witnesses being abused over a period of time by residents who were understood to have been given some authority over them and who threatened to beat or otherwise physically abuse them if they did not comply. A small number of witnesses reported extreme threats including of being killed, or that their siblings would be beaten, abused or sent away. Accounts of abuse included being taken into an older girl’s bed and fondled, forced to participate in mutual masturbation, and fondled in the process of bathing or providing personal care. She ...(older co-resident)... used take me to the boiler house and make me fondle her. She used not do it to me but make me do it to her. She was cruel, I told ...named lay care staff... she told me not to be bothering her. The nuns did nothing about her, they weren’t blind, they saw what was happening.

Most witnesses reported being between seven and 12 years old when they were abused by co-residents and in some instances it was reported that the sexual abuse progressed to become consensual. Witnesses reported that there was minimal supervision in the dormitories or sleeping areas at night in those Schools where sexual abuse by co-residents was identified.

Of note is the higher proportion of reports of co-resident abuse from witnesses discharged during the 1970s and 1980s. Twenty seven (27) reports (59%) of co-resident abuse was reported by witnesses discharged since 1970. A particular feature of peer sexual abuse reported by witnesses discharged after 1970 was the number of accounts of abuse by groups of co-residents. Five (5) witnesses reported being regularly abused by groups of older girls, and in one instance older boys, using coercion to force compliance. The witnesses reported being locked in toilets or taken to isolated rooms and fields where they were sexually abused and personally degraded. One witness reported that she was beaten so badly in the course of such an assault that she had to be taken to a local doctor for stitches. The lack of adequate supervision was consistently reported in the context of peer sexual abuse.