19 entries for Br Dennis

Br Dennis filed two separate statements of response to the complainant’s allegations. The first was a long statement that dealt in detail with the complainant’s allegations, which were denied in full. It commenced by stating that he did not remember him or the incidents that were alleged to have occurred and ‘that the Complainant is both inaccurate and mistaken in much of his recollection’. It did not make any admission and, in the final paragraph, he said ‘I deny any allegations of abuse made against me contained in [the complainant’s] statement which is not directly or indirectly denied or referred to in this response statement’. He did not refer to the admissions that were made to the Gardaí, or to the fact that he had been sent by the Superiors of the Congregation to the Granada Institute in the mid-1990s in respect of his activity in Artane.

The significance of the approach taken by the Congregation and by Br Dennis is twofold: The Congregational response in this instance did not tell the whole story. It was seriously misleading because it did not reflect the Congregation’s actual knowledge of Br Dennis: the Superiors in the Congregation sent him to the Granada Institute in 1996 because of allegations from Artane. It is inconceivable that they did not also know about the previous allegations. In the course of his treatment in Granada, Br Dennis had meetings with the leadership team of the Christian Brothers and his therapists, at which he eventually opened up about his abuse. None of this is reflected in the Congregational response in which they attested to his good character. Br Dennis’s statements of response to the Commission cannot be trusted on face value. They contain assertions that he knew to be untrue and which contradicted the import of his earlier statement to the Gardaí and the Granada Institute.

This complainant’s allegations are, at least in part, confirmed by Br Dennis’s admissions to the Gardaí. The Investigation Committee had the benefit of being able to hear the Brother’s evidence at an oral hearing but, at the time when the complaint was heard, Br Dennis had not yet given evidence and the complainant was subjected to a rigorous cross-examination by the Christian Brothers, without any reference to the information they had. If Br Dennis had not been able to attend and give evidence, valuable information would have been lost to the Inquiry.

1.Sexual abuse by Brothers was a chronic problem in Artane. Brothers who served in Artane included firstly those who had previously been guilty of sexual abuse of boys, secondly those whose abuse was discovered while they worked in Artane and, thirdly some who were subsequently revealed to have abused boys. A timeline of the documented and admitted cases of sexual abuse shows that: (a)For more than half of the 33 years under consideration, there was at least one such abuser working there; (b)For more than one third of the years there were at least two abusers present; (c)During one year in the 1940s there were seven such Brothers in Artane at the same time. 2.More abuse occurred than is recorded in documents because of inadequate recording and reporting procedures. In particular: (a)There was little or no communication on an informal, friendly basis between boys and Brothers including the Superior. (b)The sodality was a means of informal communication between boys and the Resident Manager that uncovered four sexual abusers in Artane in 1944, but it was discontinued. (c)Because boys could be punished for complaining about abuse, there was inevitably under-reporting. (d)In the 1960s, the Resident Manager gave instructions that complaints were to be made directly to him and not to the chaplain, thereby cutting off a channel of information. (e)One offender, Br Dennis, admitted sexually abusing many boys in Artane, but only one of his victims gave evidence at the Phase II oral hearings. (f)In other cases of documented abuse, there were no complaints to the Committee. 3.Other causes of under-reporting also operated, including the fact that sexual abuse is difficult for victims to corroborate or verify, the fear of being disbelieved, lack of faith in the investigation process, and feelings of shame and embarrassment. 4.Sexual activity between boys was common, and there was a significant amount of predatory sexual behaviour by bigger boys on smaller, vulnerable ones, but complainants and respondents were guarded in dealing with it. 5.Evidence and inferences in this and other boys’ institutions suggested that some Brothers sought victims among boys they believed were engaged in sexual activity with other boys. Response 6.Cases and allegations of sexual abuse were not properly investigated; information was not shared in the Congregation; cases were not reported to the Department; and the Gardaí were not informed. 7.The Congregation was aware of the criminal nature of sexual abuse perpetrated by Brothers. 8.The Congregation was also aware of the risk of recidivism in such cases. 9.Sexual abuse by Brothers posed a serious risk of damaging the reputations of the Institution and the Congregation if it became public, and cases were managed primarily with a view to protecting them against that danger. The offender was an incidental beneficiary of this policy. 10.The most common reaction was to move the offending Brother to another Christian Brothers’ institution, without regard to the hazard to boys in the new location and with no evidence that the Superior was alerted. Some Brothers were moved to industrial schools after abusing in day schools. 11.The Christian Brothers have submitted that repeat offenders were dismissed from the Congregation, but this does not appear to have occurred. Even when the Council voted for expulsion, this was often done by inviting the Brother to seek dispensation from his vows, which allowed him to leave the Congregation with no taint or suspicion on his character. The Brother could continue teaching in a lay capacity. 12.Only Brothers of temporary profession were dismissed by being refused permanent status by the Congregation, but these Brothers were also able to move on with their reputations intact. 13.Some Brothers and former Brothers found to have committed sexual abuse were able to continue damaging children for many years because of the policy of concealment of the disclosure of abuse, failure to investigate properly and failure to report. 14.The Congregation claimed in its Opening Statement that the impact of abuse on young boys was not properly understood at the time and that the response to the child was therefore inadequate. The reality is that the needs of abused children were not considered at all. It was not a case of insufficient understanding, but rather of giving priority to other concerns. For a Community of religious in loco parentis, this was a fundamental breach of their duty of care.