2 entries for Richard

Peter Tade used to take Richard,29 who was a boy in care in St Joseph’s, and Gerry on fishing trips and for spins in his car. Peter Tade took photographs of them. The Garda described what happened: the circumstances were that Peter Tade had taken photographs of Richard and Gerry. He used to take them fishing and took them for spins in his car. But Gerry’s mother discovered that Peter Tade’s face, he was in one of the photographs, had been scratched and pins driven through it and she suspected something was wrong. She spoke to him and he told her that Peter Tade did something to him. As far as I recall it was a bank holiday weekend and Peter Tade was off, he was on leave and he was in Dublin, Sr Astrid said she had to get rid of him or ask him to leave. I came to Dublin with her – or I came to Dublin and I met her in Dublin.

Neither the Garda nor Sr Astrid saw fit to question Richard, the boy from St Joseph’s who was with Gerry in the defaced photograph, and who had also been taken on the trips with Peter Tade, about whether he had been interfered with by Tade. It is difficult to understand why they did not question the other boys in the home where Tade had worked for 10 months. There was a failure on the part of both the Garda and Sr Astrid to face up to the danger Peter Tade posed to other children.