73 entries for Sr Astrid

After his encounter with Sr Astrid, he returned to England and continued his abusive behaviour until, one day, a boy he had been abusing for over two years finally told the housemaster of the school he was working in. He denied the abuse and was acquitted by Middlesborough Crown Court in 1988.

Sr Wilma told the Committee that she only knew Peter Tade to see around the grounds of St Joseph’s. She remembered Donal Kavanagh, as she knew him from around Kilkenny and she knew his family. She recalled Donal Kavanagh complaining to her that Peter Tade was physically abusing the children. He did this in the context of speaking to her about doing the childcare course and, in the course of that discussion, he mentioned that Peter Tade slapped the children. She remembered telling him that he should go to Sr Astrid about it.

She said she did not personally arrange for Mr Kavanagh to see the Bishop, but found out later that he did see him. Her action was to tell him to talk to Sr Astrid about the complaint, and she would have taken no further action in regard to the matter. As far as she was concerned, Sr Astrid was in charge of the matter and would have been dealing with it properly.

She continued: it wasn’t extraordinary at that time, it wasn’t extraordinary that I did not know about Peter Tade. It wasn’t extraordinary at all. It was normal. When it came to our works and this was about work, this was about Sr Astrid area of work. When it came to our works I may as well have been living in Kerry as living in St Joseph’s. That’s reality.

Sr Astrid recalled another bizarre incident. Some time around 1966 or 1967, young deacons from St Kieran’s College came to St Joseph’s to help with the children. A year or two later, towards the end of the 1960s, some of these students came to Summerhill to supervise the boys at night time. She was told that the students, she believed there were four involved, and the boys in Summerhill were running around naked. She did not see it herself but told the Garda about it. He reported it to the President of St Kieran’s, who in turn informed the Dean of Students. She said that she herself spoke to the President of the college about the incident, and the students did not return to St Joseph’s after that. She did not mention this incident to anyone and none of the children made any complaints. Sr Astrid commented that, although she did not think that there was any question of sexual abuse in this incident, she was sufficiently worried to speak to the Garda and to discuss it with the President of the College: But I didn’t, you see the trouble with me was I didn’t know about sexual abuse, you see. That was the trouble with me.

The Pleece case and the Tade cases indicate a high level of immaturity and naivety in dealing with issues of sexual abuse, particularly on the part of Sr Astrid. Allowing these men to leave St Joseph’s and continue with careers in childcare was dangerous and irresponsible. It was not enough to remove them from St Joseph’s. These men posed a risk to children and, with her experience in childcare, Sr Astrid should have been aware of that. The inability to face up to the problem of men abusing young boys was not confined to the Sisters. Experienced Gardaí and professionals were also inadequate in their response to this issue. The period 1978–1990

Sr Astrid continued as Resident Manager of St Joseph’s until 1986, when she was replaced by Sr Livia.32 This was a turbulent period for the Institution, when established methods were questioned, particularly by qualified lay staff who were employed there. The documentation revealed a degree of tension between the Department of Education and the Resident Manager about keeping numbers down. The School was perceived as having too many children to care for any of them properly, although this was not a view shared by the Sisters.

On 14th October 1977, Mr Granville attended St Joseph’s to give the staff a formal lecture on leadership in the group homes, and to discuss the future of St Joseph’s with the Provincial and Sr Astrid. It was agreed that the aim would be to try and reduce the numbers in the homes to 60 by 1980. Mr Granville believed that the large numbers in residence were partly responsible for difficulties with the local day schools. They also discussed plans to employ a social worker for the children. Health Board social workers at that time were not geared specifically towards children.

In a report on a visit to St Joseph’s, Kilkenny dated 25th April 1979, the author met with Sr Astrid and was made aware of a number of her concerns with regard to the difficulties still being experienced by short-term children fitting into the outside schools, where they underwent the double trauma of change from their own homes to residential care and out of the residential home into a strange school. She also drew his attention to the fact that, after prolonged negotiation, the social worker who had been released from the South Eastern Health Board (SEHB) to work in St Joseph’s for a two-year period had now been recalled to normal duty, due to staff shortages in the SEHB. Finally, she requested grant assistance for the aftercare residence under construction.

In conclusion, Mr Granville recommended that Sr Astrid should be instructed to cease all admissions until the numbers were down to 70. He also recommended that no money should be paid for the work on the aftercare hostel until numbers were reduced. He noted that Kilkenny had an excessive number of trainees and not enough trained staff.

Sr Ronja also gave evidence. She joined the Sisters of Charity in the mid-1970s. She started in St Joseph’s in 1977 and remained there until 1990. She was a qualified childcare worker. Sr Ronja worked in St Joseph’s initially and, in 1981, she became House Parent in a group home known as Avondale, which catered for 15 children aged 2 to 15 years. She reported directly to Sr Astrid and, in the beginning, she only had one live-in staff member, Barbara Brady,35 who was a tireless worker.

Sr Astrid gave evidence that she witnessed Sr Ronja physically punishing a pupil. Sr Ronja did not remember this occasion, although she did remember having to slap the boy once for not attending school and forging notes of excuse. Sr Astrid said in her Garda statement that she recalled that some of the children complained to her that Sr Ronja was cruel to them. She said that, one day, Sr Ronja had a small boy in the convent parlour. She recalled hearing the boy screaming because Sr Ronja was beating him. She said that Sr Ronja was reprimanded for that.

General conclusions 1. The Sisters of Charity were progressive in their approach and unique among Congregations in sending their members to the UK to undergo courses in childcare and, as a result, they split up the Institution into separate units, which worked much better than the large unitary institutions. 2. Notwithstanding the favourable evidence about this Institution, children were severely physically punished and treated unsympathetically by some of the care staff, which continued into later years. Even when complaints were made, no action was taken by management to protect the children. 3. Differential treatment between the units is a major criticism of the Institution. The quality of care depended on which unit the child was placed in. The blue unit was run by Sr Astrid, the Resident Manager, and the girls in it received the most favourable treatment, according to the evidence. This Sister was very kind and there was little or no corporal punishment, and the girls in her group considered themselves, and were considered, to be the lucky ones. 4. No lessons were learned from the Jacobs case at the time, and no proper system of record keeping or monitoring was introduced. In its Submissions, the Congregation did not address the serious implications of this case. The apology referred only to the two convicted abusers and, even then, no Congregational responsibility was acknowledged. 5. Sr Astrid eventually removed Mr Pleece and, later, Mr Tade after complaints were made to her about them. However, she did not face up to what had happened to the children. She failed in her duty to provide accurate information to other bodies and thereby exposed other children to the risk of abuse.