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The evidence heard in respect of this Institution focused mainly on sexual abuse, and Br O’Shea was not questioned in detail about the Congregation’s policy with regard to corporal punishment. It is clear from his evidence that the authoritarian atmosphere in Lota was sufficient to prevent children from speaking up about sexual abuse perpetrated by staff. It would also appear from Br O’Shea’s evidence, and from the evidence of witnesses, that corporal punishment was an accepted method of ensuring obedience and control. It would not be credible for a Brother to carry a stick about with him if he never used it.

The Committee did not hear evidence of excessive corporal punishment, except what is outlined above, and there are no records of allegations or investigations into physical abuse of children in Lota.

The three witnesses gave evidence about the sexual abuse they alleged occurred while they were in Lota.

Conall8 entered Lota at the age of about eight, in the late 1950s. He told the Committee he was sexually abused by two different Brothers. One Brother abused him when he was younger and, when he stopped, the other Brother seemed to take over.

When he first arrived in Lota, he was pleased to have been removed from his National School, where the fact that he wrote with his left hand had led to his being frequently punished and made to stand against a wall for hours. He began playing truant and was sent to Lota. He said, ‘I think I felt relief maybe at the beginning, maybe somebody was taking care of me at long last’. He recalled many good times, such as the cycling trips organised by Br Guthrie, and the football and gymnastics.

Br Guthrie, the first Brother to sexually abuse him, was, he said, ‘nice to me at the beginning’. Then, he said, ‘It changed one day ... I cannot remember dates or anything so you will have to forgive me there’. He could not recall the first time, but incidents began to follow a predictable pattern. He described the scene: There was a room between – there was a place where you could wash yourself, shave, wash basins and there was a room – there was actually doors and a kind of a little small corridor between the two and he took me in there.

The activity that took place was mutual masturbation.

This activity then took place regularly over the next three years or so in various parts of the premises where there were secluded nooks. He said that Br Guthrie never tried to do more than these acts of masturbation.

When this evidence was put to him, Br Guthrie agreed that the witness had described the types of activity he had perpetrated over his 32 years in Lota. It was always, he said, ‘To do with the hands’. He had various hiding places from which there was always an alternative means of escape. ‘There had to be a hiding place’, he said, ‘the danger of discovery was ever present’. He explained, ‘you cannot stay too long in the one place. Somebody could come in or pass by or open the door or whatever’.

His hiding places were chosen with every eventuality entering into his calculation. He would not choose the cellar, he said, because: there was no way out except the way you went in. I think finding a suitable place is finding a way out rather than the way you came in, in case somebody comes along. The secretiveness was part of my operation, that we mustn’t be seen or found out or caught or whatever the word is. I wouldn’t pick out a dead end.

He also admitted that, in the dormitory he was in charge of, he would visit ‘beds without removing the child from the bed, that was at night time’.

He added, ‘I cannot deny that I did these things to boys’.

He also spoke about the kind of boy who attracted him. He preferred boys aged ‘11 to 13 or 14’. He was asked if older children attracted him, and he replied: I do not know. Sometimes it could go on for years, you know occasional and now and again there was a sixteen year old but I probably done something to him 2 or 3 years previously. I would not pick out a 16 year old or a 17 year old, not knowing whether they would accept my advances or what. It never occurred to me. I would say my preferred range was 11 to 13 or 14 and it would also have been those that were fairly bright in their eyes and their speech and that kind of thing.

Conall then said that, towards the end of the three years, there was a brief period when both Br Guthrie and Br Dieter were abusing him. He said, ‘At night time I used to be taken into Br Dieter’s room and sometimes during the day I would be with Br Guthrie as well’.

He described the first night that Br Dieter sexually abused him: the dormitory I was in was Br Dieter’s dormitory, room. There was some rooms – There was two dormitories upstairs and there was one I know that did not have a room onto it. That was in the main house now. My bed, there was actually three rows of beds in this dormitory. I remember the first night he came to my bed. As I say, I had been sexually abused by Br Guthrie but I thought maybe the same thing was going to happen here but it was much different altogether. I had oral sex ...