1,173 entries for Abuse Events

This witness described feelings of guilt mixed with an awareness of being special. He got special privileges and favours from the Brother that were resented by other boys and which led to his being bullied ‘slightly’. The Brother was good to him at times but he was still troubled: I said at the beginning I felt special, that I was getting special treatment ... And until it got rough on that occasion, I still felt I was quite special.

Br Telfour cited an incident he witnessed soon after his arrival in the school and which involved Br Algrenon, a member of staff during the mid-1960s. He wanted to speak to Br Algrenon so he went up to his [Br Algrenon’s] room. However, instead of finding Br Algrenon he found a boy washing his penis at Br Algrenon’s wash basin. Br Telfour did not ask the boy why he was doing it. He told the Committee: ‘I presumed he was injured and maybe too embarrassed to go into the nurse or whatever’. The boy told him he was washing it on Br Algrenon’s instruction. Br Telfour acted as if nothing strange had happened and did not enquire any further into the matter.

It is hard to understand how the sight that met Br Telfour when he opened the door of a fellow Brother’s private bedroom did not make him suspicious. It is, of course, possible that this incident may not be related to sexual activity between the Brother and the boy but it should have undoubtedly raised a concern. He testified to the Committee that he did not check with Br Algrenon, as it was his first year in the place and he did not know how to handle the situation: ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t know how to handle this. It was my first year there. I wasn’t long into the place‘.

The Congregation files show that he was accused of sexual abuse in another school in which he worked after his period in Letterfrack. In 1977 a boy in a Christian Brothers day school alleged that Br Anatole had asked him to rub oil on his back and brought him to a room where he exposed himself and gave the boy 20 pence. The boy told his mother who told a Brother in the School. He promised to look into the matter. Time passed and, when the mother enquired as to the position, she discovered that nothing had been done. She was very angry and called to see the Superior, who interviewed the boy in the presence of his mother and, having elicited the details, he contacted his own authorities immediately.

He said that the abuse generally took place in his bedroom or the wash hall, as he was careful to avoid detection and generally abused children when the other Brothers were away or unlikely to discover him in the act. He regularly used the guise of wrestling with the boys in order to disguise the actual nature of what he was engaged in. He said that he would often initiate the abuse by asking the boys whether they wanted to wrestle. He said that boys would often come to him and ask to wrestle because they wanted the treats he would give them after he had abused them. During these wrestling matches, both he and the boy would be in swimming togs and he would press up against the boy until he, Br Anatole, ejaculated. He felt that the pretence of a wrestling match ‘was an innocuous way of getting some kind of physical contact with another human being’, which would result in an ejaculation.

The abuse did not always take the form of a surreptitious wrestling bout. He used to take one boy, who was 13 or 14 at the time, to his room at night, ostensibly to teach him to read but really to abuse him. He said that the dormitory Brother always gave permission, a matter that Br Iven denied in his evidence. Br Anatole said that he would push up against the boy from behind until he ejaculated. It would normally take between five and ten minutes and, when he was finished with him, he would send him back alone.

In a letter to the Superior General, the Provincial in Salthill elaborated on the allegation. A child awoke to find someone with his hand inside his pyjamas. Although it was dark the boy identified the person as Br Dacian by his voice and size. Br Dacian admitted doing this, but offered the defence that he was checking to see if the child, who was a known bed-wetter, had wet his bed. The Provincial continued, ‘It is apparent that this does not explain everything’. A letter sent three days later to the Superior of the School noted that he was sorry for the lapse of Br Dacian and that all the members of the Council thought that a change was necessary for him, as ‘no doubt some of the boys know of this lapse’.

One witness made allegations against a Br Francois who was in charge of a dormitory in Letterfrack. He described getting a severe beating from this Brother after being ordered out of bed and into the wash hall. He was required to lift his night shirt and ‘get it on the bare ... You would suffer from it and it would be violent ... I got it pretty violent down there ... I think I was bleeding’.

After the beating he was brought into the Brother’s bedroom: He didn’t let me into my dormitory so he took me through the other dormitory down to his room ... The room where he slept, yes. The best way to describe it is he treated my sore bottom, dressed it or whatever.

When asked whether anything else happened, he stated: He fondled me, made me put my hand down his pants or in, around his privates and made me masturbate him ... He was getting excited and I had my nightshirt and he came up behind me and ejaculated around my back. Not around my bottom but up around my back. He held me in close to him and ejaculated around my back.

This witness also alleged fondling and touching by this Brother in the classroom and during singing class when the boys would all be standing: ... and lots of times it happened up in the choir, he would be passing along and hand under the leg of your pants and feel your penis or that. Rubbing against you and holding you while you are still singing “all eyes up to the front”. That’s the way it went.

This witness also made allegations against Br Andre.55 He said that Br Andre would question boys individually whether they had any impure thoughts. He said that, while being questioned by Br Andre, he was also fondled by him: Impure thoughts, that was the key thing, impure thoughts. That covered everything. “Do you have impure thoughts at night?” I said, “No, I don’t have anything like that”. . I probably said something like that. He was talking away and friendly enough. He is sitting down like this and he has you standing next to him there (indicating). In the course of the conversation with him, in the talking with him, he is feeling down towards my penis and that. The conversation is kept going and he said, “Are you telling me the truth, are you telling me the truth, what’s happening to you now?” I was getting stiff and hard around the penis so he said, “There is the proof now, you are not telling me the whole truth”. That was proof that I wasn’t telling the truth and you would have to recant and say, well you did get some kind of impure thoughts at night or whatever, something along those lines. He told me then to, “Remove your pants down, take down your pants, now”. I done that. I took off my pants. Then he would have me leaning over his lap, give me a little few slaps on the bottom. He would be talking to me about impure thoughts and asking me what kind of impure thoughts and he was probing my bottom with his finger, probing me internally in the bottom. I was aware also that while he was doing some of this he was playing – what I accept now that what he was doing was he was playing with himself under his cassock or under his clothes. And that’s what happened there.

The witness was certain that this Brother’s name was Andre, but he was unsure whether he was a full-time Brother or a relief Brother. Br Sorel said that this Brother was well known for approaching boys and asking them about sex: He had that reputation, Br Andre, of doing that particular thing, of talking about the facts of life, so I presume that the lads themselves must have told him ... It was a normal thing even before he came to Letterfrack, he was well known amongst the Brothers in Scoil Mhuire, Marino for doing the same thing in class ... Talking about the facts of life. It was a kind of a joke amongst us, “he is at it again” ... We thought it was unnecessary. That’s what we thought, we thought it was unnecessary. Fellows – normal fellow going to school get these facts of life from their parents. That’s how we looked upon it and as a result we were maybe cynical about it.

1.Sexual abuse by Brothers was a chronic problem in Letterfrack. Brothers who served there included firstly those who had previously been guilty of sexual abuse of boys, secondly those whose abuse was discovered while they worked in that institution 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 approximately two-thirds of the relevant period, there was at least one such abuser working there. (b) For almost one-third of the years there were at least two abusers present. (c) There were three abusers present in the institution during at least four different years. 2.As a matter of probability, more sexual abuse took place than was recorded in the documents or the oral testimony, but it is impossible to ascertain the full extent of such abuse. The reasons for this deduction include: Two Brothers committed long-term abuse of boys over separate periods of 14 years each. The fact that abuse could continue for so long is a major indictment of the institution. It is unlikely that in a small, closed Community persistent sexual abuse involving many victims could happen over such a length of time without causing suspicion or inquiry on the part of the other Brothers in the Community. If no suspicions were raised it suggests that relations between Brothers and boys were so inadequate, complaints could not be made. Other offenders could have been operating undetected in Letterfrack at the same time as the documented abusers notwithstanding the absence of complaint or documentary information. Most of the victims of the two Brothers who were convicted and sentenced did not come to the Committee to complain. It follows that more abuse happened than was the subject of complaints to the Investigation Committee. Brothers did not report suspicions about their colleagues. Reasons for under-reporting by boys were fear of repercussions, fear of being disbelieved, lack of faith that there would be a proper inquiry, feelings of shame and embarrassment, and the fact that sexual abuse is difficult for victims to corroborate or verify. Response 1.The Congregation did not properly investigate allegations of sexual abuse of boys by Brothers. 2.The Congregation knew that Brothers who sexually abused boys were a continuing danger. It was therefore an act of reckless disregard to send known abusers to any industrial school and, in particular, one as remote and isolated as Letterfrack. 3.The manner in which sexually abusing Brothers were dealt with is indicative of a policy of protecting the Brothers, the Community and the Congregation at the expense of the victims. 4.There was no explanation as to how Brothers who abused boys could have gone undetected in Letterfrack for so many years.

Another Brother said that, while he never actually witnessed any sexual contact between the boys, he did recall hearing Br Anatole giving the boys a lecture about the Devil’s work, which he presumed was peer abuse. He said that he often saw beds pulled together when he came in to wake the boys up but he never suspected anything untoward. He remembered Br Malleville telling him to be careful of one boy who was coming from Artane because he was a homosexual. He thinks in retrospect that he was telling him to make sure that boy wouldn’t be at the other boys. He did recall an incident where a boy approached him and told him that two boys were engaging in sexual activity.