1,173 entries for Abuse Events

The only action by the school management was to decide that staff would monitor the situation closely. The parents of the boys were notified six weeks after the incident had taken place. Both boys, during the screening process which came about as a result of the mid-1990s investigation were referred for assessment to the St Clare’s unit. The boy who was the instigator in this incident was himself the victim of abuse in another case, which may alone or with other episodes have accounted for his sexualised behaviour at such a young age. The case is another illustration of the cycle of abuse that sometimes occurred, whereby a victim copied what had happened to him by doing it to another child.

1.The fact that such a serious problem of sexual abuse among boys was only uncovered when the Health Board became involved in the Moore investigation, and boys were encouraged to speak in a confidential and safe environment, has serious implications. It is probable that sexual activity was ignored or tolerated for some considerable time before the Health Board intervened. Complaints were dismissed or ignored and no attempt was made to protect children from predatory behaviour. 2.The extent of the problem as revealed by the Health Board investigation should have triggered a full-scale inquiry on the part of the management as to how children could have been subjected to such abuse whilst in their care. In fact, it appears that staff were not even properly informed of the ongoing investigations, and there is no evidence that there was any urgency about putting safeguards in place to prevent future occurrences. 3.Despite numerous reported incidents of peer abuse in the early 1990s involving the same boys, the school management did not undertake an investigation into the residential units. 4.The attitude of management displayed ignorance on how children should be protected whilst in their care. Incidents of peer abuse were treated as one-off events and did not lead to any systemic changes that would make abuse more difficult for the perpetrators and easier for victims to report. 5.The amount of sexual activity amongst the pupils suggests that they were not given adequate education or training about the social rules that control normal sexual behaviour.

General conclusions 1. St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys in Cabra was a well-equipped school that promised the best possible care and education to boys who were deaf or who had hearing difficulties. 2. Cabra did not deliver on its promises. It failed to provide a safe or secure environment for the children it purported to protect. It operated a system of corporal punishment that was excessive and capricious and reliant on the discretion of individual teachers. Some of these teachers were harsh and cruel towards the boys, and there was no mechanism for addressing complaints. Children were fearful and helpless in the face of management failure to put controls in place. 3. The management in Cabra failed to protect children from sexual abuse by staff. When complaints were made, they were not believed or ignored or dealt with inadequately. The level and extent of abuse perpetrated by one lay worker, as late as the 1990s, was an indication of the lack of any proper safeguards. 4. Cabra offered little protection to younger boys from sexual abuse by older boys. The level of peer abuse uncovered by the Health Board investigation in the mid-1990s was disturbing. The investigation also revealed a pattern of physical and emotional bullying that made Cabra a very frightening place for children who were learning to overcome hearing difficulties. 5. In caring for children, the provision of good facilities is no substitute for an environment that protects and cherishes the individual child. Swimming pools and recreation halls are of little value if children are frightened, bullied and abused. Many of the problems in Cabra could have been alleviated by a change in attitude towards the children. Although professional training would have undoubtedly helped, a truly self-critical approach by management that was not defensive in the face of criticism would have brought about many of the necessary changes.

From the evidence, it emerged that corporal punishment was administered in three different ways, all of which breached the rules and regulations for corporal punishment in residential schools. These were: 1.The form of punishment known as a flogging. 2.Punches, slaps, kicks or blows with an available implement such as a hurley, a stick or, in the case of one particular Brother, a garden hose and a spade. These blows were given as immediate chastisement for aberrant behaviour or for disobedience and minor insolence. Some staff members were singled out as resorting to such punishment more frequently and harshly than others. 3.Blows with a strap for behaviour warranting less serious punishment.

In the same year, Dr McCabe, the Department of Education’s Medical Inspector, wrote about the use of flogging in Daingean: “Flogging” ... consists in taking the offender into a small room, removing his pants and administering 5 or 6 strokes on the bare posterior with a leather strap which is quite flexible about 1” wide and 1 yard long (It resembles a strap used to put around a suitcase) The punishment is administered by the disciplinarian ... who is a very understanding patient man and always offers an excuse in defence of a boy if at all possible.

This Brother was a valuable independent witness, because he gave an account of a flogging separate from the version given by the boys and by the records. His account was not in conflict with the written descriptions in the discovered documents as outlined above. Both agreed on the following: (1)Blows were with a leather strap on the bare back or buttocks. (2)The boy would be kneeling. (3)The disciplinarian would administer the blows. (4)On some occasions, at least two Brothers were present. (5)The office, or a small room, or the stairs by the dormitory were used. (6)The procedure engendered fear. Although this Brother had been in Daingean ‘a few years’, he found the sight of the boy being flogged an experience that ‘horrified’ him.

Fr Luca, who was Resident Manager from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, added to this picture. He wrote in his Statement to the Committee: I know you have heard it said at times that they were stripped, well there weren’t stripped but they might have to let down their pants and get it on the backside ... ... I would have to say I don’t know how many slaps they had. I never saw the boys being punished while I was there. I didn’t regard it as part of my duty to supervise that. I know that the boys were punished and I know it was left to the prefect to decide what the punishment would be for the particular, well I don’t like to call it crime, misdemeanour. It was generally at the end of the day, there would always have to be two there, never one. I suppose, there would have to be a person available. It seemed to be the tradition which was never questioned. It was never done during the day as far as I know. Nobody ever punished any boy except the prefect ... The place wasn’t in view. As far as I know, the punishment was always performed in the washroom. The stairs went from the washroom up to the dormitory. Now, I am sure they could hear the boys, they would know anyway, they knew what the score was.

One witness, who was there in the early 1940s, gave the following graphic account: this Br [Jaime9] was the man that did the flogging. He had a title of a prefect or something ... What flogged meant was that you got down – you took off your trousers and you got down on your knees and you went forward on the front and he flogged you on the bare buttocks.

He went on: I was flogged four times and the first time was when I was three or four months there and a chap ... tried to bully me. I hit back, it was only about two punches. I was reported and got flogged.

This witness recalled another occasion when he received a flogging because he removed his trousers before getting into bed, which he was not supposed to do as it was associated with ‘being immodest’. He took his trousers off before getting into bed as they ‘were always dirty with either cement and the blankets weren’t changed only every two or three months anyway or the sheets’. He added that ‘there wasn’t any kind of display’, and for that he got four lashes of the strap.

He spoke of another flogging: at the table there was some kind of a clothy thing on the table, not a tablecloth, you would scrape it off with your knife onto the plate, you would scrape the knife and my knife broke, it was that type of knife that the handle would fall off it. I was flogged for that. That could happen to anybody. That wasn’t a terrible thing, that wasn’t going to upset the run of the school or anything like that.

He recalled the fourth time he was flogged: the man that I was labouring to, he was spreading hard wall plaster and we were supplying him with the plaster. We weren’t very good builders labourers, we weren’t good at mixing the plaster ... it would get hard and he threw the thing down on top of me. There was a bit of blood from my head. I called him a name, he reported me and I got flogged for that.

Another witness, there in the late 1960s, gave the following account: [The Brothers], they had me on the steps, I got into a fight or something, they had this belt which was about a metre long ... You would go to bed and then you were called out of bed, you wore of flimsy sort of nighty which was down to your ankles. You weren’t allowed to wear anything else underneath that. You were brought to the bottom of the stairs where the dormitory was, marble stairs. You would kneel on the stairs. There was me and another fellow ... I remember him wetting on the floor because he was – there were three of us actually ... While they were doing this other guy, you would stand and watch them doing the guy in front of you. He would be on all fours. [One Brother] would stand on your hands and you would be kneeling down and as flimsy as the cotton night thing was that was lifted ... Up to your waist ... Then you would get – I think I had about six on that occasion ... I am almost sure after you had been done, you came back, (to bed) it was like a rota, like a line. I remember [ ... ] wetting himself on the floor next to me, I can remember it, it was steamy and smelly, I was concentrating more on that, I don’t know why. These things stick in your mind when you are a kid.

Another witness said: They used to slap at the end of the stairs in the evening, you would be in the dormitory, if you were to be punished that’s where they punished you, they bring you down to the stairs and the echo of the screams would be for the benefit of everybody in the dormitories.

He later added: You just had a fear. You were going down to the office, you were called down, you knew what was going to happen to you. It was the whole ritual of it ... You were so scared before you even got a slap ...