1,173 entries for Abuse Events

Another complainant who gave evidence recalled the arrival of Mr Restin. His memory was that one of the pupils was not well and went to hospital. On his return, Mr Restin was with him. He understood he was a nurse and was there to attend to medical issues. He fell off a bicycle and hurt his testicles and sustained a number of bruises in that area. He went to see Mr Restin who brought him into his cubicle off the dormitory. He applied cream to the affected area. Mr Restin then undressed and told the complainant to masturbate him, which he did. Mr Restin then gave him sweets and told him to keep quiet. The witness said that he had to masturbate Mr Restin in this way on several occasions.

He said that Mr Restin raped him on three occasions. The first time, it happened in a field to which Mr Restin had driven him. The second was in Mr Restin’s cubicle in the dormitory, and the third in an old disused train carriage in the school grounds. He said Mr Restin punched and beat him on the back during one rape. After the last occasion, he did everything in his power to avoid Mr Restin, by staying close to the other boys and his brothers. He said he then built up courage to go to the head nun in the convent, which was separate from the School. He said he told her at the front entrance to the convent that Mr Restin was sexually abusing him. She told him to go back to the School and she would speak to somebody about it. Some time later, Sr Vita called him and accused him of spreading wicked lies and gave him a severe beating. Soon after this, Mr Restin left.

Sr Vita worked in Mount St Joseph’s Industrial School in Passage West from the early 1940s to the early 1980s, and was Resident Manager from the early 1970s until she left. She was a qualified nurse. She is now deceased. Her evidence was taken on commission at a nursing home in Cork. Sr Vita’s recollection was that the first complainant above told her about Mr Restin, who had threatened to do something to him and to a number of younger boys. She said that she asked him whether Mr Restin had threatened to beat him, to which he replied that he had not. She did not pursue the matter further ‘in my innocence and ignorance I suppose’ and said she did not know what the boy could have meant, although she did believe that he had been threatened by Mr Restin. She sent for Mr Restin, but he had left the Institution by then. She never saw him again. She said that she phoned Cappoquin looking for him but he was not there. In a statement made to the Gardaí she said: After [the complainant] had told me about [Mr Restin] I tried to contact him in Cappoquin. I wanted to talk with him to find out if it was true or false what [the complainant] had said. I did not get to speak with him, I left a message for him to contact me, but he did not.

Mr Restin thought that he abused three boys in Cappoquin. He described the method he used to get to know the child. He said he never used threats and just became friendly with them and then ‘they would literally do what you want’. He gave rewards such as sweets but rarely gave money. He said he would stop if the boys wanted him to and denied that he ever forced them.

A former resident said that Mr Restin began to abuse him when he was aged 10. The abuse started when Mr Restin came into his dormitory one night, woke him and brought him to his bedroom. Mr Restin fondled his genitals and made the boy do the same to him. On another occasion, when Mr Restin was giving injections, he again molested the boy. He told the boy that, if he did not tell anyone, he would get a pair of roller skates. Mr Restin continued to abuse the boy in this way until his sudden departure from the School.

Another witness said he was sexually abused by Mr Restin in the same way on one occasion. He remembered being called into Mr Restin’s office and told to take down his trousers, whereupon Mr Restin fondled his genitals. He was under the impression that Mr Restin was a doctor in Cappoquin. He thought he was aged around six or seven when this occurred.

One other witness gave evidence that, although he himself was not abused by Mr Restin, he remembered him. There was a lot of talk amongst the boys about his giving injections, touching bottoms and things like that, but he never touched him. He was close to one of the Sisters and thought Mr Restin would have been afraid he would talk. He never spoke to the Sisters about what he heard.

Sr Viviana worked in Cappoquin at the same time as Mr Restin. He was a nurse and, to her recollection, had a lot to do with the boys. He drove a bus and brought children to the swimming pool. She said that, as a nurse, he would have taken care of their health. She did not recall him giving injections, but there was a room in Cappoquin that was called the surgery, and she often met him coming in and out of there. She said she was always uneasy about Mr Restin, although was not specific as to why: ‘There was something about the man that I didn’t tune in to’.

Sr Violetta28 or Sr Carina selected the boys who were to spend the weekend. Typically, they would be picked up at the School by one of the guests staying in the Abbey, as Br Cosimo did not drive at the time. They would have their tea, play table tennis or board games, and then retire to bed at around 8.30 pm. The boys usually came in the winter months, when the guesthouse was less busy. Br Cosimo would take them for long walks, and he acquired toys and a bicycle for them. None of the other monks had any involvement with the children, as it was considered to be his project and therefore was his responsibility.

It appears that from the beginning other members of the Community were unhappy with the presence of young, boisterous and sometimes raucous boys roaming around the Abbey, unsettling the quiet, monastic atmosphere. Br Cosimo had a bedroom in the guesthouse. He said that he sometimes slept on a mattress on the floor of the bedroom where the boys slept if they were unsettled. He also agreed that he would lie on their beds to talk to them and settle them down at night. As far as he could remember it was always on the outside of the covers. If the boys were making noise or messing he would sometimes have to come from his own bedroom to settle them down and he would be dressed in either his habit or his pyjamas. He never touched them inappropriately and any touching was inadvertent and had no sexual element. He was aware that some of the boys who visited were emotionally disturbed and craved attention. It would have been usual for him to give the children a cuddle or a kiss on the cheek or forehead when they arrived in Melleray and when they left. He had no sense of awareness at the time that any of his actions were inappropriate or open to misinterpretation by the boys.

Sr Viviana was in charge of the group home known as Group Home B and said that she had had no concerns about Br Cosimo and the children until the issue was raised in public in 1996. In 1995 she had been interviewed by Sr Isabella in relation to the recollections of her time in Cappoquin. Sr Isabella kept notes of her interview and in those notes a suggestion was made that Sr Viviana had in fact some concerns about Br Cosimo at the time, enough concern to warrant her interviewing the boys and visiting Melleray Abbey to speak with a senior member of the community with whom she was friendly. When she was reminded about this she gave a vague account of what transpired. It appears that some time in 1974, one or more of the lay staff in the group home mentioned to her that the children were spending a bit of time with Br Cosimo and wondered if this was okay. She was satisfied that Sr Violetta and Sr Carina were happy but she agreed that the lay staff were uneasy about the boys going out. She said that when the concerns of the lay staff were expressed she had no sense of this having anything to do with sex. She interviewed the boys and talked about it and she said she personally felt there was nothing in it. The senior member of the community was a friend of hers and she used to talk to him. She remembered going to see him and expressing a concern that Br Cosimo was taking the boys and asked him what did he think. He told her that Br Cosimo was a ‘man’s man’ and she read nothing more into that other than that he was not very friendly with women. She said she thought no more about it. She does not recall when in 1974 this happened and had no recollection if there was any connection between her conversation and the visits of the boys being brought to an end in February 1975.

The House Parent, Ms Faughnan30 suspected at first that David was beginning to smoke and drink, but he denied it when confronted by her. She decided to keep a close eye on him. When she was cleaning his room, she discovered money, more than he should have had. He told her he got it from an employee of the hotel and it transpired, when she further questioned him, that he was being sexually abused in return for money.

The Resident Manager, Sr Callida, was away for the weekend when the boy revealed this to her. Ms Faughnan went straight to the Gardaí but they would not formally take a statement in the absence of the Resident Manager, who was David’s legal guardian. The House Parent then went to the hotel and confronted the employee, who admitted the abuse. She told him that she had spoken to the Gardaí and that he should leave his job, as she did not feel that the boy should have to leave because of his actions. She then contacted David’s social worker from the South Eastern Health Board and attended a meeting with the Health Board later. At that meeting, she was told that, as she had no witness to her conversation with the employee, nothing could be done. She did not feel she got any support from her superiors, and got the sense that she had overstepped her boundaries by the action she had taken. The following day, she observed that David was not at work and she was relieved that he had been kept at home. He approached her and said that he was not going to take the matter any further and was not pursuing it with the Gardaí. She questioned him as to why, and he told her he just did not want to. She noticed that he had a new radio. He told her that Sr Callida had given him a new radio and a new bicycle.

A Garda investigation into Cappoquin uncovered serious sexual abuse of younger boys by some older boys. One of the perpetrators admitted sexually abusing boys there. He said that he himself had been abused whilst in care and that, when he was moved to Cappoquin, he knew no better. In his statement, he admitted abusing a pupil whilst there, and this pupil gave evidence to the Investigation Committee, where he described how he had been subjected to sexual assault, including rape, by older boys in Cappoquin. When one of these boys beat his brother badly, he stopped the beating by threatening to tell the Resident Manager what was happening. The sexual abuse stopped after he threatened to tell. This witness also told the Investigation Committee that he observed older boys taking younger boys into their beds at night and he suspected what was going on.

Sr Margaret Casey confirmed that corporal punishment was a feature of life in Clifden, and she stated that it was the norm at the time. The principal form of punishment was slapping, administered by hand, cane, flat stick or ruler, usually by the Sister on duty. She found no evidence of a policy under which children were sent to the Resident Manager or other senior figures for the administration of punishment, and conceded that punishments were carried out in the presence of other children, usually on the spot. She referred to the punishment book mentioned above, and confirmed it was not maintained after 1956 and was general in nature.