428 entries for Allegations

Br Dennis said that the Provincialate did not know at that stage that he had paid money, and they asked him if the allegations were true: They did and again I more or less denied them. This time they decided, the fact that it was a completely different case, that there was a danger that there was some grounds for the allegations.

Br Dennis said that he had lied, when he was first accused, out of fear: ‘I don’t know what kind of fear it was, but it was out of some kind of fear and a sense of shame; that I didn’t want to reveal that I was a failure or something like that’.

The Christian Brothers’ statement responding to the complainant who made allegations to the Investigation Committee stated that the allegations were not in keeping with the character of the Brother. The complainant’s allegations were expressly not admitted. The statement did not say that Br Dennis had been sent to the Granada Institute by the Congregational Superiors in the mid-1990s in respect of his activities in Artane.

Br Dennis filed two separate statements of response to the complainant’s allegations. The first was a long statement that dealt in detail with the complainant’s allegations, which were denied in full. It commenced by stating that he did not remember him or the incidents that were alleged to have occurred and ‘that the Complainant is both inaccurate and mistaken in much of his recollection’. It did not make any admission and, in the final paragraph, he said ‘I deny any allegations of abuse made against me contained in [the complainant’s] statement which is not directly or indirectly denied or referred to in this response statement’. He did not refer to the admissions that were made to the Gardaí, or to the fact that he had been sent by the Superiors of the Congregation to the Granada Institute in the mid-1990s in respect of his activity in Artane.

His second statement to the Commission was dated a few weeks after the first statement and was the standard denial of abuse, with a legalistic paragraph which stated that he was required to prove a negative in respect of events alleged to have occurred on unspecified dates over 30 years ago.

The complainant confined his allegations of sexual abuse to two Brothers and spoke positively about others.

This complainant’s allegations are, at least in part, confirmed by Br Dennis’s admissions to the Gardaí. The Investigation Committee had the benefit of being able to hear the Brother’s evidence at an oral hearing but, at the time when the complaint was heard, Br Dennis had not yet given evidence and the complainant was subjected to a rigorous cross-examination by the Christian Brothers, without any reference to the information they had. If Br Dennis had not been able to attend and give evidence, valuable information would have been lost to the Inquiry.

This case again raises the issue of the value to the Inquiry of denials by the Congregation in circumstances where it did not make any proper enquiries of the alleged perpetrator. The Congregation’s position was unchanged until the hearing. In the subsequent submission prepared by the Congregation in response to the oral hearings, this case is included in the category of cases not specifically dealt with by the submission: The Congregation’s decision not to refer specifically to such allegations is not to be taken as an admission on its part that such allegations are true or accurate.

Counsel reiterated that a decision was made by the Congregation to send Brothers accused of criminal offences to their own solicitors to be separately represented, that the Congregation did not question these Brothers in relation to the allegations, and that they did not have access to Br Etienne’s statement as prepared through his own solicitors, when the Congregational statement was being prepared. It was a policy decision to have a dividing line in respect of those Brothers who were subject to the possibility of criminal prosecution.

In the circumstances that arose in this and the previous case, the Congregation found itself in an embarrassing position when its rejection of allegations was contradicted by admissions of abuse. This arose because of the view that allegations of abuse against individual Brothers impacted adversely on the Congregation’s charism and that it was therefore appropriate to adopt a position on specific factual issues independent of that of the Brother.

A policy of keeping the individual accused Brother at arm’s length, while at the same time filing a statement of denial in respect of allegations against him, was bound to lead to confusion, misunderstanding and embarrassment for the Congregation, particularly as amending statements were not furnished when new information came to light. Furthermore, the complainant was given the impression that the Congregation would challenge his evidence and he was caused unnecessary anxiety in this regard.

In their response, the Congregation confirmed that a lay person who had been accused by some boys of sexual abuse was told to stay away from the School and the matter was reported to the Gardaí. The statement went on to say: However, this incident does demonstrate that the Congregation took any complaints of sexual abuse very seriously indeed, reported them to the Gardaí and took all necessary steps to prevent the alleged perpetrator from having any contact with the boys in the future.

Two Christian Brothers recalled this incident, one of whom said that it had been his idea to allow the man into the School. He said that the man had offered to help out by driving the boys on outings. He admitted that it was a bad decision on his part to allow this. He believed that the Resident Manager had called in the Gardaí when the allegation was reported to him.

This Brother recalled a further incident, where he believed a man was behaving inappropriately with the boys. He said that this particular man used to visit the School and talk with the boys. He had the nickname of ‘Dirty Hairy Sixpence’. He would put a sixpence into his trousers pocket and invite the boys to retrieve it, which involved them in inappropriate touching of the man. The Brother said that he had received no complaints about this man during his time in Artane, and that it was only now, because of an allegation in which another Brother was referred to as ‘Sixpence’, that he realised what the man had been doing.

A complainant resident in the 1950s alleged that, when supervising the showers, Br Verrill used to require the boys to bend over, to make sure that they were clean. He said that, on a few occasions while doing this, he used to put his hands on the boys’ testicles and say ‘did you like that?’. The complainant said that he got so used to being humiliated that he accepted it and did not regard it as unusual at the time.