2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

Thomas Pleece completed the course and, on completion, was highly recommended to Sr Astrid, who appointed him with sole responsibility for 16 teenage boys. He was House Parent for Summerhill, one of the group homes in St Joseph’s. According to Sr Úna O’Neill, who gave evidence to the Committee as Superior General of the Congregation: He was the House Parent for Summerhill so he would effectively have been in charge of the house. The manager would have visited as she did fairly regularly all of the houses each day and every evening. She and all concerned thought it was a great achievement to have a man in charge of the boys. In his professional child care capacity it was assumed that he would act as a father figure and role model for them.

At the end of the year, he was offered a job in St Joseph’s and took up the position in September 1972. He explained: I was approached by Sr Astrid and asked if I would be interested in taking over the group of boys in St Joseph’s, that they were going to put all the boys together and once the holidays came in June, that they would be splitting that mixed group up and changing that unit to a boys’ unit and I could take it over as the team leader there, if you like. Mr Pleece said that, although he would have had regular contact with social workers, volunteers and two other Sisters in the Community who worked in the unit, it was Sr Astrid who was most in contact with him: I suppose Sr Astrid was the one that would have had her finger on anything that was going on in the unit. You must remember that Sr Astrid was a mother figure to all of the children in St Joseph’s. The boys, I mean, idolised her. When she came over, like, it was an event every time because they all wanted to speak to her and give her a hug and whatever, you know. She was wonderful with the children.

Richard Evans did part-time work at St Joseph’s five nights per week. He helped the children with sport and homework, and did leisure supervision. He recalled the boys coming to him with allegations that they were being interfered with by Thomas Pleece: It was in the spring of ‘74 ... After a lot of conversation with the boys, a lot of cajoling, they came to me and they were saying that Mr Pleece was abusing them. The way they put it was he was interfering with them when they were in bed at night ... Joe,23 Simon24 and Justin,25 and there was a few more of them. They didn’t want to go to tell anybody because they knew they were going to be punished if they did. They were going to suffer repercussions. Because there was an awful lot of abuse going on that I knew nothing about, physical and sexual, and I knew nothing about it. I wouldn’t have known anything about it at the time.

The boys complained again: After about two, three weeks they came back to me again and they were afraid to go at the start and said they wouldn’t go to report it to anybody, there was no one going to listen to them. I said, ’What’s the harm in going over and telling the Reverend Mother anyway? ... They were complaining about Thomas Pleece interfering with them in bed, their private parts, interfering with them, taking them out of bed and bringing them to his room and that sort of stuff ... I listened to what they were saying and I said, “We’ll have to do something about it. We need to tell somebody this is going on, that it needs to stop”. Even at that stage they still weren’t prepared to, you know, to make it public that they were going to go to somebody in authority ... I think a lot of it was the fact that if Thomas Pleece found out about it they would get more abuse, they would get physical abuse.

Mr Evans was aware that someone in authority needed to be told what was going on: I asked them would they jointly come over to see the Reverend Mother and I would make an appointment for them to meet her. I don’t know what night of the week or anything. Joe was the only one who decided he would come with me. We rang the doorbell over in the main building and I looked for the Reverend Mother and we went into the parlour, Joe, myself and the Reverend Mother. I can remember it so clearly. I sat on the left-hand side, Joe sat in front of me and the Reverend Mother was on my right. I would say for half an hour, three quarters of an hour we talked about the general interference and Joe, as a young lad of that age, was not prepared to turn around and say he’s touching me or feeling my private parts or naming the parts or what he was doing but he was interfering is the way he put it. It was vague enough and probably gives as much as I would give at that stage either.

He said that Sr Astrid listened, but asked no questions about what was being communicated to her: She listened, didn’t say an awful lot. I vaguely recollect that she said, “Well, I’ll look into it”. There was something of that – something close to that ... I think the words she used were that “I will do something about it” or – I don’t know what way it was put but we left saying there was something going to happen. That was my impression leaving.

Mr Evans recalled saying something to Thomas Pleece after he had spoken with Sr Astrid: ... But after the occasion of going seeing the Reverend Mother with Joe I remember saying something – Now, I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I think I said it to Thomas Pleece that if you are interfering with them boys, “You shouldn’t be interfering with them boys”, or “You should leave them alone” or “What the hell is going on” or something of that nature I said to him. His reaction was “What business is it of yours?” or “You are only such and such, what the hell are you going to do about it?” or something like that.

Whatever was said, Thomas Pleece resented Richard Evans after that: Now, Thomas Pleece always had an Alsatian and that was his main threat with everybody, the Alsatian would be put on you or set on you if you opened your mouth or stepped in the wrong place. He did resent me after that. It was quite obvious that he must have known or found out we had gone to the Reverend Mother and he wasn’t happy about it. I don’t think after that occasion that I ever spoke to him after that.

Mr Evans described Sr Astrid as being ‘ferociously calm about the whole thing’. She did not say much or express horror at what she was being told. He was, however, quite sure that something would be done about it. He said: ‘I think I spoke to [another nun] at one stage about it’.

Sr Astrid had maintained that she had no recollection of anyone speaking to her about sexual abuse by Thomas Pleece, consequently Richard Evans was asked to spell out how explicit he had been with her: Well, I originally stated to the Reverend Mother that Thomas Pleece was putting his hands in under the bedclothes in interfering with the boys’ private parts and that Joe was there to make a complaint. He didn’t particularly say that Pleece was catching them, feeling their penises or anything but he was interfering with them under the clothes, their private parts I think is the way he put it. But there was no mention of other than that. From what has transpired since that, there was an awful lot worse than that going on. But that didn’t come out with Sr Astrid that night.

Though the boys had not been explicit even with Richard Evans, he had no doubt that what was happening was wrong and had to be stopped: I knew it was wrong, what was going on. What they had said to me was wrong, it shouldn’t have been going on there.

He went on to say: I didn’t even understand up to the time we had gone to the Reverend Mother the full extent of what they were saying to me. I only knew that interfering with boys in bed was wrong and an older man interfering with boys was wrong. But the full extent of it I definitely would say I didn’t understand.

He was asked whether he had considered going to the Gardaí, and he replied: No, not at that time. Ever since that, ever since I have heard that there was nothing ever happened about it, and the extremes of it and the extent of it, I live with the fact that I made major mistakes myself as an individual of 20, 22 years of age, I should have went, instead of going to the Reverend Mother, I should have went to the Garda, I should have went to the Health Board, I should have went a whole lot of places, but I didn’t.

Mr Pleece gave his own account of the circumstances of his leaving in 1976 to the Investigation Committee: Well, I was just reading Sr Astrid’s account of what happened, but her recollection is a little wrong in some respects. First of all, a problem had arisen in St Joseph’s that I didn’t know about. There had been a complaint made against me. I didn’t know this, but one morning I got a message from Sr Astrid that I wasn’t to send the children to school, that I was to the bring them over to the convent, to the parlour. There was two big rooms in the convent. Which I did, and other members of staff were there as well. There were two other members of staff. So they were all there. All the boys were all put into the one room. I wasn’t told anything of what was happening. The boys were being brought into another room one by one. I was later to learn that – because I was the last person to go in and it was Dr Black 26 that was interviewing each boy and every member of staff.

Thomas Pleece said that Dr Black asked him how he was getting on, and whether he had any problems in the School. He then told Mr Pleece that there had been a complaint against him: He told me that there was a complaint. He didn’t say what the complaint was, he just said there was a complaint and that they were looking into it. He found that he didn’t find any credence in what the lads had said, and everything was fine, you know.