2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

Sr Astrid was asked how often she had spoken to Thomas Pleece about being too rough with the children before she had dismissed him. She said it happened a few times: You see I’d have to go over to him when the lads were run away or anything and they’d be coming to me. I’d have to go over and say " ... there is something wrong with this the lads shouldn’t be afraid of you and you shouldn’t be beating them". Then eventually he’d take them back, sure some of them wouldn’t even go back I would have to take them down to one of the houses. One particular lad, he said "I won’t go back to him now, Sister". I said, "all right, sure come on for a night or two but it will be harder on you then when you do go back." But after a few days talking to him and that I’d take him back.

In 1979, less than three years after Mr Pleece had been dispatched from St Joseph’s, a letter was sent to Sr Astrid by the Department of Education looking for a reference. It said: I wish to refer to Mr. Thomas Pleece, who has been offered a post as Housemaster in Scoil Ard Mhuire, Lusk, Co Dublin. Mr. Pleece has claimed service in your residential home from 1972 to 1976. Perhaps you would be good enough to state; 1. the nature of the post occupied by Mr. Pleece; 2. whether service was full-time and satisfactory; 3. the first and last date of service.

Sr Astrid replied by stating that Thomas Pleece had worked in St Joseph’s as a House Parent from 1972 until 1976. Nothing in her reply indicated any difficulty with Mr Pleece, in spite of the clear invitation at 2 above to express any reservations she might have. She said: I suppose one thing I wasn’t good at writing letters myself, but I don’t know why I wrote such a short note; that I didn’t say he wasn’t satisfactory.

She said that she would have said on the telephone that she would not have had Thomas Pleece back in St Joseph’s: I did. I had told him on the phone you see, that was the trouble. They rang me up, you know, for a reference ... Well the information I gave on the telephone, that I wouldn’t employ, re-admit Thomas Pleece or that I wouldn’t have him.

She went on to say: I remember getting phone calls from different places where Thomas Pleece applied when he left St Joseph’s. I know the only answer I ever gave was "I wouldn’t have Thomas Pleece back in St [Joseph’s]” – or I wouldn’t reply.

Sr Astrid said: When Thomas Pleece was gone I immediately rang the Department. I told Mr. Granville that I had dismissed Thomas Pleece and would he kindly come down to help me to put an ad in the paper and have the right salary. He came down, we wrote the ad, I posted it to the paper. Then when the people applied, came in, I told him that we had so many, but there was only one qualified person. I said "would you come down to interview if he [is] a state qualified person?" And he did. He came down to the parlour and the two of us interviewed Peter Tade.

In the course of her evidence, Sr Astrid was shown a copy of Donal Kavanagh’s letter of resignation, which was written in January 1977. She was asked what her understanding of that letter had been. She told the Committee that she was glad when she got Mr Kavanagh’s letter that he was leaving and she explained to the Committee that she had not really read his letter properly at the time – she believed he had not written it himself: I admit I didn’t read the letter properly. I had never got a complaint from anybody. None of the boys said anything about Peter Tade to me.

Sr Astrid appeared to take a back seat in the questioning of Peter Tade. She said that the words ‘sex abuse’ were not used, but that Tade admitted to improper behaviour: When [the Garda] was questioning him. Whatever he was saying to – I took it that there was something improper going on. He didn’t use the word sex abuse ...

She said all the questioning was about the one incident: It was all about that incident. But that incident didn’t seem very serious really ... It didn’t. The little boy had a sore bottom or something and he looked at it.

Peter Tade used to take Richard,29 who was a boy in care in St Joseph’s, and Gerry on fishing trips and for spins in his car. Peter Tade took photographs of them. The Garda described what happened: the circumstances were that Peter Tade had taken photographs of Richard and Gerry. He used to take them fishing and took them for spins in his car. But Gerry’s mother discovered that Peter Tade’s face, he was in one of the photographs, had been scratched and pins driven through it and she suspected something was wrong. She spoke to him and he told her that Peter Tade did something to him. As far as I recall it was a bank holiday weekend and Peter Tade was off, he was on leave and he was in Dublin, Sr Astrid said she had to get rid of him or ask him to leave. I came to Dublin with her – or I came to Dublin and I met her in Dublin.

When Peter Tade was sentenced, the Sister of Charity issued a statement as follows: the first complaint we received about Peter Tade concerning sexual abuse was made on a weekend in June, 1977, when Peter Tade was away in Dublin. One of the children made a specific complaint of abuse against him to the sister in charge, she immediately called in a local Garda who was involved with St. Joseph’s in a voluntary capacity and they both travelled to Dublin to confront Peter Tade. This confrontation resulted in his immediate dismissal. Peter Tade never returned to St. Joseph’s.

A third man, however, had been told about sexual abuse in the School. Patrick McGovern30 helped out in St Joseph’s on a voluntary basis with the entertainment in the School. He had a fair amount of contact with the School, and would call in and play music for the children. In or around 1974, a friend of his asked him to meet his daughter who was working in the School. She said to him that one of the boys was being molested in bed in the School. He understood that it was sexual molestation. He called to the convent and told Sr Wilma about this: I did, I called to the convent. It was dark, miserable weather, I can remember it well, being on the front step of the convent, there was a light over the door, it was really Dickensian, I knocked on the door and Sr Wilma came out. I knew her more than I knew the other nuns so I was glad it was her that answered the door.

He continued: I said to you her, I said I have had a bad complaint, and she said – well bad complaints to her would be a daily thing, she would have to hear it first before she’d agree it was bad. So I said to her I have a report that there is a boy being molested, and she just took a step back and said, [Patrick] you can, as sure as you are standing there, that’s not the word she used, it doesn’t happen. They have a habit of – or there is a history there of boys and girls making up stories to gain attention. I said is that the way it is? She said that’s the way it is. So I said thanks very much, and I went back to the person, the young girl I spoke to earlier on and said nothing is going to be done, it is not going do be followed through, because we know now there was reason to follow it through.

He said that, after speaking with Sr Wilma, he was satisfied that nothing further would be done about the complaint: No, she made it plain to me that nothing was going on. So I respected her a great deal, I have to say that at that stage, and I was happy that what she was saying was exactly how things were, that there was nothing going on. It was only when evidence came up later that I was annoyed that I didn’t do more

In her interview with the Gardaí in December 1995, she stated: ‘I picked up on it that he might have been sexually abusing them as well’. In her evidence to the Commission, Sr Wilma corrected that statement. She said she made a mistake in her Garda statement, and that she could not possibly have known about sexual abuse back in 1970 when Donal Kavanagh spoke to her. She did know about incest and men interfering with girls, but she knew nothing about men interfering with boys. She also suggested in her evidence that her statement to the Gardaí was somewhat informal, and not as formal as the signed document would suggest. It took place in her solicitor’s office.