2,143 entries for Witness Testimony
BackSeventeen (17) of the 24 witnesses reported having received counselling to help them deal with these and other issues. Many witnesses commented that access to counselling has only been available to them in recent years, with generally positive effects. Witnesses also remarked they became more aware of their need for help to deal with their past experiences as they got older, while stating it was often difficult to take the first step I just completely suppressed everything, had forgotten everything... then everything started coming back to me. I never had counselling, I never had anyone to talk to... I was threatening for some time that I was going to do something... (about it)... I needed to get my head sorted out... and I suppose I didn’t want to face up to it either at the same time.
With the exception of a small number of instances where social workers were reported to have been involved in supervising foster placements in more recent years, the Committee heard consistent reports of widespread neglect of witnesses’ physical, emotional and developmental needs while placed in foster care. This neglect was compounded by a lack of assistance and support in the process of leaving care. When I was 15 I thought someone, other than...foster mother...would plan my life, or say “we’d get you a decent job” or say “this is what happens now”...
Family of origin, place of birth and current residence details will be differentiated by gender when there are notable differences. Among the witnesses who reported abuse in hospitals, eight were born in Dublin and, of the remaining 22 witnesses, 21 were from 15 other counties in Ireland and one was born outside the State. All 31 witnesses reported that they came from two-parent households, although at the time of admission six witnesses reported that their parents were either widowed or had separated.
Witnesses reported their parents’ occupational status as shown in Table 88:1<br><table><colgroup><col></col><col></col><col></col><col></col></colgroup><thead><tr><th><strong>Occupational status</strong></th>
 <th><strong>Males</strong></th>
 <th><strong>Females</strong></th>
 <th><strong>Total witnesses</strong></th>
 </tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Professional worker</td>
 <td> 0</td>
 <td> 1</td>
 <td> 1</td>
 </tr><tr><td>Managerial and technical</td>
 <td> 1</td>
 <td> 1</td>
 <td> 2</td>
 </tr><tr><td>Non-manual</td>
 <td> 0</td>
 <td> 1</td>
 <td> 1</td>
 </tr><tr><td>Skilled manual</td>
 <td> 2</td>
 <td> 2</td>
 <td> 4</td>
 </tr><tr><td>Semi-skilled</td>
 <td> 1</td>
 <td> 2</td>
 <td> 3</td>
 </tr><tr><td>Unskilled</td>
 <td>10</td>
 <td> 5</td>
 <td>15</td>
 </tr><tr><td>Unavailable</td>
 <td> 2</td>
 <td> 3</td>
 <td> 5</td>
 </tr><tr><td><strong>Total</strong></td>
 <td><strong>16</strong></td>
 <td><strong>15</strong></td>
 <td><strong>31</strong></td>
 </tr></tbody></table>
Other witnesses who were subjected to routine and painful physical interventions including injections, joint manipulation and surgery, reported being punished if they resisted or objected to the treatments. Being unable to move independently created particular difficulties in these circumstances. I couldn’t run away, but I could hide under the bed in the corner, where they couldn’t get at me. They used to have to beat me out with a stick. • In all the time there I never remember getting a painkiller, the nuns used have this thing about pain where they’d believe you could be redeemed through pain. ... I remember a lot of pain, you didn’t complain because you knew you weren’t going to get anything for it, you’d grin and bear it, that’s the way it was.
Witnesses reported being punished for bed-wetting by having wet sheets draped over their heads, being left lying in wet sheets for long periods, and left sitting on bedpans, they believed, to avoid having to change wet or soiled sheets. Two (2) witnesses reported being forced to kneel or sit partially clothed against a wall with their arms extended ‘for hours’ as a punishment for bed-wetting. Another witness reported being smacked on his bared bottom in front of adult male patients on the ward where he was the only child. All the kids were frightened of calling on the nurses...we were not allowed out of bed on our own, we couldn’t put a foot out of bed...there were terrible punishments, if you wee’d ... (urinated)... the bed, they made you remove the jacket of your pyjamas and they made you kneel against this wall, supplicate against this white clinical wall with your arms in the air until they decided it was time to go back to bed. If you defecated you lost your top and bottom and you’d be naked, kneeling against this wall ... with your hands above your head.
Six (6) of the reports of sexual abuse were single incidents, including four accounts of rape or penetrative assault. The witnesses described being confronted in their beds by men they did not recognise who motioned to them to keep quiet while they digitally penetrated and/or fondled their breasts or genitals. I was awakened by this guy and he was half into the bed, he was at me down there... (genital area) ...I tried to move up in the bed and he punched me pretty hard around the body. I kept quiet then. I don’t know how long he was there...I don’t know who it was, there was no word spoken at all...distressed ...I found that the worst of all, I can see him looking at me. I thought he had a short white coat on...I couldn’t be sure...any doctor who ever came in there... (to the hospital)... had a longish coat... I was wishing I could meet him, and if I had a shotgun...
There were three male staff members identified by name as sexually abusive by witnesses, two of whom were reported to have been medical doctors, and a third was described as a hospital orderly. He ... (named doctor)... proceeded to open my trousers and pulled me pants down to me knees and started to masturbate me and ask me questions, “when did I last have sex with a girl?” ... And then he asked me to stand up and turned me around and ...witness described anal penetration....
Five (5) of the eight hospitals about which the Committee heard reports of neglect were adult hospitals or county homes to which witnesses were admitted as children, and where, as one witness remarked: ‘there was no one there to protect me, no one to look after me’. They reported that they had no contact with other children and no provision was made to address their childhood fears and anxieties. One witness gave the following account of his transfer to a psychiatric hospital when he was 14 years old: The nuns sent me into a mental home for about 2 years. ... I had a fight with one of the lads ... (co-residents)..., they thought I was a bit of a bully. ... Sr ...X... said “you are going away for a bit of a holiday somewhere”. ... I landed up in ...named psychiatric hospital.... She ... (Sr X)... was gone out the door and I couldn’t get out the door and the windows was all locked. ... I was the youngest patient in the hospital, locked in, I was there for about 2 years. It was worse than hell. They gave me shock treatment and drugged me up to the last. Three or 4 of them would tie me down when they were trying to give me injections. They locked me into a padded cell for about a day and night ... when I tried to put my hands through a window.
The forms of emotional abuse reported included; exposure to frightening situations, lack of affection, criticism, humiliation, deprivation of family contact, witnessing the abuse of others, and the failure to provide for their emotional needs as children, particularly while in adult hospital facilities. Loss of identity and lack of safety and protection were other components of the emotional abuse reported by witnesses: It’s something you won’t forget, them iron-bar cots... the little one beside me, she was crying, God love us we used put our hands out between the bars and hold her hand for comfort, you know... I never remember any kindness, never heard my name. • I didn’t know what affection was, anyone to put their arm around you, you’d no support....
The anticipatory fear experienced by witnesses in relation to medical procedures was one of the most frequently reported abuses in this category. Several witnesses emphasised the fear associated with waiting for the day when the treating doctor would come. They recalled a lack of information and reassurance provided by nursing and other staff regarding their painful treatments. I couldn’t understand why people could send you different places and you don’t know what they’re like. ... Nobody told me nothing. ... I had a friend who told me he had to go to hospital himself when he broke his leg ... he was a soccer man. ... He explained to me that he had to go to get his leg fixed up ... (similar medical treatment as witness)..., but nobody else told me anything. ... People used run me life for me, used tell me what to do and where to go.
Many witnesses commented on the frightening reality of being children in a hospital, particularly those who reported being placed in county homes or those who were on wards shared with adult patients. They described observing the pain and, at times, death of other patients without any acknowledgement by staff of the distress it may cause them, as recalled in the following three witness accounts: They ... (co-patients)... were put into beds with old men in the county home, we all shared a big dormitory, old men, boys, all. The old men went in there to die. There wasn’t a week or a day when someone didn’t die. They came in there to die. • The ward that we would have been in you would have had geriatrics, Downs Syndrome people and children, everyone would have been in these big wards ... no segregation or anything. People would have died roaring absolutely roaring during the night, they would have been dead in the morning and taken out then • Then you’d hear the other kids, you’d hear them crying and you’re thinking “what’s happening?”...The thing is you’re a cripple and why should a cripple have to go through that?
Isolation was a form of punishment reported by six witnesses and included being locked in a darkened room, a linen cupboard, an outside shed, being ignored, not spoken to, put to bed early, and excluded from recreational activities and the company of co-patients. Witnesses described such punishments: There was a change of Reverend Mother ...named religious staff .... She came in with a whipping attitude.... I did not want to be an exhibition to someone who was coming in. She came in this afternoon with Health Board people and she says “now show these people what you can do” ...(witness instructed to demonstrate unusual physical dexterity).... I said “no, I don’t want to do it”.... That evening I was summoned to the convent, she came in and she’d tell the nurse to leave, she ridiculed me then for not doing this exhibition. I was banned from everything. ... I wasn’t allowed out anywhere, I had to come straight back to my ward from school, if there was homework I was to do it and then be put to bed, no telly ... the curtains were to be pulled around the bed ... they couldn’t turn off the telly for the other lads. I wasn’t to play with anybody or go around with friends, nothing for 2 weeks. • If you were sick in school and got sent back up to the ward ... you’d have hell to pay. ... They ... (lay staff)...were like the priests, they’d give you penance ... (for being sent back to the ward).... Like one day she ...(lay ancillary worker)... locked me in the ...(linen)... room and she wouldn’t let me out, locked me in ... and I didn’t get out until the following morning, left me there in the dark and I was petrified. ... One of the orderlies came down in the morning to get the linen to make the boys’ beds and he said “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what are you doing in there?” I was sitting in there on a pillow and she’d taken away my chair ... (wheelchair)....
Witnesses who were placed in adult hospital wards, where they were the only child among a large number of elderly patients, also reported that experience as frightening. Witnesses commented that no allowance was made for the fact that they were children, there were no toys to play with and there was no acknowledgement of childhood fears and anxieties. Several witnesses described being treated as objects of amusement by staff, without respect for their feelings: They’d... (lay staff)... make fun of you because of how you spoke and they’d call you names to do with where you’re from. I was from...X... and they’d call you...X..., it sounds funny but it wasn’t funny to a child. You never had the confidence to ask them what are they talking about...it just went over your head, what they said, you weren’t allowed to speak, you just had to go and find out.
Witnessing co-patients being beaten, force-fed and humiliated was reported by five witnesses as a frightening experience. There was a nun called Sr ...X ... she was the worst, most violent, most terrifying person I have come across in my life. ... She had a number of sticks of different shapes and sizes. ... (One day) ... when she called in a lad to her room ... she didn’t close the door and I just remember seeing him ...(co-patient)... get a crack across the side of the head and he didn’t fall backwards and he just slumped like a rag doll, unconscious, and I just knew that one day I’d have to go in there.