2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

Some light was thrown on the matter by Fr Luca. He wrote in his Statement that the boy’s defence was that he had learned the sexual behaviour in Daingean: When that came to me from the Gardaí it was no longer a school matter, it was outside, the boy was outside and those who brought the story were outside, the Gardaí. So I immediately went to the Provincial and told him what had been said ... Then the Garda who was in charge of the investigation in Dublin got in touch with me to say that he wanted to see this Brother on a particular day, at a particular time.

Following further consultations with the Provincial, a meeting was arranged between Br Ramon and senior counsel, after which counsel told Fr Luca, ‘You needn’t be worried, it’s a false accusation and we have no doubt about that’. At the Garda Station, Fr Luca was shown the file on the case, which he described as ‘putrid’. He added: I would not have thought the Brother had a chance because when you read something and looked at the detail of it you would ask yourself how anyone could compose it ... the minute descriptions and the detail of the thing ... It was a different Brother to the accusation about the 14 year old.26 There had never been any accusations against the second Brother before that, at least I had never heard anything against him. The Gardaí were satisfied, anyway, that it wasn’t true.

On the issue of whether Br Ramon ever admitted abusing boys in Daingean, the Congregation stated: We are instructed that Br [Ramon] never admitted nor acknowledged that he had abused boys at St Conleth’s Reformatory at Daingean.

In his detailed Statement about his time at Daingean, Fr Luca told of another accusation made against a Brother in the late 1960s. He wrote: The boy made the accusation to the priest who was the Chaplain and the Chaplain said to the boy that if he didn’t mind he would call the Superior in on the matter because it needed to be looked into or, he told the boy, he could go to the Superior himself, but the Chaplain said he would have to have the boy’s permission to bring the matter up to a higher authority. The boy said he didn’t want to do it himself but didn’t mind if the Chaplain brought the Superior into it. Then we met together and went through the details of it and, in order to get the details straight, there had to be a bit of cross questioning, because you couldn’t just take the story exactly as it was told, there would be more to it than that. Eventually, he broke down and said it wasn’t true that he was asked by the bigger boys to make the accusation.

He nonetheless said he set up a system for dealing with complaints about staff members. He wrote: When the boys made any accusation about any of the Brothers or any of the staff, they = the staff member had to be present ... I made this clear to the staff that if a boy was going to make a complaint against any of them that the person in question should be there and should hear the person saying it. One good thing about that, too, was that a person would have to be more careful about making accusations.

In his Statement, Fr Luca wrote: A strange thing was that never once in all the time did any boy come along and say to me that he had been abused either sexually or physically, never once. I don’t know why because I felt that I was open enough to receive any boy that would come along ...

Fr Luca referred to this incident in his Statement to the Committee although, again, he did not identify Br Abran as the Brother in question: It was a different Brother to the accusation about the 14 year old. There had never been any accusations against the second Brother [Ramon] before that, at least I had never heard anything against him.

One witness described his seduction by a lay teacher: He would take me out fishing. The outer walls of Daingean ran alongside the grand canal ... Things happened there ... he used to use a newspaper and he would start off by reading the newspaper and I would have the fishing rod and then he would put the newspaper down on his lap, it was a slow process that went on for 10 or 15 minutes, then it would be spread out on his lap and then half of it would go on to my lap. He would say to me, “Oh, look at this.” He would point to something in the newspaper. Then he would point at something which was just directly above my crotch ... Then he would put his hand under the newspaper and attempt to masturbate me ... I remember on a few occasions he tried to suck my penis. On another occasion he tried to – we were in some grass and I can remember that he had a handkerchief in his hand and he got on top of me from behind – I was laying flat, he got on top of me from behind and he tried to bugger me ... I just clenched and kept my legs closed. He ejaculated sort of somewhere in that region and I remember him using a handkerchief to wipe up ... I can only remember one occasion that happened but several instances of him trying to suck my penis.

One complainant described being beaten by two Brothers on the bare backside, which led to a sexual assault: I remember Br. [Mateo] came in, before I knew it he had my hands pins behind my back, he had me over a school desk the trousers were practically ripped off me and I got probably half a dozen smacks. One of them, I think the two of them were feeling my private parts, my arse and penis. This went on for probably eight or ten minutes.

The boy went back to his friends, but was too ashamed to tell them about the sexual abuse: I didn’t tell them actually what happened but I said I got a smack on the arse. I didn’t tell them that I was after being felt up. I was ashamed actually. That’s nothing new, getting the cane, ... That was that. I think I was more embarrassed than anything else.

In his response to the Department’s queries, Fr Salvador, the Resident Manager, revealed an attitude to this matter that was both dismissive and self-serving, and displayed no concern for the boys who were involved in the investigation. He first denigrated the complainant but did not refer to the other boys who had been interviewed in the Prefect’s presence: His conduct while here was not satisfactory. I would say he is a mentally disturbed boy with a leaning towards depravity.

He then went on to make the revealing comment: In fact, a short time previously, [Brady] had been punished for breaking bounds and warned against going to [O’Reilly’s]. This punishment and warning was given to [Brady] by the Prefect, Bro. [Jaime]. Besides, [Brady] himself admitted to me that he had been in [O’Reilly’s].

He said that he had told Br Jaime to tell Mr Murphy ‘to be vigilant and more strict in his supervision of the boys in his charge’. He then proceeded to dismiss the complaint: Later, when I saw the statement made by [Brady] ... it struck me as being fantastic. His record and mentality inclined me towards that way of thinking ... We do not claim a 100% and sometimes we meet boys who are so vitiated and lacking in co-operation that their removal becomes a necessity in the interests of the other boys. [Brady] falls under that category. His statement strikes me as being fantastic and rather like the projection of a depraved mind with little if any bearing on reality. Still, because of the little bearing there might be on reality, I favoured a full investigation.

On the question of the master who had recently been appointed, he said: He is credulous and up to recently, appeared to believe that a boy couldn’t tell a lie; but he is willing to learn and as it is rather difficult to replace him, I am inclined to give him every chance. I have no reason to doubt his moral integrity.

Complainants testified about serious sexual assaults by other boys. One witness, who was in Daingean during the 1960s, described how he was singled out for a sexual approach on the very first evening. He explained: In Daingean from day one I was abused ... I think the first evening I was there was the first sexual contact that I had.