2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

He went on to explain why he and his colleagues used physical punishment on a regular basis: Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I suppose the lack of support for ourselves. There was the big numbers and a small amount of staff, there was only three staff at that time. [The absence of training] was a disaster ... you were only going on instinct at that time.

Another former Prefect, who worked in Ferryhouse for periods during the 1960s and 1970s, complained about the long hours required for the job. He was exclusively in charge of 100 boys, for 24 hours a day, and had limited time on his own. He had just reached his twentieth birthday and had been appointed straight into Ferryhouse in the 1960s as a Prefect. He found his experience of being Prefect ‘difficult to cope with’. He agreed that trying to control 100 boys made him feel ‘like a sheepdog’. He had no previous experience of any kind in relation to boys in care. When asked how he was trained for the role of Prefect, he replied: Well, you would have just learned from Br Benito.2 He was there before me and, you know, you would have fed into a system in some sense. Albeit there was never any written, any programme as such, you know, of what you should or shouldn’t do, like ... Yeah. It was learned on the job, really, I suppose, yeah.

One Prefect, Fr Antonio,3 spoke about the difficulty he encountered when he was appointed Prefect when he was a young member of the Rosminian Order. A small number of Prefects were required to look after a large number of boys for 24 hours a day. He stated that this system was never questioned by any of them: I don’t think we had the courage to do it or the maturity to do it, personally speaking I wouldn’t have had the maturity to do it at the time to even question it. Your work was your prayer and you did what you were told to do, you were told you would get religious if you did all your work.

He explained that the pressure could lead to excesses of punishment: [Was there] physical abuse and that kind of stuff? I’m sure there would be because the frustration would have been there, if you are going to lose control, fear comes in. As time went on things would have improved a lot, but things would have got out of hand, certainly.

In the course of a Submission to the Investigation Committee, dated 17th June 2004, Fr O’Reilly referred to, and quoted from, the apology expressed in 1999, at a time when three former members of the Rosminian Institute had been convicted of sexually abusing children in its care: The members of the Rosminian Institute are saddened and shamed that young people in our care were abused by members of our Order. We deeply regret not only the abuse, but also the shadow cast on the lives of those abused. We abhor all mistreatment of children and we wish to express our profound sorrow.

Fr O’Reilly, in his Submission to the Investigation Committee, outlined the approach taken by the Order in its response to individual complaints made through the Commission: In our individual responses to the Commission, we have apologised and we have intended that our co-operation with the Commission should be seen as an act of apology. In some instances, our apologies have been qualified. In this, we have been fearful of betrayal of our members and shocked by allegations. But we do not challenge the accounts of survivors where we have no good evidence to do so, and we have resolved, where people have been injured in the past, to do no further harm by denial. We have witnessed and read of the courage and trauma of survivors, and it has affected us. We are determined that errors of the past should not be compounded by our conduct in the present.

During a preliminary hearing held in public on 18th June 2004, counsel for the Order focused on the approach to complaints being taken by the Order: We have resolutely declined to deny a case in which we have no evidence for denial. That is a reversal of all of the established legal procedures ... it has been a difficult task, but it has been, I have to say, a most emphatic decision of the Rosminian Order.

Fr O’Reilly explained that the Rosminian Institute had decided to take this approach because of the ethos of the Order. They also desired to avoid an adversarial approach to the resolution of conflicts before the Commission. He said that in the past, the Order’s responsibility was to work for those who were in their care and that part of their job was to advocate for them before other bodies, before the Department and society in general. That was their ethos, and that was what the Rosminian Institute was about. For that reason, he said: We are not going to contradict that type of approach that we have had throughout our lives unless there is extremely good reason to do so.

The Rosminian Institute asserted that the confrontation of evidence in an adversarial way was also unnecessary because, in many instances, the complainants’ accounts of hardship, deprivation or neglect were not necessarily contradictory to the evidence given by members of the Order, who described trying to cope with conditions which were brought about by a shortage of staffing, training, and of resources that ought have been in place to facilitate the provision of proper care for the children in their charge. Both sides were describing essentially the same thing, viewed from different perspectives: on the one hand, the former resident was describing a deprived and neglected childhood, with real needs not being addressed; while, on the other hand, the overworked and under-resourced priest or Brother was describing their very real struggle to provide, despite inadequate resources, good care for the children in their schools.

Part of the reason for taking this approach was to avoid causing further distress to the former residents of Ferryhouse and Upton. During the hearings, counsel for the Order examined witnesses sympathetically, and, even when evidence was being challenged, it was done with courtesy and care. The Investigation Committee was impressed by the number of apologies that were made. The following are examples: we have learned since your statement to the Commission came in that Br Lazarro5 did sexually abuse boys, I hope you will accept the Rosminian’s apology if that happened to you. We haven’t ever suspected it of [the other Brother] and I am sorry to ask you questions about it. I am ashamed to ask you questions about what you describe about Br Valerio6 (the questioning that followed was solely to elucidate how contact was made after the boy had left the school). I don’t want to ask you much at all because the hardship you have described deserves not to be investigated in any way or questioned. We accept what you have said, we trust the truth of it completely. There is one very big thing, which you have done today. [Your evidence] is a testament to the pain you suffered and others with you.

This approach facilitated investigation. Counsel for the Rosminians often brought out details that might have been missed. He elicited facts about school routines, practices and conditions, in order to gain as much information as possible from witnesses. Sometimes, they were asked to fill in gaps in the knowledge available to the Order. The Rosminians were correct in their submission following the Phase II hearings by stating that: the faults and limitations of the Schools become apparent without pursuing every conflict of evidence.

The second kind was a ‘doubler’. It was made in the shoemaker’s shop from two layers of leather approximately 2½ inches wide (6.3cm) and 22 inches long (55.8cm). The two strips were sewn together and, again, one end was shaped to form a handle. Br Antonio, who worked in Ferryhouse, confirmed that coins were sometimes inserted between the two layers of leather when this strap was being assembled. He told the Investigation Committee: And they are right what they say, because I opened the leather myself and saw there were coins in the leather strap, which were stitched in the shoe shop.

It is likely that different straps were in use from time to time, and it is not certain that all of them contained metal or coins within them. One witness described the effectiveness of these two kinds of straps: If you are out in the yard – they carry their own straps, some of them, and it is only a small one. You wouldn’t even feel it.

A former resident from the late 1950s and early 1960s said: On arrival, as far as I can recall, it was into a yard that looked like a prison. It was a kind of castle yard, like an old military parade ground, which a lot of children of my own age, younger, a few maybe older, had been walking around almost in circles. It was frightening. Naturally, I was crying – lonely it was.

Another witness, from the late 1950s and early 1960s, said simply but evocatively: When I arrived at Upton first, when I saw it, it looked like a mental home to me. That’s what it actually looked like, a mental home.