2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

He said that, when boys were sent to his office for punishment, they did not always get a beating, as sometimes he gave them an orange or an apple. When asked if he thought he was strict or fairly strict, he preferred to describe himself as fair. In his evidence before the Committee in the Ferryhouse hearings, he was asked to comment on the following quotation from his submission to the Inquiry: During all those years I fought many battles for the boys, of which they know nothing. I am not ashamed to say that I often wept silently in empathy for the boys who were trapped within a system, which lumped together delinquents and orphans, an arrangement which compounded the problem.

He recalled someone saying to him once that it was a good thing for orphans to be exposed to delinquents, but this made no sense to him at all. In his view, orphans were coming from different places and needed entirely different treatment to delinquents: Not that the delinquents need have to get rigid treatment, or anything else like that, but they’re coming from a different background, a different experience and everything else, and the orphans are a different people altogether. And so to expose them to that type – that’s the orphans, to that type of criminality – I don’t ever use that word because I never treated them as criminals, they were all my own children, every one of them. But to expose them to children who had such deviousness in their lives in the form of theft and all these type of things, that they had agenda hidden up their sleeves all the time, to expose them to that was to encourage them to come in to that and to me there was something criminal about that.

The earliest witness account came from a boy who was admitted in the late 1940s. He recalled being physically punished for bed-wetting. He was also punished in the classroom by the lay headmaster, Mr Maher.10 He described a number of incidents involving two of the Prefects, including one beating given to a boy who absconded because his father was dying and he was not allowed to go to his funeral. He described the Prefects as being ‘over the top’ in inflicting punishment. He explained: This particular man was always over the top, the two of them were definitely over the top. Any time I was hit or beaten or attacked, or hit by anyone, it was always in a rage ...

A witness present in the early 1960s recalled his very first experience of physical abuse. The boys were out for a Sunday walk and, on their return, they used the toilet and were talking to each other in there, unaware that it was against the rules. Br Alfonso overheard them and sent for them up to the office, where they were made to bend over a stool and hold the legs of the stool. Br Alfonso administered six “benders” on that occasion. The witness was not the first of the four to be punished: I wasn’t first, I don’t know who got the first one. Someone was first. Three of us would be standing watching this and believe me when you get one of these, if you thought you couldn’t jump, you would jump when you get one of these, six feet in the air, no problem, especially with Br Alfonso. He really physically forced. (Indicating) It was like a golf driver and he was a golfer. That’s what he used to spend his time, playing golf. He used use the straps like a golfer. I never got so much pain in my life. I remember the first one of those I got. I never thought anyone could go through so much pain as what we went through with them. I got six of those and you were that colour, all your hips would be that colour for weeks after and (indicating) you couldn’t tell no-one. If you told anyone you would get more.

A witness who was also resident in the early 1960s said that, from his earliest days in Upton, the daily routine often involved receiving a smack on the face for minor things, such as not getting out of bed quickly enough in the morning. He was only 10 years old at the time, and remembered how boys had to stand to attention all the time, even when they were being beaten by a Brother. After dressing, the boys went to the yard and then to Mass. Any misbehaviour at Mass resulted in being sent to the office for benders: Punishment in St. Patrick’s, Upton was a regular thing. I would have to say it was – you went to school, you went to bed, you went to work and there was nothing but fear, fear, fear. It was just fear the whole way.

Finding oneself in the wrong place at the wrong time was a matter for punishment, according to one witness. He received the leather for not having his socks darned. He later attended a normal national school, and was anxious to differentiate between the slaps that were acceptable there as compared with the punishment in Upton. He said: The level of punishment, the force, the ferocity of it. It was done in such a savage manner that it was way beyond anything that you could class as being the norm.

One anonymous respondent, when asked whether he felt that corporal punishment was excessive, replied: Yes, the longer I spent there: but then, there were few Fr Flanagans in Ireland: nobody knew any better: it was common in most places at that time.

When asked if the Rector was aware of the fact that excessive punishment was being administered, he stated: If he wasn’t Blind, deaf and dumb, he must have known: but he didn’t know any better. In my years as prefect there was a punishment book, wherein we, prefects had to write in all punishment – three slaps were allowed. This was Fr Fabiano’s idea: it ended with him.

At the Phase III public hearing held on 9th May 2006, Fr O’Reilly, Provincial of the Rosminians, went further than previous concessions, saying that: I accept totally that there are people out there who have also been – who have been sexually abused in our institutions who have not come forward to this Commission. I know that, and we accept that, there are people who were abused in our institutions, sexually abused who have not come forward to this Commission, or to any – or indeed to other forum.

Fr O’Reilly was asked whether the attitude of the Order in relation to the issue of sexual abuse had been changed by the evidence given at the Phase II hearings. He responded: I think we have grown in appreciation of the impact that being in the industrial schools had on the children. I think we feel different about the whole thing now than we did previously. Two years ago we had come an awful long way, I think we have come further since then. I think it has impacted on us enormously.

Fr O’Reilly acknowledged that the response of the Order, in the wake of revelations of sexual abuse, had been inadequate. He did concede that it was the fear of scandal which prompted them to keep quiet about the situation. However, he justified this response on the basis that those in authority at the time lacked a proper understanding of the situation: I think clearly at the time they did not want the scandal to be known, because they felt it would affect the entire Institution. I think they had a very immature sort of understanding of what the problem was ...

The information that is available about his departure from Upton is limited. The Superior General, Fr Montes,24 wrote to the Irish Provincial, Fr Giuseppe, stating: Fr Carlo told me, sincerely, I think the whole story. He tearfully acknowledged his mistake. I sent him to Diano Marina on the sea between Genoa and Nice ... He accepts his present situation as a penance but I am convinced that we will have to find a place for him by September. Could he not go to America? ... I can understand that you were relieved at his departure. One could have had certain fears for the Upton house, also because, in the past the Government had some unfavourable reports regarding morality between the boys, as you will recall.

A former resident, who was present in the School from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, alleged that Fr Santino sexually abused him: Fr Santino did approach me from the back with both hands on my shoulder. I felt him leaning up against me, in doing so I ran away. I did so, I met a particular Brother, Br Ludano, at the end of the stair who asked me why was I running, I told him why and I was punished for it.

During cross-examination, counsel for the Rosminians apologised for the abuse that this witness received. He asked him how Fr Santino was perceived. The complainant replied that he remembered Fr Santino as being very approachable, with a great way with children. He would talk to them all day. Fr Gaffney accepted his allegations in his responding statement: I have no justification for doubting the complaint of sexual interference made against Fr Santino, and those actions were shameful and wrong. I apologise for the hurt inflicted on [this witness] and for the association of the Rosminian Institute of Charity for that conduct. It was profoundly against the ideals and expectations of the institute.

This Brother was discovered to be sexually abusing boys in the 1950s. Br Alfonso said that he discovered that Br Fausto had been sexually abusing children at the same time that he found out about Br Constantin. Fr Giovani corroborated the discovery of Br Fausto in his statement. A complainant, resident in the early 1950s, gave evidence that his brother, while being punished by Br Alfonso, complained to him that he was being abused by a Brother whose name the witness did not recall correctly, but by a similar-sounding name: When he started laying into him with the strap my brother turned around and said that he was abused by a Brother called [similar sounding name to perpetrator] ... Br Alfonso stopped dead in his tracks, put the strap back in the thing and he couldn’t apologise enough. [The Brother] was removed from the school shortly thereafter ... No, I did not witness that. My brother mentioned it to me a couple of years ago, three or four years ago.