2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

A complainant, who was in Upton from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, made a complaint about Br Mario. He alleged that Br Mario pinned him up against a table in the kitchen, and the complainant said he was conscious of Br Mario’s arousal. This happened on a number of occasions and only ceased when the complainant threatened to tell Fr Eduardo, the Resident Manager: That man annoyed me week in week out for four or five weeks, commencing when I was working in the kitchen. Now, he knew I wanted to go on holidays, that man used to have me in tears. He would come up behind my back when I would be scrubbing pots, and I mean scrubbing pots now, and he would put his arms around me and he would be saying to me “I don’t know will I let you go on holidays or not”. He used to force me up against the sink. Believe me he used to have an erection on him. This was going on for weeks ... He used to annoy me every day of the week for weeks until I threatened to tell Fr Eduardo on him. I told him to do what he wanted. I got the holidays anyway. When I threatened him with Fr Eduardo he didn’t come near me any more.

Br Alfonso said he reported these individuals to his then Superiors, Fr Fabiano and Fr Alanzo. Fr Orsino, Provincial of the Order, was also involved in the reporting of one of these individuals. He said that, when he reported these people, he was never given any indication about whether they had any previous history of abuse: These things were not tossed around among the Superiors nor were they ever mentioned at a table at any time, they were always kept secret.

Br Alfonso also said that the reason why there was so much punishment for immorality in the punishment book during his time was due to an increasing awareness that sexual behaviour was unacceptable. He said: All I was saying is that somehow or another it must have in some way leaked out to the children that this is not acceptable, this standard. I think my attorney here spelt that out, that the boys realised that and then started to come to me and say, “this is what is going on here with us, these boys are molesting and will you stand up for us”. If that makes sense, I don’t know, but I cannot explain it any other way.

Br Alfonso gave evidence that the punishment that was administered was normally three or four slaps on the hand, or 10 strokes on the seat of the pants for more serious offences. The punishment book recorded that 20 strokes were administered to a boy for sexual impropriety and, on other occasions, 15 strokes were administered. When asked to explain why he said 10 was the maximum delivered, which was clearly incorrect, Br Alfonso explained that the severity of that particular punishment arose from a highly unusual situation. He said: I am saying that in these events we are talking about, boys wouldn’t be one on one in this situation. They would be like animals among one another, everybody would be involved in it, young boys and all. It was having whatever, I don’t know what you would like to call it, an orgy, I don’t know what it would be. Certainly it wasn’t a normal one to one thing. That is all I can say.

The Attorney General was the prosecuting authority at the time, and he felt it necessary to notify the Department because the defendants in their court depositions dated ‘their original misconduct to a time when they were detained in the Industrial Schools ...’. Prosecuting counsel reported to the Attorney General that: The revelations about Upton and Greenmount, at this sittings have given me furiously to think about Industrial Schools and Religious Orders ...

Former residents of Upton complained that they were constantly hungry and that the food provided was of poor quality. One witness, who had been resident in Upton throughout the 1950s, complained that he was ‘always hungry’ while he was in the School. His hunger was such that he had to resort to eating the slops and leftovers from the priests’ kitchen. In evidence, he recounted this vivid memory of watching and waiting for his own brother, who worked in the priests’ kitchen, to bring the slop from the kitchen to a pit so that he and his friends could eat from it. He said: He used to take the slop from the kitchen, he used to take it down to this pit. It was quite a way away from the house. I used to watch him. I used to see him take the food down to this pit, apple skins and bits and pieces. When he left I used to go down there with my little team and we used to go eat all the apple skins.

A witness from the mid-1950s described the food as ‘absolutely terrible’ and insufficient in quantity, particularly for boys who had to do heavy farm work: The food was absolutely terrible; a starvation diet is all I can say it was, everything was rationed. We were expected to work, do men’s work on that kind of food.

The issue of lack of meat for the boys was also attested to by another witness. He remembered each week that two sheep were killed on the farm, but the meat from the sheep was not given to the boys. His only recollection of meat was of black pudding and sausages, in a stew with potatoes for dinner. But, as regards other forms of meat, he stated adamantly that they never got any: Meat, you would never see meat. You might get a chunk of fat now and again but you would never see meat even though I was there and I knew it was there. The boys never got any of it.

This witness who worked in the kitchen peeling potatoes saw a distinct difference in the food provided for the priests and the boys: ‘there was food for the clergy and food for the boys’.

Fr O’Reilly at the Phase III public hearing, conceded that the Brothers received better quality food than the children: I accept that the food was so much better for the people who lived and worked in the place, yes. I would say it was a better quality of food.

One witness was questioned about receiving sausages and eggs as contended by the Resident Manager in 1959, and had the following to say: Well, it sounds as if they owe me a few breakfasts by the sounds of it. There is just no answer to that. That’s just a joke. I wouldn’t know a sausage down there if I tripped over one. That’s just not the case.

A former resident who was in the School in the 1950s gave evidence about the type of clothes the boys wore. He told the Committee that the clothes were unsuitable and inadequate, and summed up the situation as follows: We wore the same things year in year out; khaki shirt, khaki pants and a short jacket. No pullovers, no underwear.

Bed-wetting was a persistent problem for some of the boys in the School. It was treated as a disciplinary issue by the Rosminians, and they attempted to solve the problem by the use of physical punishment. They sought at the time to halt the problem by waking children during the night to go to the toilet. Boys who wet the bed were known as ‘slashers’ and were placed in a separate section of the dormitory. Each morning, these boys had to take their wet sheets or mattresses to the boiler house to dry. Fr Matthew Gaffney, in his general statement in 2002, accepted that this was the regime regarding bed-wetting, but stated that: In past decades the psychological nature of the difficulty was not understood, and it was thought that deterrence through corporal punishment or embarrassment in front of others was an appropriate remedy. I can appreciate by present standards, that such a response was obviously humiliating and unfair.

He also conceded that the practice of carrying wet sheets down to the boiler house to dry was a humiliating ritual for the boys: ... I think that boys felt humiliated by having to carry sheets. Whether it was intended to do that or not, I don’t know. But obviously, having to carry your sheet in front of other boys ... was a deeply embarrassing thing to boys. There might have been just a practical reason in terms of removing the sheets from the bed where they’re wet to another place where they’ll be dried. But obviously it was embarrassing.

One witness described how the regime of punishment interfered with his ability to learn in the classroom and in the tailor’s shop. In particular, he recalled that another lay teacher used to hit him on the tips of his fingers with a map, which was cylindrical in shape and wrapped around a stick. According to him, it was very hard to learn anything because, as he said in evidence: It was very, very hard to learn anything because everything was pressure and violence, abuse, “shut up”, “sit down”. I can never remember anyone saying anything with any degree or modicum of affection or tenderness, I can never remember.