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"I accept that the boys experienced enormous anxiety and fear". |
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You have heard evidence, which I think you don't doubt, that bare fists were used from time to time?
A. I certainly don't doubt that the open hand was used. |
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They had to accept "there was quite an amount of truth in what people were saying to us, perhaps even more than we knew at that stage". |
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Most staff, many with little education and none with training in childcare, were from rural backgrounds. |
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they came across institutions where children were being punished, not at the time of a misdemeanour, but were later gathered on a stairway, were made to strip off, and were then beaten. |
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Monday, May 15, 2006 |
Punishments |
FR. JOSEPH O'REILLY WAS EXAMINED, AS FOLLOWS, BY MR. McCULLOUGH:
Q. MR. McCULLOUGH: I represent a number of complaints, Father, and I want to ask you in the first instance about corporal punishment in Ferryhouse and in Upton. One of the things...(INTERJECTION)
THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. McCullough, sorry, I am finding it a tiny bit difficult to hear.
MR. O'BRIEN: I can't hear, I have a hearing problem.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Mr. O'Brien, give me a chance to -- Mr. O'Brien, stop for a second.
MR. O'BRIEN: We want to hear what's going on.
THE CHAIRPERSON: I'm trying to tell you. I know Mr. O'Brien has just indicated to me that he can't here. I am having a slight bit of difficulty.
MR. O'BRIEN: Here's the proof I can't hear, I have a hearing aid and I can't hear with that. Will you please -- we are the people who want to know, not these people who are getting paid.
Q. MR. McCULLOUGH: One of the things you said, Father, in September 2004 was that you couldn't say how much corporal punishment was meted out, but that it was probably not worse than most homes. You have heard a lot of evidence since then. Do you want to add anything to those comments? A. Can I just clarify, was I covering the entire period of Ferryhouse? Is your question in relation to the entire period of Ferryhouse?
Q. I think, Father, in fairness you are covering the period largely up to 1970? A. Certainly, I think, on reviewing whatever documentation we have and having consulted again with people, I would say that corporal punishment in Ferryhouse was at times excessive.
Q. Yes. A. Perhaps it wouldn't be fair -- the comments I made at that time in regard to a comparison with a home perhaps wouldn't be fair. That said, I'm sure that there were many homes in which corporal punishment was also excessive.
Q. Can I look back, Father, at some of the evidence we have heard, without naming the names of any people who gave evidence. I think it is clear from the history of both of the institutions, but in particular for the period prior to 1970, that there was a great deal of corporal punishment in both institutions? A. I think there was a considerable amount of -- great deal, yes. Yeah.
Q. It is also clear that that corporal punishment took place all over the premises and not simply in the prefect's office? A. Corporal punishment was generally supposed to be administered in the prefect's office and from what I can ascertain, I would say that it did happen there for the most part. I would accept also that it happened in many other places in both Ferryhouse and Upton.
Q. Yes, you have heard a great deal of evidence which I think you don't doubt, Father, that it happened spontaneously, in quite a number of locations outside the prefect's office? A. Yes, I would agree with that, yes.
Q. And that everybody, every member of the community who had any contact with boys, was entitled and felt entitled to administer that corporal punishment as he wished? A. No, I'm afraid I couldn't agree with that. Certainly the prefects administered corporal punishment, often spontaneously for things that happened on the spot. There were other members of the community who may have had particular roles in regard to the boys whom I accept would at times have administered corporal punishment spontaneously, perhaps like a slap, or a clatter. Some of those people might be people who had direct contact with the boys at times, for example, if there was a bandmaster or somebody else who was directly involved with the boys. But I don't think that every member of the community in every role would have administered corporal punishment, I don't think that we heard evidence that that would be true about everybody. I can think of individuals that we did not hear evidence about.
Q. I asked you about every member of the community who had contact with the boys, they all seem to have been entitled to administer or felt entitled to administer corporal punishment; isn't that correct? A. I think there are degrees here.
Q. Yes. A. I can't -- I'm not quibbling with what you are saying generally.
Q. The evidence appears to establish that corporal punishment was frequently excessive, both in respect of individual occasions and in respect of the perceived offences for which it was administered, would you agree with that? A. There are a lot of words in that statement there.
Q. All right, I will break it down. A. You mentioned frequently excessive, I don't know that I would describe it, from what I heard, as being frequently excessive. I would certainly agree that at times it was excessive.
Q. The Committee has heard evidence of 20, 20 blows being administered to boys, you would accept that occurred? A. I'm afraid I would, yes.
Q. And that was something that was clearly excessive? A. Yes.
Q. The Committee indeed heard evidence that on at least one day in 1954 20 blows were administered to 17 boys on the same day. You would agree that that was grossly excessive? A. I would.
Q. Would you agree also that the perceived offences for which it was administered couldn't possibly be justified, in many cases? A. The perceived --
Q. Well, I'm quoting just from the Punishment Book,Father, and you can comment on it? A. Please.
Q. There is "giving cheek"? A. Yeah.
Q. "Playing soccer frequently"? A. Yes.
Q. What about those offences? A. Well, clearly playing soccer should not have been a matter or an issue that people were punished for.
Q. Or giving cheek? A. Or giving cheek. I think that really depends on the circumstances at the time. If a boy is giving cheek to a prefect in front of a number of other boys that would certainly -- I could see that certainly being an occasion for a boy being punished, given the time that was in it.
Q. Yes. "Talking at mass"? A. I think it would depend on the circumstances. I'm not defending it, but I think it might depend on the circumstances.
Q. "Horseplay, laughing in chapel", could these things possibly be justified, Father? A. I think in the context of the time they could be, yes.
Q. All right, well I will come back to context of the time in due course. Would you accept, looking at it generally, that the range of offences for which punishment was administered was surprisingly wide, even looking at it in retrospect? A. Clearly, I think that there was a wide range of reasons for which boys received corporal punishment, it was very wide, I would accept that it perhaps was difficult for children to know at times exactly where the limits were. But I think that was in the context of the time, as it would be today.
Q. Yes. It appears also from the evidence that it wasn't simply the strap that was used to administer punishment; isn't that correct? A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. You have heard evidence, which I think you don't doubt, that bare fists were used from time to time? A. I certainly don't doubt that the open hand was used.
Q. Do you doubt that people were punched? A. I accept that there may have been occasion when children were punched.
Q. Do you accept that hurleys were used? A. I find that rather difficult to.
Q. Yet you have heard people say it on more than one occasion? A. I have.
Q. You accept, I think, that the strap that was used on at least some part of this time had coins sewn into it? A. I have heard that said, and I have heard others contradict it, and I quite honestly do not know whether there were coins in it or not.
Q. Yes. There is a document, Father, called "Statements on Issues Concerning St. Joseph's Industrial School,Clonmel", do you remember that document? A. Yes, I think I do.
Q. Yes. I think that's a document that was compiled by the Rosminians themselves; is that correct? A. There are so many documents, I'm sorry, if I could see the front of it even I would know.
Q. Yes. It is at 37 A14 in yet another set of books that the Commission has been given this morning. There should be two green books in front of the Commission, they are all taken from the discovery and they are organised in a slightly different way.
................ ................
Q. MR. McCULLOUGH: If you look at divider A, tab 14, Father. It is the last tab in divider A. A. Yes.
Q. Is that a document compiled by the Rosminians? A. That's a document that I compiled myself when I was working in Ferryhouse, in the early perhaps about 2000, 2001.
Q. Yes. A. Having discussed a range of issues with a number of people, both members of the Congregation, past pupils,former members of staff, and I compiled this and sent it forward to our Provincial in Dublin at the time.
Q. Yes, and it was in due course discovered to the Commission? A. Yes.
Q. The fourth page of that Fr. O'Reilly. A. Yes.
Q. At the top of the page reads as follows: "It seems that a coin or coins were put into the straps used in Ferryhouse, although there is no memory of salt being put on the strap prior to use." That's something that you wrote, as you say, in the year 2000; is that right? A. That's correct.
Q. I take it that that, therefore, was something that you were able to determine prior even to hearing any evidence? A. That's correct. That's correct, yes.
Q. There can hardly be any doubt, Father, under circumstances where you were able to say that in 2000 that such was the case? A. I can say in that time, and since, I have heard people say that there was a coin or coins inside. But I have also heard other people saying that there wasn't, and so I cannot -- if somebody shows me a strap with coins in it, I will certainly accept it. I just do not know.
Q. Including, I think, at least one member of the Rosminians or then member of the Rosminians, who confirmed such was the case? A. Yes.
Q. Who gave evidence in the private session? A. Yes.
Q. And you don't doubt him? A. If I say I don't doubt him, do I doubt the people who told me there were no coins in it?
Q. There were particular offences, Father, to which it is clear on the evidence, particular types of punishment were handed out. Boys who ran away were dealt with particularly brutally, do you accept that? A. I think boys who ran away were dealt with severely, yes.
Q. Mr. McGrath will be dealing with that in more detail, but you would accept, I think, just to ask you one or two general questions about it, that beatings were administered to boys who ran away? A. Yes, I think boys who ran away were often severely punished because of the problem that it created in the school, the unease that it created among the rest of the boys.
Q. For whatever reason they were certainly beaten; isn't that right? A. That's correct. Not always beaten, but I accept that often.
Q. But that does seem to be the norm, doesn't it, that they were beaten? A. I accept that they usually were punished for running away.
Q. And quite severely punished. The Commission has heard evidence of really quite extreme and savage punishments for boys who ran away? A. I don't think that savage punishments was the norm for boys who ran away.
Q. Including on at least some occasions public punishment? A. Yes, I accept that, yes.
Q. And that there were other punishments, including people's hair being saved off, that were associated with running away; isn't that correct? A. For a period of time, yes, I accept that.
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posted by The Knitter @ 6:53 AM ![](https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif) |
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Wednesday, May 10, 2006 |
Cold, Hungry Brutalised Children |
A RELIGIOUS order admitted yesterday that boys at two of its industrial schools were left cold and hungry while priests dined in comfort. The clerics further admitted boys in their care were brutally beaten although the State banned corporal punishment in 1982. Beatings continued at the Ferryhouse Industrial School in Co Tipperary until 1993 despite a letter from the Department of Education sent in 1989 warning that the ban also applied to industrial as well as national schools, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse heard. The commission was told that the boys lived in an atmosphere of constant fear and anxiety, and were punished excessively, sometimes brutally. Fr Joe O'Reilly, of the Rosminian Institute of Charity which ran Ferryhouse and the St Patrick's Industrial School in Upton, Co Cork, admitted that its boys who were from unstable or troubled backgrounds went from "the frying pan into the fire". Lawyers for abuse victims described the schools as Dickensian-style workhouses and paupers' prisons. Fr O'Reilly said that boys were beaten for a wide range of reasons - including bedwetting - and that the punishment meted out were at times "spontaneous", "excessive" and "brutual". Such punishments or the fear of punishment kept the boys constantly on edge, Fr O'Reilly stated. "I accept that the boys experienced enormous anxiety and fear. Certainly there was a sense in most of the institutional schools that punishment could come at any time," he said. And despite the pervasive fear, anxiety and sex abuse that was rife in the institutions at the time, boys who ran away were "dealt with severely". But I don't think that savage punishment was the norm," he told the inquiry. But he admitted that "far more corporal punishment was given out than should have been". While he agreed there were beatings he denied there was "a culture of brutality" in the schools. However, Fr O'Reilly said that due to financial and other constraints, the institutions' goals of providing care, education and control to the children invariably amounted to simply exerting control over them. "I would accept that care and education wasn't the priority it was at a later time. The first priority was control." Fr O'Reilly also admitted that the food was both inadequate in quantity and quality even though priests and administrators at the institutions dined well. He added that heating at the schools was also insufficient leaving the boys cold and hungry most of the time. "It was so much better for the people who lived and worked there," he said. |
posted by The Knitter @ 10:49 AM ![](https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif) |
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Tuesday, May 09, 2006 |
Food & Clothing |
Can you understand, on the basis of the evidence that you have heard in relation to how poor the clothing was, how poor the bedding was, how poor the food was as to why all the people who were supposed to be going into these places for care, going in because the family situation was so dire, the poverty was so dire, that they are now looking and wondering why with the capitation grants that were paid that the food wasn't better, that the clothing wasn't better?
A. I'm not quibbling at all with what you are saying that at times clothes were very poor, or that towels or that sheets were in poor condition, I accept that and I can understand why people are saying that. A lot of it probably does come back, I believe a lot of it comes back to finance. I know that we have handed over whatever we have by way of documentation in that regard to some experts for the Commission and that they are doing, presumably, a report on that.
Q. Given that Ferryhouse had its own farm, and we have heard mention of pigs being raised, we have heard mention of potatoes, we have heard people talk about going out to other farms to do work over the summer and that sort of thing, is there any explanation as to why, one, the quantity of the food was so poor and secondly the quality was so poor?
I wouldn't make much of the fact that we had a farm. Insofar as I don't think that -- I would say the records show there is few enough religious Congregations over the years who have made any profit out of farming, any significant profit. But nevertheless it was viewed at the time as a source of produce for the school and, obviously, to some degree it did produce some. I absolutely accept that at times it was not enough. I absolutely accept that children were hungry, that children were cold. I absolutely accept all of those things.
From The Commission Transcripts into the Rosminians
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posted by The Knitter @ 11:24 PM ![](https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif) |
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Brutal Institutions |
The Provincial of the Rosminian Congregation in Ireland has told the Child Abuse Commission that the disciplinary regimes at St Joseph's Industrial School in Ferryhouse, Co Tipperary and St Patrick's Industrial School in Upton, Co Cork were wholly inadequate. Fr Joseph O'Reilly told the public hearing in Dublin into the two schools that the regimes were also fundamentally flawed and at times brutal.
Fr O'Reilly said that corporal punishment was at times excessive, but he said it was also excessive elsewhere. He agreed that there was a considerable amount of corporal punishment in both institutions. However, while prefects appeared to deliver it spontaneously at any time, he said some others in the wider school community also delivered a 'slap or clatter' regularly.
Fr O'Reilly said that the fact that 17 boys received 20 blows each on one day in 1954 at St Joseph's was grossly excessive. He also described as regrettable the fact that boys were punished for bed-wetting. Fr O'Reilly also acknowledged that there was a considerable quantity of sexual abuse at both institutions.
He acknowledged that no complaint was made to gardaí until 1995. And he accepted that no attempt was made to understand the impact of such abuse on the boys. But he said he did not accept that the response of the Rosminians was about covering up. |
posted by The Knitter @ 5:06 AM ![](https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif) |
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Sunday, September 25, 2005 |
Pure Evil |
Focus: Pure Evil
Robert Howard is serving a life sentence for murder, but how many unidentified victims did the "Wolf Man" leave behind, asks Enda Leahy - Minutes after he had discovered the woman, gagged, beaten and raped in her home, Willie Doyle, the sergeant in Youghal, pushed open a door in the house next door to find a mess of unpacked clothes: the belongings of the main suspect. The woman was being untied from her bonds and stretchered into an ambulance. It was 1972 and Doyle had never dreamed he would be pursuing a brutal sexual attacker in a little rural town like Youghal. He knew the woman's car had been taken, and he now knew Leslie Cahill, the man boarding next door, hadn’t appeared for breakfast.
The other boarders in the house said Cahill was such a nice fellow, he couldn’t possibly be responsible. But Doyle was satisfied that he was the man who had climbed over his neighbour’s back wall, broken in, and subjected the hairdresser, aged 58, to a night of beatings and rape, throwing her down the stairs and stuffing her mouth with cotton. Among Cahill’s belongings Doyle found a folded travel clock. Inside was scrawled what he later discovered was the man’s real name: Robert Howard.
More than 30 years later the name still fills Doyle with revulsion. "Why he picked Youghal, I’ll never know," the retired sergeant said last week. "The lady that he attacked could have died. She could easily have suffocated the way he left her." They found the car at Cork airport and Howard was arrested in Dublin. Doyle accompanied him on a silent journey back to Cork. "He accepted responsibility for [the attack] in the interview. He didn’t give any detail about the events, but he said he would plead guilty, nothing more."
Howard was 28. A few weeks earlier he had been released from prison having served six years for the attempted rape of a girl in England. It was clear that he had spent his time inside thinking about how not to get caught: upon release he began adopting false names and moved home regularly. After serving a 10-year sentence for the Youghal attack, it would be well over two decades before Howard was again put behind bars. The question remains, how many girls and women did he rape and kill in those 20 years?
As Howard serves a life sentence in an English cell for the murder of a 14-year-old girl, legal restrictions have been lifted, allowing the world to hear the chilling story of the so-called Irish Ripper from Wolfhill, Co Laois.
AFTER 26 hours’ deliberation a jury returned to their seats in the heat of Court 12 in Belfast courthouse last June. The jury foreman rose to announce the verdict. Robert Howard remained as emotionless in the dock as he had throughout the month-long trial. He was charged with the murder of Arlene Arkinson, 15, from Tyrone who disappeared without trace after accepting his offer of a lift home from a Bundoran disco in 1994. Fiddling with his glasses and scratching his thinning hair, Howard, now 61, avoided any eye contact with Arlene’s family. He sat with his back to them, not once looking around the court.
The foreman announced a verdict of not guilty, with 10 members in favour and two against. On three separate counts of perverting the course of justice, arising from Howard asking friends to lie for him, they had failed to reach a verdict. As the bailiffs moved to take Howard down to the cells, there to await another trial for sexual assault of another teenager from Castlederg in 1988, the Arkinson family stormed out in fury. Gathered in the Victim Support Office in the court buildings they prepared a statement, which Arlene’s sister Kathleen, 38, read to the press. But due to a court gagging order, imposed because of his forthcoming trial, the Arkinsons were prevented from revealing the 40-year history of rape and murder they believed included Arlene’s.
"We have waited 11 years for justice for Arlene and we will have to wait longer," read Kathleen, her older sister. "Arlene is still dead, we still have no body and somebody, and I believe I know who, murdered her and hid her away so we could never have peace or even a grave to visit." Almost a year earlier, in October 2003, they had been asked to testify against Howard in a trial for the murder in 2001 of another teenage schoolgirl, Hannah Williams, of Deptford, southeast London. Their testimony helped convict Howard. The English court, which sentenced him to life, was allowed to hear evidence, unlike in Northern Ireland, from outside the murder investigation, to show his "system" of grooming victims. Howard had befriended Arlene over a period of months before she disappeared.
The British police, unlike their counterparts in Tyrone, had physical evidence, following the chance discovery of Hannah’s body during the construction of the Channel tunnel. They also had 40 years’ worth of advice from the police forces in the multitude of places Howard had lived and offended. He was born in Wolfhill, Co Laois in 1944. His first offence, burglary, aged 12, led to him being sent to Saint Joseph’s Ferryhouse, an industrial school in Clonmel. Teachers working there have since been convicted of "appalling acts of human degradation against boys".
He left aged 16 and four years later in London, he tried to rape a six-year-old girl. He served just nine days for the crime. Five years later, in 1969, he was caught in northern England breaking into a house and attempting to rape a young woman. In the struggle he attempted to strangle her but unable to stifle her screams, was captured by neighbours. After serving six years for attempted rape and burglary, he was deported from Britain to Ireland in 1972 where he made his way to Youghal. After being caught by Doyle, and the Dublin airport police, he served 10 years in jail. Between his release in 1981 and his next recorded attack in 1993 Howard disappeared off the radar, spending three years in an allegedly abusive marriage to Patricia Peyton from Dublin, and moving between Ireland and England.
From then on it is clear the justice system failed almost entirely in its handling of Howard. He moved into an apartment on Main Street, Castlederg, Co Tyrone, in 1991. After forming a friendship with a local girl aged 16 he persuaded her to come back to his flat in 1993, apparently to meet another man she told him she liked. She later alleged to the police that he attacked and stripped her, tied her up, drugged her and repeatedly raped her for two days, a noose tied around her neck. He was charged with rape, but was released on bail until a hearing more than a year later in February 1995. In mid-1994, while awaiting the hearing, he offered Arlene Arkinson a lift home. She was never seen again.
When his case was finally heard he was given a three-year sentence suspended for five years, meaning he again walked free. Before he could be charged over Arlene’s disappearance, he had abducted and killed Hannah Williams in London. Police now intend to question him further about the disappearances of Elizabeth Chau, 19, and Lola Shenkoya, 27, who both vanished in Ealing, west London, between 1999 and 2000, when he lived nearby. Yet when he went on trial in Belfast in June, none of this history was available to the court. One of the jurors in Arlene’s murder case last week phoned a Belfast radio station to say he knew nothing of Howard’s horrific record and couldn’t have been expected to.
"I was just a Joe Bloggs off the street," he said. "We were told if there was any reasonable doubt then we had to find him not guilty . . . I do not feel guilty, why should I? We just had to go with what was presented in the courtroom." Paul Britton, a criminal psychologist who worked with detectives investigating Fred and Rosemary West, says that based on a brief examination of Howard’s history he would be "astounded" if these were the only attacks he committed. "This is a case that needs revisiting," said Britton. "I think there is much much more here to be shown to the world. This is someone for whom the sexual control and slaying of women is central to his life. He won’t say he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’ll pluck opportunities but he will plan his attacks too. "Here’s a man who has gone about his pleasure these 40 years. He’s been bottled up a half a dozen times in prison and he’s still gone on."
"Of [the women police suspect that he killed] many of them have disappeared, so you won’t know how quickly he takes them to their end, perhaps he confines them. He’s lived in many places and has moved on to avoid surveillance." The nature and sophistication of Howard’s attacks evolved over the years, from bungled break-in attacks to kidnappings and disappearances. Frustrated detectives point to the fact that only one example of Howard’s DNA has been recovered from a victim, when the Castlederg 16-year-old escaped from his apartment window after two days of imprisonment and rape. Williams’s body had been exposed to the elements for 11 months and any forensic evidence had deteriorated beyond use.
According to Britton, control of the victim is important to Howard so he will have prepared in increasing detail for his attacks. The charges dropped against Howard in Belfast last week were for multiple assaults on an unnamed third Castlederg teenage girl who came forward with her story after he was charged for Arlene's murder. She too had been groomed by Howard after he befriended the girl’s mother, just as he did with Williams in London years later. Britton says also that apart from such grooming, Howard will have developed ever more secure places in which to enact his fantasies. "There'll be a cellar, an attic, a van, a hide — a place where he will take his victim and where she can't make her presence heard. She'll be drugged, subdued," said Britton. "I would expect him to have progressed from one to the next, where he gets much more sadistic pleasure from the victim over the period of time. He comes to realise he can never quite get what he needs from them in terms of sadistic pleasure and so it has to escalate. It can be in time, but sadly it’s also in the intensity and the frequency of the terrible things that are done to them during that time. "It sounds like this man has a method of disposing of his victims that is moderately successful. He will have tucked away in his fantasies many other girls who were victims. It would be a shame if they stayed there."
THREE decades on, Willie Doyle says what he took from Howard's three-week sojourn in Youghal was the feeling that we hadn’t seen the last of him. "You never forget it once you’ve had dealings with a man like that," said Doyle. "He’s stuck in my mind over the years, and in the minds of many colleagues. He was very dangerous and I always suspected he’d be involved in something sinister wherever he was." Last week the Crown Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland dropped three charges of sexual assault against Howard, presumably, like so many of his cases, because of lack of evidence. Nevertheless, as he announced the state wasn’t proceeding with the case, Ciaran Murphy QC for the prosecution asked the judge to allow the charges "to remain on the books". Howard’s solicitor agreed to the move. Following the most recent failure by the judicial system to bring him to account, police in Britain and Northern Ireland are expected to step up analysis of Howard’s movements, cross-checking disappearances and rapes in places where he lived over the past 40 years. Criminal psychologists will craft questions in an effort to extract confessions fom Howard, or the possible locations of his victims. In Donegal, yet another search of the bog that Howard is known to have revisited after Arlene’s disappearance is being planned by the Arkinson family and locals.
The Wolf Man has carved his way onto the list of Ireland’s household names. Tragically the names of many of his victims may never be known.
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posted by The Knitter @ 11:10 AM ![](https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif) |
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Friday, September 23, 2005 |
School may have shaped rapist’s personality |
Niall Murray and John Breslin talk to former St Joseph’s students who believe Robert Howard could have been abused.FORMER residents of the industrial school where Robert Howard was sent for three years remember arriving at the forbidding square building, with its high ceilings and dark corridors. “There was only one exit,” said Michael O’Brien, the former Mayor of Clonmel who spent eight years inside St Joseph’s Ferryhouse in Clonmel. Howard was sent to the industrial school in 1956, aged 12 and he remained for three years. Groups representing survivors have questioned whether the rapist and murderer’s personality was shaped, at least in part, by his time inside St Joseph’s.
Howard was an exception as he was sent to the school after committing a crime. The vast majority committed no crime and ended up in the school after a family break up. In 1950, of 182 boys there, just four were sentenced for breaking the law, the Child Abuse Commission heard last year. Once inside, children were subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse, said Mr O’Brien. “This happened during my time and I have no doubt it continued for decades.” Mr O’Brien, who was sent to the school in 1942 following the death of his mother, believes it is entirely possible that Howard was abused at the school.
He added that a large number of former residents later turned to crime, although he did not know any were convicted of serious sexual offences. Sean Barry, a former Rosminian brother, was sentenced in 1999 to nine years after admitting buggery, indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm on four former residents of St Joseph’s and another institution. Judge Joseph Mathews, speaking at the trial, said his victims were all vulnerable and weak and needed care, but were subjected to appalling acts of human degradation in unit A of Ferryhouse, a school for young offenders and boys from broken homes.
Alan McNeill was one of his victims, raped by Barry in St Joseph’s in 1979, while most of the other residents and staff were attending the Pope’s mass in Limerick. He told Clonmel Circuit Court that he cut off his penis and applied hundreds of incisions to his body with a razor blade because of the abuse he had suffered.
THE Galway man is also a rapist. He was sentenced to six years for the rape of a 14-year-old boy in 1995 and had a previous conviction for a similar offence in Britain. Christine Buckley, director of the Aislinn Centre for survivors of institutional abuse, said of Howard: “There’s no condoning what this man has done but the question has to be asked, was he abused and did all this stuff start in Ferryhouse for him? “He’s in trouble at 13 and people were thrown into these hell holes in those days. He goes in for burglary and within a short time of coming out, he’s raping. What does that say about Ferryhouse?” she asked.
“I feel he may have started as young as 13, I wonder what went on in his life before all this started. He didn’t go into St Joseph’s because he had raped anyone, but he wasn’t long out when he started. “Some people take to drink or violence and if you lift all the layers, you find that person was severely sexually or physically abused.”
John Kelly, co-ordinator of Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), said: “One can understand why he might have got into that kind of thing, because he might have been abused himself. But it can never be excusable, and we’ll never condone things like that. People (who have been abused) should know better because of the trauma it can cause. There can not and should not be any excuses for that behaviour whatsoever. They should know what it’s like, it’s deplorable.”
Fr Patrick Pierce, the former head of the Rosminian order who managed the school for 16 years, has described admission as an “absolutely terrifying experience” for “a frightened, trembling child”. St Joseph’s had a licence to accommodate 150 boys. From the 1930s, numbers exceeded that and there were over 200 in the 1960s. The majority stayed six years, leaving at 16. At any time there were approximately 10 staff, about half of them priests and half of them brothers, with two prefects responsible for keeping discipline. These slept in a room off each of two dormitories.
In addition there were four or five lay teachers in the school.
About half of the boys came from Dublin, with the rest mainly from Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Tralee. Most staff, many with little education and none with training in childcare, were from rural backgrounds. The capitation system, whereby schools were paid grants per boy, forced managers to have greater rather than lesser numbers, and when these dropped, the issue was raised with the Department of Education and with politicians. “Instead of receiving the hand of compassion, they were given the hurtful fist of degradation,” said Judge Mathews at the trial of Sean Barry. |
posted by The Knitter @ 1:44 AM ![](https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif) |
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Saturday, March 19, 2005 |
Victim hits out at abuse sentence |
The horrific stories of two men who were physically abused and one indecently assaulted while they were boys in the care of the Rosminian order in Clonmel, nearly thirty years ago, were told at a sitting of Clonmel Circuit Court. The abuses happened in St. Joseph’s School, Ferryhouse, at the hands of a religious brother, who later went on to become a priest but has since left the priesthood.
The court was told how one of the victims, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had his elbow broken during one incident dating back to the 1970’s, an injury which he claims never received proper treatment, and which to this day causes him severe pain.
A second victim of the former religious made a statement during the trial, asking the court to “give me back my life by removing him from society.’’ The victim, who also cannot be named, was supported by family members in the courtroom. He said he was sorry he could not bring himself to forgive the man who had abused him, and that he would have to live with it for the rest of his life.
John Masterson, (54) 144 Lohunda Downs, Clonsilla, Dublin 15, pleaded guilty to two charges of assault, one charge of assault causing bodily harm, and one charge of indecent assault, before Judge Joseph Mathews. He was convicted on all four charges and received, in total, a six year suspended jail term. Speaking to The Nationalist after the trial one of the victims expressed his disappointment with the leniency of sentence. The man and his wife, who had travelled from Cork for the court hearing, said that they were ‘stunned’ by the judgement and the fact the accused received a suspended sentence. “I thought he would be jailed,’’ the victim said.
The court was told that the offences were committed between November 1970 and October 1972, in the case of one of the victims and between May and September 1973 in the case of the second victim. Masterson left Ferryhouse after several years to pursue studies to become a priest, the court was told. He had since left the priesthood, and was later married. Masterson is now estranged from his wife. Judge Mathews said that the two men who had been abused by Masterson should not be described as victims, because of their courage in the face of their suffering. “I have to say I do not like the word victim to describe men of their calibre,’’ he said, “They are men of courage. I salute them.’’
Giving evidence to the court hearing, Clonmel based investigating sergeant Liam Corcoran said that he met with one of the victims in December 1997, and took a lengthy statement from him. The man described in detail the time he spent at Ferryhouse between 1973 and 1976, when he was aged from 14 years old to 17 years old. Brother Masterson was in charge of group B during that time, boys between 9 and 12 years.
WARNED NOT TO TELL ANYBODY The man described to Sgt. Corcoran that about Easter in 1973, which was April that year, he had seen Masterson beating another boy. He intervened and was then beaten by Masterson himself. After the beating he was told by the Brother to go to his room. The boy was in the room for about ten minutes when Masterson arrived. He forcibly removed the boys’ clothes and then pushed him to the floor. Masterson took off his own clothes and lay on top of the boy and attempted to bugger him, Sgt. Corcoran told the court, but the victim resisted. Masterson then masturbated in front of the boy, later warning him not to tell anyone of the incident.
An incident following a swimming gala at the Ferryhouse swimming pool, during the summer of 1973, was also recalled by the victim in his statement to Sgt. Corcoran, which he relayed to the court. When the swimming meeting was over the victim and another boy were told to go to Masterson’s room for a prize. When they got there Masterson gave them loose fitting swimming costumes, and told them to put them on. The boys said no, which lead to Masterson beating the boy. The ordeal lasted 5 to 6 minutes, he told Sgt. Corcoran.
Sgt. Corcoran went on to tell the court of his interviews with the second victim who had received the arm injury as a boy in St. Joseph’s. He met this man, who lives in Cork, in May 1998. The man described for him the time he spent in St. Joseph’s between November 1970 and April 1973, from the ages of 12 to 15. On one occasion the boy ran away from the school, Sgt. Corcoran told the court. He didn’t get very far, going as far as the River Suir which runs through the grounds of the school. He lay down in the wet to avoid being detected, but was found and brought back to the school. He told Sgt. Corcoran that he had been put to bed in his wet clothes. The next day he was taken out of bed by Masterson and brought to a stone room where he was beaten with a strap, for running away. It was during this beating that the boy’s arm was injured. He received medical treatment at the school for this. After a few days he was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Clonmel town, where he was told his elbow was broken and his arm was put in plaster. The injury never healed properly, the man had told Sgt. Corcoran.
Sgt. Corcoran told the court that the man had told him that his left arm was “wasted’’ compared to his right arm, and he could only use it to hold light things. He was in constant pain with the injury to this day. Evidence was also given to the court by Sgt. Corcoran of his initial interviews with the accused. On August 5 1998 the sergeant visited Masterson at his home and put to him the charges. Masterson made a statement admitting the assaults on the two victims. He remembered giving the swimming costumes to two boys but not the beating which followed, Sgt. Corcoran told the court.
The statement also included details of Masterson’s work in Ferryhouse, and how he had been looking after the boys 24 hours a day. He expressed remorse in the statement. Masterson was a boy in Ferryhouse before he returned to work there between 1968 and 1973, when he left to pursue his studies for the priesthood, the court was told by the sergeant. He was laicised in 1992, and is currently employed and living in Dublin.
100 TABLETS FOR THE PAIN Giving details of a victim impact statement he had taken from the victim who had his arm injured, Sgt. Corcoran said that after a lifetime of living with his injury he felt that nothing could be done to fix the problem. He had to live his life as a onearmed man, he told the sergeant. As a young man he had wanted to follow a family tradition of joining the army, but he couldn’t because of his injury. He takes 100 paracetamol tablets a month to cope with the pain. The man also has difficulties attending church, Sgt. Corcoran said. As a young person he was religious, he had told the sergeant, but he has had difficulty trying to regain his faith. Two years ago he was unable to attend the funeral of his brother because he was not able to go into the church.
Defence Counsel for Masterson told the court that as a child his client had been a resident of St. Joseph’s, from eight years of age. His mother was unmarried and they lived in poverty in Kilkenny. Judge Mathews described the situation as one where as a boy Masterson was treated violently and grew up thinking that was the way. When Masterson returned to work in St. Joseph’s he was given no training at all, his defence counsel said. When Masterson had trained as a priest, in the early 1990’s he returned to Clonmel to work as a curate. When Sgt. Corcoran called to see Masterson he had a very mature conversation with him, his solicitor told the court. His client did not try to minimise what had happened or put any blame on the children.
Following the evidence in the case one of the men who had been a victim of Masterson in St. Joseph’s made a statement to the court. The man asked that the court not take into consideration that the accused was a priest but to consider the feelings of an innocent boy. “His education and position of power should have separated him from the evil, vile and demented criminals that perpetrate these sexual crimes. But the facts are that he did know the difference and still chose to inflict his reign of terror and sexual abuse on an innocent boy. I’m sorry for not being able to bring myself to forgive him.’’
Judge Mathews told the victim that he appreciated his courage in making the statement to the court. He said he saluted his courage. And that he and his wife had shown great fortitude in coming to the hearing. “I hope this is the beginning of the end of a sad past. I wish you every peace in the future,’’ The judge said that the crimes committed against the victims “Should never have happened.’’ Several character witnesses appeared in court on behalf of Masterson, Mr Sean Sweeney, who told the court he was a director of a property company in the UK, said that he had know Masterson for two years, and that he was aware of the nature of the charges against him. He described Masterson as being “absolutely and totally remorseful.’’ He admired his strength of character through the whole period, he said, and told Judge Mathews everybody in his social circle knew of the charges, and that he now counted only three people as his friends.
WORKED AS CURATE IN CLONMEL James Keating, from Clonmel, said he had known Masterson when he worked as a curate in the busy St. Oliver’s parish, Clonmel, ten years ago. Masterson met Mr Keating, who was at that time the chairman of St. Mary’s Hurling Club, when Masterson coached the under 16 team. The team was very successful under Masterson’s coaching, Mr Keating told the court. There was never any hint or suggestion of any impropriety during his time as coach, and the boys had a tremendous respect for him. Mr Miles McPartland, a former student of Masterson, from Dublin, told the court that they had met in 1974 at a Rosminian school in Dublin where Masterson was involved in the training of the hurling team. “Never was there any suggestion of any impropriety with the boys,’’ he told the court, Miles McPartland said he believed some of those boys would not be here today without the hep Masterson had given them.
Taking the stand himself Masterson said that he was very remorseful about the things that he had done, and that he could not make any excuses, “I am terribly sorry for what happened..’’ The court was told by counsel for the accused that Masterson’s background was “very, very tragic,’’ in its own right, that his later life had been shaped by things that had happened to him. It was an important point that he ceased to be like that, and that since he left Ferryhouse he had not abused anybody. His client had educated himself and tried to become a respectable member of the society, his counsel said. When it became clear that things were not going the way they should be at St. Joseph’s Masterson moved on, defence counsel said. He was not somebody who set out to get pleasure out of hurting young boys. He had access to young people through hurling training and there was never any problem.
Handing down sentence to Masterson, Judge Mathews said that he had suffered greatly, and that the suffering he caused has caught up with him. It was a tribute to Masterson in one sense, he said, that he dealt with it. The case was obviously deeply sad, especially for the two victims, Judge Mathews said. It was sad that young boys that were vulnerable and needed affection and support got abuse. “The litany of sadness that keeps coming from our past is an ongoing trauma.’’ Masterson had a sad past, the Judge said, from being a child that was brutalised began to brutalise. No helping hand was extended to others, only a hurting hand. He was destined to become what he did become because he knew no other way, and he learned to live in a robotic automation way under the regime.
Judge Mathews said that he had to balance Masterson’s future with the past, and the gravity of offences against the offender with reference to the circumstances of his victims. He said that he had to and did take into account that this man had met his responsibilities, he didn’t hide, and he didn’t lie. He added that there was a potential in everyone for turning a corner.
FACED HIS DEMONS Judge Mathews said that he was satisfied that Masterson had expressed what he believed to be true remorse, for which the court had to give credit. By this plea of guilty Masterson has faced his demons. Masterson’s sentence would be suspended imprisonment on condition that he had to avoid situations with young children, Judge Mathews said. On the first count of assault causing bodily harm Masterson was sentenced to three years imprisonment. On a charge of assault he received an additional one year imprisonment, to run concurrently. A prison term of three years was also imposed on a third charge, of indecent assault, to run consecutively, and one year imprisonment for a charge of assault, to run concurrently. All suspended. Masterson was ordered to keep the peace for the length of the suspended sentence, on £100 his own bond. The sentence was described as “a sentence to reflect what is now past,’’ by the Judge.
Responding to a request from the accused’s counsel, the Judge said Masterson may continue to train hurling teams.
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posted by The Knitter @ 11:17 AM ![](https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif) |
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Saturday, September 11, 2004 |
Abuse in institutions noted by officials |
Later yesterday the committee was told by Father Joe O'Reilly, provincial of the Rosminian Institute of Charity in Ireland, that when corporal punishment was banned in 1982, the Attorney General advised it did not extend to industrial schools. Through the 1990s also, the order began apologising for this, mainly through the media, and then in a formal public apology in 1999, he said. They had to accept "there was quite an amount of truth in what people were saying to us, perhaps even more than we knew at that stage".
The secretary general of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Tim Dalton, said yesterday a colleague told him in 1989 that children in some residential institutions had been abused physically in a systematic way involving humiliation. Mr Dalton said a principal officer at the Department, the deceased Mr Dick Crowe, said that when he (Mr Crowe) worked with the Kennedy committee, which investigated the institutions between 1967 and 1970, they came across institutions where children were being punished, not at the time of a misdemeanour, but were later gathered on a stairway, were made to strip off, and were then beaten.
Mr Dalton was giving evidence to the investigation committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in Dublin yesterday. Father O'Reilly said his order had sought such advice. The order managed St Joseph's industrial school at Clonmel, Co Tipperary; St Patrick's industrial school at Upton, Co Cork, which closed as an industrial school in 1966; and St Joseph's school for the visually impaired at Drumcondra in Dublin. Father O'Reilly said that in 1979 a member was expelled from the order within weeks of allegations of sex abuse being made against him by three boys at St Joseph's in Clonmel.
Psychiatric help was organised for the accused man and for the boys, while the Department of Education and other authorities were informed, he said. There was another allegation against another member of the order some time later that year, he added. In 1990, Father James Flynn, now the order's superior general in Rome but then its provincial in Ireland, apologised for the treatment of boys at "old Ferryhouse" (St Joseph's in Clonmel). Speaking at the opening of a refurbished St Joseph's that year, in the company of then minister for education, Ms O'Rourke, and then Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the House) , Mr Seán Treacy, Father Flynn said the regime at the old school had been of "extreme severity, even brutality" and asked, on behalf of the order, for forgiveness.
Father O'Reilly said that through the 1990s, as more and more survivors came forward, the order had to accept that there "were children who were abused in our institutions in the past". Sexual and physical abuse were involved, at St Joseph's Clonmel mainly, he said, while things were "not as clear" at Upton. He said the order agreed to contribute to the Government redress scheme "guided by the maxim 'do no more harm'."
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posted by The Knitter @ 8:29 AM ![](https://resources.blogblog.com/img/icon18_edit_allbkg.gif) |
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About Me |
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Name: The Knitter
Home: Ireland
About Me: The Ryan Report
I hold fast to the view that there must be no more deals, secret or otherwise done between Religious orders and the Government of Ireland without indepth consultation with people who were abused while in the care of religious orders or the state.
See my complete profile
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