Predators at large?

I rarely post on this blog nowadays, feeling that I've done all I can. In any case there are more enjoyable things to blog about. But I'm generally happy to help. I received the following messages from a TV producer recently. If anyone would like to provide information or be interviewed, let me know.  

I work as a producer for ITV News and I am looking to find locations of other priest/teachers who abused children who have not been convicted.

I was wondering if you could help me as I am finding it difficult to locate them as they have either moved on or very little about them

The names I am interested in:

Brother Manley

William Don

Timothy Foxall

Michael Murphy

Brother Ryan

Brother Eagen

A later message: 

I was wondering if you knew anyone who I can speak to in England who suffered abuse at any of the schools.

Boys are like hedgehogs. Really?

I have had a recent correspondence with Fr Tim Dean of the Diocese of Westminster. He told me that his comment on my blog had not been posted, which was bizarre because I've just found one from him dated 5 May 2014. Anyway, we exchanged emails which I reproduce below without further comment. 

On 11 May 2014 16:08, Tim Dean wrote:

I wrote a comment on the Millstones website, but as you know, I thought I had posted it but it's disappeared. So I'll send this as an e-mail, because I'm certainly not going to write it three times! In fact this will be briefer than my original musings.

I went to Cricklade in the fifties but I can't quite work out the exact years. I am older than you, (72 last month) so maybe that's an indication. I was there in the year of the Queen's Coronation (!) I remember that very well. We put on a special concert in the Village Hall and a few days later we invited Cricklade's OAPs in for tea. They seemed a bit bewildered, sitting at our little tin tables. But the boys enjoyed serving them tea and cake.

Brother A was the Head. He was basically kindly and not, I thought, over-familiar with the boys. At least, no boy of my aquaintance ever said anything to that effect. It was well-known that the Brothers each had a leather strap but it was rarely used. In fact, I don't remember the strap being used at Cricklade EVER. It was used at Prior Park which I later went to and where I spent all my senior school years. But it was largely kept as a deterrent. Again, the 1950s were another age - corporal punishment had not yet been outlawed by our society and was not seen as brutalist in that post-war era. Boys are very hardy and if you were foolish enough to get the strap you quickly "moved on" as the saying goes nowadays and "got over it".

I and my year were happy at Cricklade. We neither liked nor disliked the Brothers. Boys tend to accept the status quo in most situations. We kept small pets like hamsters - mine were always dying of pneumonia - I learned a bit of pottery in the village, in the summer we walked through the meadows to swim off the riverbank. Athough an insignificant stream I believe it was actually the Thames.

Brother Hayes introduced riding. I was the first boy to fall off a horse and break my arm. As you say he would sometimes play us 78 rpm bakelite records on a preposterous gramophone with a giant horn on the landing. There wasn't much of a selection. I remember some mawkish songs like "In a Monastery Garden". 

We were each allowed to keep a tin of Golden Syrup in the Refectory to make the breakfast porridge more palatable. There was a Matron who was quite motherly, as I recall.

For me, the great thing about moving up to Prior Park College, Bath was the beauty of the location. A palladian mansion with its own 18th Century landscaped gardens and man-made lakes overlooking the city of Bath. We had the CCF, good drama taught by a BBC actor, Hedley Goodall, An excellent art teacher - Ronnie Palmer from whom I learned a great deal about the Arts. It was Palmer who pushed through the idea of the Choir and Orchestra performing Faure's Requiem in the College Chapel - quite ambitious for those days. I didn't get great exam results - just average - but that was entirely my fault and it shames me still. The Brothers were mad-keen on rugby which had no appeal for me - but our teams did well in competition with other schools.

Entering the world of work I spent many years in London and later worked overseas. In 1984 after returning to England I started training for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained by the late Cardinal Basil Hume at the age of 50 in 1992. I recently retired, although there is much to keep me busy.

I don't recognise the Cricklade you have described in Millstones. I am not saying bad things didn't happen in your time. I wasn't there. The particular Brother you describe must have been in residence at some stage and been a total disaster. (From time to time, all boarding schools are vulnerable to appalling 'teachers' who get into the system when they should have been excluded.) And I am glad I must have moved on before his time. But because I was happy at Cricklade I must reject as unreasonable the following photo caption from Millstones:

Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, scene of miseries suffered by generations of Catholic children at the hands of the Christian Brothers

That reads as absurdly melodramatic and doesn't make any sense to me. In addition - NOWADAYS - both the Prep School and the Secondary School are doing very well under lay supervision. They deserve our support and affirmation. I went back to Prior Park last year for a lunch and was very impressed by what I saw. But I can't say Millstones serves any worthwhile role in support of today's schools.

Have you watched "Philomena"? Wonderful film, based on the same sad realities of a former age.

Regards,

Tim Dean

Diocese of Westminster

I replied as follows on 11 May 2014: 

Many thanks for your contribution, Tim. All I can say is that I am really pleased that you enjoyed your time at Cricklade. I would hate to think that all its ex-pupils had as bad a time as we did.

In view of that, I will change  the caption you mention to 'scene of miseries suffered by many Catholic children...'  I do mention the pleasant aspects of Cricklade; I enjoyed the countryside, and Br A struck me as a kindly man compared with Br B. But he did have those wandering hands, I'm afraid, and two of my contemporaries had to endure them. I don't know what his problem was, but the current spotlight on child abuse proves that it was shared by many. And no doubt always has been.

I agree about the spectacular scenery at Prior Park being an uplifting aspect; 'Toffee' Palmer was my favourite teacher and I still remember singing in the Faure Requiem and feeling that it was one of the best things I'd ever done.

You may like to know that a group of Prior Park College ex-pupils, some three or four years younger than me, had vile experiences there but that was apparently because of bullying by other pupils. It took them some years to recover from these experiences. Today, of course, one would say that the College Brothers at the time did not perform their pastoral duties as they should have done. But bullying in those days was endemic.

I do also mention on Millstones at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/so-i-didnt-imagine-horrors-of-cricklade.html the fact that Cricklade is now "a happy and fulfilling institution" and my introduction to the site does warn that it focuses on allegations of abuse by the Christian Brothers.  That is because the abuse that my brothers, some of our contemporaries and I myself suffered made a deep impression on us.

You say that you hardly knew the strap at Cricklade. I think you were just lucky that Daly was not the headmaster. His habit of strapping boys was imitated by other Brothers, though I cannot remember any of them actually beating a boy repeatedly around the head as Daly did on one occasion.

I am afraid that as I progressed in my education and discovered the damage that religion has done to milllions with its violent abuse of human rights - I did specialise in 16th century history of course - I abandoned any idea of continuing to practise Catholicism. I am still greatly moved by the religious music of J.S. Bach, the idea of Christ's sacrifice and so on.

You say that "boys are very hardy" and can "move on."  I do not think that this view is held by many people nowadays. It would imply that boys are tougher mentally than girls. Anyone with experience of co-education would question this. All young people are sensitive to a greater or a lesser extent.

Millstones is intended as a warning about the past rather than as a support for today's schools. Dwelling on the evils of the past, such as writing about world wars, can of course be seen as a constructive way of educating future generations. So in that sense it can be seen as a support.

I haven't seen Philomena but will look out for it.

It's possible that your comment was too long to be accepted by the blog. I will add it as a separate post. Could you please confirm that you are happy to be named.

Best wishes

Michael

Fr Tim wrote to me the following day:

Hmmm.... as a late vocation Catholic priest I am disappointed that you have walked away from the Catholic Church on the basis of human failure and wickedness - evil though it is. So that cancels out all the good the Church has done, is doing and will do? I don't get that. I would always need to know where faith in the revelation of Jesus Christ was leading me - towards the Church or away from it? Why would anyone reject the concept of the Redemption of the world by the Son of God on the basis of failures on the part of a certain percentage of the human membership of the Church? Makes no sense to me. Particularly at a time when Western atheism is increasingly belligerent and arrogantly convinced that it has reason on its side. Our Holy Redeemer needs all the friends he can get at a time like this.

I am not politically correct so I don't accept modern British mores without question. I am pretty sensitive myself - I used to 'weep myself to sleep' for several nights at the start of each term at Prior Park - but can honestly say that I did "get over" negative stuff at school, usually by the following morning. I am not condoning anything that falls short of pastoral care at school but I do believe that boys are hard-wired to bring down the shutters instinctively when things are going against them. Although they are children, nature does not leave them defenseless. Like hedgehogs that know when to roll themselves into a ball. I have no idea if girls are different, although I suspect they may be in important respects.... but I am no educationist. I spent my working life in a business environment.

Incidentally, there was NO bullying at Prior Park in my many years there. I would have hated that and would certainly have remembered it with a sense of smouldering resentment. I have no such recollections.

Once again - I seem to have been at these schools at a charmed period in their existence compared to you and your companions. 

"Millstones is intended as a warning about the past". Er, what does that mean? You can't warn somebody about a train wreck that happened yesterday - calamitous though it was. The past is the past. There needs to be a cut-off point, when the dead are entrusted to the mercy of God. 

The religious orders - the teaching orders - have been in retreat for a generation. Their day is gone. It seems to be the will of God that this should be so. As to how the Catholic Faith is to be made available to new generations of youngsters - that's a major challenge for the Church of today. And if you happen to be someone like me, who believes that Catholic kids have a right to receive knowledge of the Faith from their elders, it is is a burning issue.

Yes, you can quote anything I've written as long as you don't just fillet it or cut and paste. I am unlikely to want to contribute further on the Web.

 I should be signed off as Fr Tim Dean.

With the best will in the world, I think you were very unlucky to be at these schools at a given time. And I was very lucky to be at the same schools when they were pretty much OK.

What else can I say?

Regards,

Tim




Fr Tim wrote again on 19 May to reiterate his belief that boys are like hedgehogs  and can use defence mechanisms to protect themselves in cases when "things are going against them."  

He also believes that had he been in an abusive situation similar to the one I described he would have asked his parents to remove him from the school.  

I'm sure that if young victims of sexual abuse had been as confident and articulate  as Fr Tim evidently is people like Jimmy Savile would have been unmasked and jailed many many years ago. 

But sadly, life is not like that.  

Fr Tim may be happy with what the Catholic Church represents. Looking back on it as an extraordinary pantomime with its bizarre beliefs and nonsensical rituals I am quite happy to have rejected the Church and most organised religions. And that's without taking into account the violence and sexual abuse carried out by Christian Brothers that I've described on this site. 

 

19 May

Many thanks, Michael,

The two links you have sent show that there is no 'black hole' into which messages disappear as I had suggested. But I do find that just to go to the site and see what people may have posted is far from easy. Without those links you posted I would never have found anything.

My image of the hedghog was intended to sum up something I believe quite strongly - that children are endowed by nature with defence mechanisms which they employ almost unconsciously. There's also the support of other kids - and some kindly adults - which should not be underestimated. Children are a great help to one another in difficult circumstances. I am interested in getting at the truth of these matters while suspecting that this is going to be very difficult. Exaggeration makes for a better tale. I am certain that bad things happened but not as a constant pattern as the blogsite suggests. If I had been under the kind of pressure described I would have asked my parents to remove me from Cricklade - or indeed Prior - and send me somewhere else. So would the others in my year.

In those days, use of the strap was grotesque and outdated - a hangover from a very different age of disciplining children.The brothers clearly did not realise that times had changed and that they were not in Ireland. But every schoolmaster in my day (1950s) was free to use the cane. I often heard it discussed when I was a child. And since I had never seen a cane, I remember being a bit shocked to hear people at other schools talking about it from experience.

Don't you feel like rejoicing that the days of corporal punishment, once considered normal by most people are now gone forever?

As for the brutal headmaster you refer to - yes, I can believe he may have been mentally ill. But you may have noticed we share this planet with a number of people whose presence in our lives we could well do without. All we can do is pray for them. As Christ did when hanging on the cross. 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

What are you saying - that God can forgive if he wants to, but he can't expect human beings to do the same?

 

Monkey business in the Highlands

Above: Fort Augustus Abbey in the Highlands of Scotland, scene of physical and sexual abuses allegedly committed at this former Catholic boarding school run by Benedictine monks
Image credit: Colin Wilson

I haven't posted anything about the Christian Brothers for a long time. Maybe revelations like this about other dark corners of the Catholic Church will revive the grim memories for me. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/25/fort-augustus-abbey-school-abuse-allegations

Crystal-clear memories of the Brothers' cruelty

Not such happy times for pupils at the Cricklade prep school in the 1950s

Further witnesses have come forward to support allegations made by Gerard Lidgey about the brutal abuse of children by the Irish Christian Brothers at their school in Cricklade during the 1950s. 

Reading the memories evoked by Gerard at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/bother-those-brothers.html  prompted a fellow former Prior Park Prep School pupil to dwell on his own recollections.

James - not his real name - is keen for others to contact Gerard and support his case against the Brothers.

  

"I think that others need to come out and describe just what went on," he writes. "The physical and mental cruelty inflicted upon pupils at Cricklade has been well documented. The more I think of the terror regime they ran, the more angry I am."

Memories of his nightmare education at the hands of the Brothers continue to haunt James.

"They are as crystal clear now - 50 years later. It is as if it were yesterday. I cannot think of a moment at that school which was not fear-filled. I think the only time one felt safe was during the cinema showing. At least then one felt that no black-robed Irish thug would lay into you with his whale-bone reinforced strap. Was there not some company in Dublin who made these instruments of torture?"

"I escaped the sexual abuse but I knew it went on. Besides the brutal Br B  I remember two other brothers who brutalised me. They were Brothers Carmody and Madigan. Beatings and savage slaps across the head were commonplace. Sometimes you hardly knew the reason for these assaults."

Like other former pupils James is sickened by his memories of punishments administered in front of the whole school like a grotesque ritual. One in particular stands out.

"What really sticks in the mind is a public beating.  For a 7- or 8-year-old it was like watching a public execution. We all filed into the Assembly Hall. On the stage was a piano stool. Soon a 10-year-old boy was led on to the stage, terrified and in floods of tears."

A monstrance used to display the consecrated wafer purporting to be the Body of Christ. The vessel used by the Brothers would have been an effective way of terrorising a devoutly Catholic small child into confessing his guilt

"What terrible crime had this little boy committed? He had purportedly thrown another boy's slipper down a lavatory bowl. He admitted his offence only after a monstrance was held up and he was told to swear on the Blessed Sacrament that he had not committed this 'crime'".

Having been found guilty he was forced over the stool and beaten with great savagery - from memory something like 30 times. He was then taken off the stage by various Brothers. I will never forget the stunned silence as the small boys took in what had happened."

James blames Cricklade headmaster Brother B - "the Head Warder" as he calls him - as the inspiration behind the generalised brutality in the school.  

But he has harsh words for the Christian Brothers-educated Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales who has been featured earlier in these pages at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/we-have-to-move-on-in-life-really.html

Pictured above is Bishop John Sherrington, Auxiliary Bishop for the Diocese of Westminster, to whom James wrote recently about his nightmare experiences at Cricklade. He responded with  much sympathy.

However, the same cannot be said of Archbishop Vincent Nichols, James feels.

James alleges that because the Archbishop was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers he would have known of the reputation of Christian Brothers like Br B and his subordinates.

"It is shocking that he has made no public condemnation. Worse still, he actually praises them."

James believes that Archbishop Nichols has given up replying to those who remind him of the wickedness of the Brothers.

"Clearly, he thinks their behaviour character-building," he concludes.

For cradle-Catholics like James his experiences at the hands of the Irish Christian Brothers have played a major part in driving him away from the Catholic Church.

"Jesus said that those who sin against children, or turn them towards sin, may as well put a millstone around their neck. That is just what the Brothers at Cricklade did. I left the Church years ago, as did so many of my peers."

More tales of strapping boys

The gardening season is upon us with spring flowers gaily adorning the borders and even the cheerful sound of mowers at work on the grass in this unexpectedly mild spell of late February. But what else would we expect on the South Devon coast at Budleigh Salterton?

My gardening pleasures and the return of Spring's fresh innocence ought to combine, or so you'd think, to blow away the bad memories of nearly 60 years ago.

Maybe it's my recent correspondence with ex-Cricklade victim Gerard Lidgey, mentioned at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/bother-those-brothers.html  that's preventing me from putting them all behind me. Or perhaps it's seeing the growing folder of 'Assignments waiting' on my computer which convinces me that the job of recording the unsavoury history of the Irish Christian Brothers is not yet over.

Whatever...

Here's a paragraph from a recent email sent by one of our contemporaries at Prior Park Prep School who's happy for me to post his account on Millstones. I'll call him George because he'd rather not be identified. 

"I do recall receiving 26 of the strap in one term from a Brother Hegarty for not knowing my homework, that in later years seemed excessive," he writes.

And here's his account of another of those occasions akin to public executions favoured by the Islamic Republic of Iran and other dark places on this planet.

"I also recall the whole school being called to witness the giving of six of the best of the strap on bare buttocks of some poor soul in the basement, that shocked me."

And then we have George's memory of the gastronomic peculiarities introduced by the Prep School's sadistic headmaster Br B.  

"I was also one of those on the table by the servery in the dining hall made to eat one spoon of porridge each day, and being on that table made to feel inferior to the rest of the school."

Not particularly unpleasant, I thought, as a daily porridge-eater. But George's point is the psychological damage inflicted on small children by some of those Christian Brothers, more long-lasting in its way than the weals left on hands and occasionally buttocks by physical punishments.

Fear, a crippling sense of inferiority, a lifelong mistrust of one's parents, a permanent dislike of religion... these are some of the less obvious aspects of the legacy left by the teaching orders of the Catholic Church, still not fully recognised by the ecclesiastical authorities and, above all, the Vatican. 

Pictured above is the Irish Christian Brothers' best friend, a strap made up of several thicknesses of leather. These implements were supposedly weighted with pieces of metal. There seems to be plenty of other evidence in support of this view. See for example  http://ezinearticles.com/?Christian-Brothers,-My-Story.&id=2450603

Bother those Brothers!

Br A: known as 'The Saint'

Last November I posted at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/seeing-brothers-in-court.html the account of a former classmate at Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, who was contemplating legal proceedings as a result of his experiences at the hands of the Irish Christian Brothers in the 1950s.

'Harry', as I referred to him, has now decided to let me publish his real name, which is Gerard Lidgey.  This, he feels, is in the interests of transparency. 

Rather than taking legal proceedings however he says that his objective is "to secure an apology and an acknowledgment, together with a modest amount of compensation." 

He is not seeking an inordinate amount, but sufficient to cover in particular the cost of counselling, although he is not confining himself to this.

He is keen to stress that he is not seeking compensation from the present school in Cricklade which as he understands it, is under a different regime, or from Prior Park College, Bath.

Gerard, as a retired solicitor, is confident that with the help of contemporaries who are prepared to make statements he can secure legal representation.

I was more than happy to provide a statement which I have posted on this blog at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/michael-downes-aged-about-7-photo-taken.html
Gerard would be grateful for similar help from Cricklade contemporaries who feel that he deserves support. "I would like to stress that witness evidence will not involve others in financial risk," he writes.  "I am not seeking that they bring proceedings."


He can be contacted as follows:

Gerard Lidgey
4 Nesbitt Close
Bridgemary
Gosport
Hants PO13 0SX

Tel: 01329 284465
Email: glidgey1@gmail.com

A helpful statement

Michael Downes, aged about 7: a photo taken at his village school in Falfield, Gloucestershire.  The move to Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, came as a brutal surprise in the following year

STATEMENT BY MICHAEL NICHOLAS DOWNES


Cricklade and the Irish Christian Brothers
By Michael Downes 
Date of birth: 16 December 1946
Prior Park Preparatory School in September 1954 aged 8
Left the school in July 1958 aged 11

My earliest memory of being punished at Cricklade was when I was beaten with a strap on the hand by Br B for not bringing a pencil to the dining room where we were about to take an exam. I was eight years old and did not know what the word exam meant. I've always remembered this episode.

Apart from the various later strappings that I endured for trivial offences, mainly by Br B, I remember being forced to eat up every scrap of food on the plate at meal times. On one occasion I had to eat a mixture of porridge and fried bread and tomatoes.

Another personal experience I remember is of the aged Br A - later apparently revered at the school as 'The Saint' - feeling my private parts as he sat with his hand up my shorts. This was done with other boys standing around. I cannot recall the names of any witnesses. However I have been in contact with another former pupil at Cricklade who experienced similar treatment while in bed.

More traumatic as a personal experience was to see other pupils being savagely punished. This created a brutalising atmosphere.

I recall particularly a boy who used to wet the bed being dressed up in a sailor's outfit and taken from classroom to classroom where he was beaten with a strap on the hand by Br B at least four times. I know the boy's name but feel that he should be asked if he is prepared to be publicly identified.

Worse was the time when a boy was beaten in public for soiling his underpants. We were told that the garment had been sent back by the laundry which had refused to wash it. The boy was made to lie over a vaulting horse in front of the whole school, as I recall, and then beaten on the buttocks by Br B, probably with a strap. I can't remember whether he was naked or how many times he was beaten. Again, I know the boy's name but have reservations about identifying him. In this and the above case the pupil was withdrawn from the school after the episodes.

I do remember Br B kicking a naked boy in the shower room for some reason or other.

And I have a vivid memory of Br B's violent behaviour towards pupils when he came across two boys who had been fighting. He insisted that they stop and shake hands. When one of them refused, Br B slapped him hard in the face, and continued to slap him for what seemed like over a minute while the boy refused to obey. I can't remember how the matter ended. I think I remember the name of the boy who refused; it would seem wrong to forget such a hero!

I have to say that I cannot remember whether Gerard Lidgey suffered in such ways. I seem to remember that he got into trouble for making what was thought to be a bomb, perhaps because mercury was involved.

There is clearly a problem with these reminiscences because of lack of corroborative evidence. The boy who was groped in bed by Br A lives abroad and has told me that he does not want the police to be informed.

I felt that in spite of the fact that those these events took place many years ago, and even though Br B and Br A are dead, the police should have a record in case my evidence ever became useful in helping another victim of the Christian Brothers who had suffered more severely than I had.

As I have recorded on my Millstones blog at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/criminal-investigation.html I was interviewed at my local police station in Exmouth on 13 October 2010 by DC Mike Laybourne. To my surprise, I found it quite an upsetting experience. Mike was extremely sympathetic. He tells me that he has liaised with Detective Sergeant David Martin, of Wiltshire Police at Hampton Park West, Melksham, Wilts. Tel: 0845 408 7000. I was told that my case number is Case number 247 of 5-10-10.
 
I am not interested in obtaining compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, especially if it's a case of the UK taxpayer having to foot the bill. However I was keen to 'bother the Brothers' and the Catholic Church for the shameful way in which past sins have not been swiftly and openly acknowledged. The Catholic hierarchy and perhaps particularly the Pope have increasingly come to be seen as lacking the moral fibre to deal with the problem of clerical abuse within the Catholic Church.

I wholly believe the contents of the above statement to be true.



Signed:

Michael Downes

10 February 2012

In pursuit of the Pope

Pope Benedict XVI, head of a Church accused of crimes against humanity

Among the many items of news about the Catholic Church which would have been unthinkable in the distant past was the report a year ago that the Pope himself might be charged with crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Surely a fond fantasy on the part of fervent atheists like the UK's Professor Richard Dawkins, I thought. But no, there it is in black and white if you click on http://www.kanzlei-sailer.de/pope-lawsuit-2011.pdf  - a 48-page indictment of Dr Joseph Ratzinger, Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, based on alleged crimes listed by two serious-sounding German lawyers and dated 14 February 2011.

My only quibble with the document is the omission of one country where crimes committed by Catholic clergy have most certainly taken place. In a section of the document entitled 'The worldwide sexual crimes of Catholic priests' there is a depressing list of abuses against children carried out in the USA, Ireland, Germany, Canada, Australia and Africa.  There are further mentions of cases in Belgium, Norway, Austria, France and Latin America.

So the use of the word 'worldwide' is certainly justified. But why is there no mention of the UK?  The abuse of children throughout Britain by members of various church organisations since at least 1970 has been well documented in the media. In a range of locations, from children's homes to our most prestigious Catholic independent schools, Catholic priests and monks have been convicted of the most shocking crimes. 

That omission may be about to be corrected, as British lawyers decide to join their European counterparts in demanding justice for victims of clerical child abuse.

David Greenwood, a partner in the Yorkshire-based firm of Jordans Solicitors, recently secured a landmark case in the House of Lords for an abuse victim which means that time limits relating to child abuse cases will be lifted.  As Head of the Child Abuse Compensation Department at Jordans, he has co-ordinated large group actions on behalf of victims of child abuse. He continues to pursue claims on behalf of over 200 claimants against Catholic organisations, the Home Office and local authorities. He contributes regularly to the firm's dedicated website at http://www.childabusesolicitor.com/

In November 2011 he drew attention to a case in which the court decided that bishops are directly responsible for abuse committed by priests. It is, as he commented, "a groundbreaking decision and destroys the myth which the Catholic Church has tried to peddle that priests are in some way above the law and their Bishops are not responsible for them" although the decision is likely to be appealed by the Church.

Mr Greenwood has now launched a campaign to ask the Government to appoint a public enquiry to look into child abuse in church organisations in England and Wales. For more detail click on http://www.childabusesolicitor.com/2012/02/david-greenwood-sets-out-the-argument-in-favour-of-a-public-inquiry-into-abuse-within-church-organisations-in-england-and-wales/

Location, location.... Sensation!

A statue of St Benedict, founder of the Benedictine Order. It ought to be weeping tears of shame

Just over a year ago I was expressing my frustration at the seeming uselessness of the oddly-named Conference of Religious when faced with cases of child abuse by religious orders like the Christian Brothers. Click on http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/conference-of-religious.html to see the detail.

At the time I was struck by the location of the Conference of Religious. "Judging by its postcode, the Conference of Religious is housed in premises which are close to St Benedict's School, Ealing," I wrote. "Ironically, at this time the school is the subject of an enquiry by Lord Carlile of Berriew QC into clerical child sexual abuse at this establishment, which is run by the religious order of Benedictines."

My observation provoked a comment from one of my readers "It won't surprise you in the slightest to learn that the President of the Conference of the Religious is Martin Shipperlee, the Abbot of Ealing," wrote Jonathan West. The Abbey of Benedictine monks is of course close to St Benedict's School.

I was flattered to learn that Jonathan West has dipped into my blog. He's taken a businesslike and measured approach in his own, entitled Confessions of a skeptic, which has since 2009 specialised in examining abuses committed by members of a respected centuries-old religious order of the Catholic Church.

His blog, at http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.com/ "is largely concerned with highlighting the child sex abuse which has occurred at Ealing Abbey and St. Benedict's School," he writes. "I have two aims: to try and ensure that the child protection policies of the Abbey and school are brought up to the highest possible standard, and to provide support to any victims of abuse at St. Benedict's or elsewhere."

Well, Jonathan West will be busy for the foreseeable future. A headline in the Guardian newspaper 'Fugitive Catholic priest urged to turn himself in' was one of many similar ones which appeared in the British press along with the news that the Carlile report has just been published. Click on http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/09/monks-schoool-abuse-st-benedict-ealing?newsfeed=true to read the story.

It appears that the priest in question, Fr Laurence Soper is a former Abbot of Ealing Abbey who is being sought in connection with disclosures of alleged and proven abuse. Fr Soper is thought to be in hiding at an Italian monastery, having skipped bail in this country.

The Carlile report is apparently a devastating critique of the way in which St Benedict's School, Ealing, had been run, allowing "abuse, mostly – but not exclusively – as a result of the activities of the monastic community."

Click on Jonathan West's website at http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.com/2011/11/sins-of-fathers.html to see more.

Is the Catholic Church about to meet its Waterloo?

Above: The coat of arms of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth, where there is some concern about a recent High Court ruling

I imagine that my schoolfriend Harry whom I mention at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/seeing-brothers-in-court.html will be even keener since the announcement, two days after he contacted me, of a landmark decision by the judge involved in the above High Court case.

Mr Justice Alistair MacDuff's ruling, in what has become known as the 'Baldwin case', that Roman Catholic priests are equivalent to employees has made headlines in the world press.

The case involved a 47-year-old woman who claimed to have been sexually assaulted by the Rev. Wilfred Baldwin when she was living in a Catholic children's home, The Firs, in Waterlooville, Hampshire. She was pursuing a claim for damages against the Catholic Church. Fr Baldwin died in 2006.

The Church has always argued that it is not "vicariously liable" for the actions of priests. In a three-day hearing in July before the judge, it argued that priests are not employees. It claimed there was no contract of employment, that priests paid self-employed taxes and that the positions were never advertised.

This was the first time the argument had been heard in open court. On Tuesday 8 November 2011 Mr Justice MacDuff rejected it. In his ruling he said that Father Wilfred Baldwin, who is accused of abuse, was appointed "by and on behalf of the defendants", the Portsmouth diocese. "He was so appointed in order to do their work, to undertake the ministry on behalf of the defendants to fulfil that role... He was directed into the community with that full authority and was given free reign to act as representative of the church," the ruling read. "He had immense power handed to him by the defendants. It was they who appointed him to the position of trust which (if the allegations be proved) he so abused."

The decision has been welcomed by those who believe that it could pave the way for victims of sexual abuse to win damages from the Church.

The Diocese of Portsmouth has issued a statement on its website at http://www.portsmouthdiocese.org.uk/docs/The-Diocese-Fr-Wilf-Baldwin.pdf
Bishop Crispian Hollis gives, as its primary reason for refuting the claimant's allegations, the assertion that at the time she was resident at The Firs, "Fr Baldwin was based at the other end of the Diocese and had no connection with the children’s home." It is naturally hoping to appeal against the ruling.

Seeing the Brothers in Court

Blessed Antonio Rosmini, founder of a Catholic religious order which, like the Irish Christian Brothers, has been tainted with allegations of sexual abuse of children
It's been months since I posted news of further sins against children committed by Christian Brothers. I'd almost accepted that someone in the Vatican had been invoking Blessed Edmund Rice and praying hard for me to shut up or even die.

Yes, for a day or so back in June 2011 I was appalled as I read the story of the paedophile hypocrite and member of the Rosminian Order Fr Kit Cunningham http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100093079/fr-kit-cunninghams-paedophile-past-heads-should-roll-after-the-rosminian-orders-disgraceful-cover-up/

It was tempting to write to Fr Myers, Provincial of the Rosminian Order in England with my own story of abuse by the Christian Brothers. I'd have enjoyed telling him that he should be comforted by the thought that his Order was not alone in being accused of years of sexual misdemeanours against children.

But somehow those bitter and sarcastic thoughts were short-lived. It was a busy time in the garden. I was preoccupied with trying to overcome the side-effects of an operation for prostate cancer. And I was enjoying getting to know my grandchildren.

I even failed to mention on the Millstones site an email that I received around that time, totally out of the blue, from an ex-pupil at Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, with whom I'd been friendly. I remembered him well, but had hardly thought of him as one who'd had a particularly hard time.

How wrong I was! He hadn't been humiliatingly dressed up in a sailor suit and strapped in front of us like the poor boy I described at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/cricklade-childrens-daly-terror.html He'd certainly never been made to lie over a vaulting horse while Brother B, witnessed by the whole school, thrashed him on the buttocks for the sin of soiling his pants, as I mention at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/so-i-didnt-imagine-horrors-of-cricklade.html





















Above: Brother A. His eyes are closed, as if in prayer

Yet his experience of the Christian Brothers seems to have affected him even more deeply than me. Harry - not his real name - spent three years at Cricklade from 1954 until he moved on, like me, to Prior Park College, Bath. "I remember the abuse I suffered both violent and sexual," he wrote. "I remember Brother A and in particular Brother B. They, and other Brothers, ruined my life."

Harry told me his story in successive emails over the last six months.

Some years ago he had consulted specialist solicitors - he is a retired solicitor himself - but was advised that there was no action he could take. He'd also got in touch with the Irish Christian Brothers, but all they could offer by way of counselling was a meeting with a Christian Brother in Cheshire, hundreds of miles from his home town.

"I also contacted the Catholic Church, but I found them evasive and slow to deal with me," he explained. "I am now an Anglican, although I did for many years keep up with the Catholic Church."

Yes, keeping up with the Church is something that most 'cradle Catholics' find only natural, given the indoctrination that children are subjected to by priests and parents from an early age. 















Prior Park Preparatory School, Cricklade, scene of miseries suffered by many Catholic children at the hands of the Christian Brothers

But back to Cricklade and our schoolboy memories... It turns out that Harry is the third ex-pupil of my acquaintance who experienced the senile gropings of the school's so-called 'Saint.'

"I also remember Brother A," he told me. "I went to Prior Park Preparatory School when I was eight and was very tearful at being separated from my mother. Brother A took me to his bed that night, but I remember nothing after that relative to this incident, although I can recall on later dates Brother A putting his hands down my trousers and fumbling about."

Harry mentioned another incident involving the same Christian Brother which gives a further twist to his character.

"I also recall an occasion when Brother A bent a boy [...] over a chair and struck him with a riding crop interspersing each stroke with prayers. The sound of the strokes were audible throughout the school and he had pronounced weals on his backside."

I have to say that I find this story hard to believe, since I found the venerable Brother to be of the most gentle disposition, however fond he was of groping little boys. Harry concurred with this. "Normally Brother A was kindly, telling stories of having been in India and the incident [...] was out of character."

Yet the riding crop...? It's true that Brother A had charmed my parents, especially my mother, with his tales of horsemanship, so perhaps I got off fairly lightly with just a bit of fondling from the old man.

What has prompted me to come back to the Millstones blog is a recent email from Harry dated 6 November 2011 in which he informed me of a case currently before the High Court in which damages are being sought from the Roman Catholic Church.

"Some years ago," he wrote, "I was advised that if I took proceedings, I would stand no reasonable prospect of success by a firm of solicitors, Panone and Partners, but I think that the position may be different now with the Ryan Report and the Residential Institutions Redress Board (in Ireland). I am told that the solicitor dealing with the case in the High Court is Ms. Tracey Emmott of Emmott Snell & Co."

Harry told me that he was proposing to contact this firm of solicitors with details of our correspondence and of this Millstones blog, and suggesting that I might wish to contact Ms Emmott. He himself would be willing to enter into a Conditional Fee Agreement with the firm, and suspected that there would not be any need for a payment up front in order to seek advice. He had sought advice from his own Anglican church and had found a more helpful response than from the Catholic authorities that he'd consulted. "The local Rector is supportive of my pursuing a claim, as he feels that I should be entitled to redress."

Harry is keen to contact other ex-Cricklade pupils who have suffered at the hands of the Christian Brothers, and I would be more than happy to provide his email address if he is willing for me to do this.

Completing the trinity

So many important things come in threes. Like the Trinity, which I learnt about as a good Catholic boy reading his catechism some 60 years ago.

So decided to post a third item today as it follows on from what I've just written at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/criminal-investigation.html about my contact with the police.

On 10 January this year I received a phone call from a Bro Gibson in Dublin. It turned out that he had been investigating the case which I had brought to the attention of Archbishop Nichols almost a year ago. All I could do was to repeat my story of what had happened at the Christian Brothers' Prep School in Cricklade, to which Bro Gibson responded with a natural sympathy.

He emailed me the same day the following letter:

Dear Mr Downes,

Further to our conversation this afternoon, I just want you to know that I rang Wiltshire Police, informing them of my motive for contacting them: to report your allegation of abuse. They took down my details and told me that they would add them to the file they had already compiled in the light of your own reporting to them. They said that they may contact me in the future, depending on the progress of their investigation.

I want to express my deep regret for the pain and suffering you experienced while at Prior Park and which you reported to the Christian Brothers. It makes for very sad reading.

Should you wish to contact me furher [sic], I have already given you my contact
details. In the meantime, may I wish you every blessing and good wishes.

With kind regards


David Gibson (Brother)

I replied two days later, with an invitation:

Dear Brother Gibson

Thank you for your phone call and for your kind and sympathetic email expressing your regret over my case. It is much appreciated.

The ideal of the Christian Brothers is a noble one, and it is a shame that the Congregation's reputation has been harmed by the actions of a few psychologically disturbed individuals.

Recognition that wrong was done in the past to innocent children, and transparency in acknowledging these cases of clerical child abuse, have been long overdue. This new attitude must surely help to cast the Catholic Church in a more positive light.

For the past year I have tried to investigate such cases involving Christian Brothers in UK schools. As I am sure you know, many websites have been started with a similar theme. Often the tone of such contributions is shockingly abusive, and unjustified, in postings by both accusers of the Christian Brothers, and by their defenders.

I set up a site called Millstones, on Facebook. I hope that it is more measured in tone. If you would like to join the group I would be delighted. Just type Millstones into the search box, and request to join. I believe you are on Facebook yourself.

Thank you again for your cooperation with Wiltshire Police, and for your kind phone call.

Yours sincerely

Michael
Bro Gibson, who, it seems is quite senior in the hierarchy of Christian Brothers, has had much experience of the history of allegations levelled at the Congregation, as I found when I clicked on sites such as http://www.alliancesupport.org/news/archives/000108.html

This was his reply, emailed to me the same day:

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email and for your measured reflection on the sorry situation of child abuse in the Catholic Church. Certainly, child abuse raises many painful memories and feelings, and it is understandable when sometimes these feelings are expressed in rather raw ways. However, I hope that eventually some form of healing will lead people to a place where they can begin to integrate the pain and suffering into a life that becomes one that is compassionate and forgiving. But it takes time.

I will look at your Millstones and look forward to seeing how you present your message.

With kind regards


David Gibson
I am sorry that Bro Gibson has not taken up my invitation to join the Millstones site. I don't think that he would have caused the Congregation of Christian Brothers to lose face or admit guilt by appearing on it along with victims of child abuse. Rather, it would have shown that he and the Catholic Church are now brave enough to embrace the ranks of the accusers and demonstrate not only a new transparency in these matters for the Church but also a bold solidarity with the victims. I think it might have been quite a smart PR move.

Ah well, it's back to the garden again.

A criminal investigation?

The photo which I published at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/almost-60-years-on-mystery-solved.html has evidently brought back memories of the ghastly schooldays dominated by the cruelty and violence of certain Christian Brothers at Prior Park Preparatory School in Cricklade, Wiltshire.

It's also reminded me of how last October I decided to contact the police about the sexual assault which I mentioned to Archbishop Vincent Nichols in my letter emailed to him at Easter 2010, posted at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/easter-letter-to-archbishop.html

Well, I call it sexual assault just because I suppose that's how it would be described today, although the senile fumbling of the Christian Brother involved hardly ranks with the brutal rapes inflicted on some of their charges, in Ireland for example.

I suppose I simply wanted to record this little detail as part of the larger jigsaw of child abuse for which this and other religious orders have been responsible. For future historians of religion, or of education, for example.

It seemed that my complaint had to be addressed to Wiltshire Police, since it was in that county where the alleged assult took place. The police, to my surprise, were pleasantly cooperative. After all, they are supposed to take allegations of historic child abuse seriously, but it was a long time ago. And the perpetrators, including headmaster Bro B whom I mentioned for the savage beatings that he inflicted on ten-year-old children, have been dead for a long time.

I wouldn't have blamed the police if they'd told me that they had better things to do than waste time on my age-old case. Yet at the back of my mind was the thought that my account might help to corroborate those of other victims if they felt brave or mad enough to bring them to light.
I was interviewed at my local police station in Exmouth on 13 October 2010 by DC Mike Laybourne. To my surprise, I found it quite an upsetting experience. Mike was extremely sympathetic. He tells me that he has liaised with Detective Sergeant David Martin, of Wiltshire Police at Hampton Park West, Melksham, Wilts. Tel: 0845 408 7000.

And I suppose, or vaguely hope, that what I told him has been recorded in a file somewhere. Maybe, one day, if I'm feeling suitably outraged by yet another revelation of the cruelty suffered by children at the hands of religious orders like the Christian Brothers, I'll contact DS Martin, just to make sure that my little piece of the jigsaw is in the right place.

Almost 60 years on, a mystery solved

It's been some time since I posted anything on this site, which I suppose means that my mind has been taken up with happier activities. Like DIY, house re-decoration and so on. Plus there's my work as volunteer press officer for the local museum, which has been thoroughly absorbing.

But a fellow-victim of the Christian Brothers at Prior Park Prep School, Cricklade, emailed me yesterday with the answer to a tiny puzzle which featured in a previous post at http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/cricklade-childrens-daly-terror.html

There I described how the weirdly sadistic headmaster Bro B had punished a boy with a bedwetting problem by dressing him up in a sailor suit and parading him from classroom to classroom with a good strapping in front of each class. Well I'd been wondering what kind of weirdo would have gone out and hired a sailor suit specially for this occasion.

It turns out that on the Friends Reunited site at http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/album.page/album?albumKey=304597&albumType=SchoolAlbum&member_key=0&mediaKey=0&commentPage=0 you can see the above photo taken of a pageant staged at Cricklade in 1952 to mark the accession of Princess Elizabeth to the Throne. The photo was uploaded on to the site by ex-pupil Michael Cross. And in it I see at least ten little boys wearing sailor suits, as well as someone dressed as Britannia.

So, mystery solved. Br B obviously had a storeroom of costumes somewhere in the school which he kept for years after the event. I wonder who else was subjected to a humiliating ritual which involved dressing up to satisfy this twisted man's fantasies.

The Conference of Religious

Where do you go with a complaint based on a case of historic clerical child abuse?
Not to the somewhat weirdly named Conference of Religious if you want my opinion.
They've devoted much energy to devising their logo, pictured above, but not enough to dealing with the Catholic Church's biggest problem. See http://www.corew.org/aboutus.htm#ourlogo

Having emailed Declan Lang, Bishop of Clifton, back in April - see http://millstonesblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/letter-to-bishop-of-clifton.html - I was expecting some sort of official confirmation complete with case file number. Three months later, on 23 July 2010, following a bit of pestering from me I get a nice and apologetic email from Safeguarding Coordinator Eugene Gallagher at the Clifton Diocesan Safeguarding Office who explained that my letter should have been forwarded to the Conference of Religious where it would be handled by a Mike Denton. Another gently enquiring email from me was needed before I received a nice and apologetic response from Mr Denton.

He wrote me a perfectly appropriate letter of sympathy offering to contact the Christian Brothers but made no response to my request for confirmation that my complaint had been referenced with a case file number. As for my request that my letter should be passed to the statutory authorities Mike Denton told me that the police would not know what to do with my letter.

"The Conference of Religious seeks to be a dynamic and proactive presence of Church, particularly with those on the margins of society," reads the welcoming statement of this organisation's website at http://www.corew.org/ "It aims to unite its membership in collaborative initiatives translating gospel vision into reality, and to offer support to those in positions of leadership."

The COREW site lists safeguarding among its sections but this is not accessible without a password. Hardly encouraging for victims of abuse. The safeguarding section is clearly intended to guide clerics rather than to support their victims.

However sympathetic Mike Denton's response might have been, I felt it was unsatisfactory.

That feeling was confirmed by an email I received from a victim of clerical child abuse whose case has received wide publicity: "This is a classic example of the safeguarding officer trying to persuade you that he knows everything there is to know about safeguarding. Well he clearly does not. The stuff about the police is bollocks. I work closely with police on numerous child abuse cases and there is no case that they do not want to know about. All safeguarding officers, regardless of whom they are employed by, have a statutory duty to report to the police any information that suggests that a child may have been abused in the past, or may still be at risk. There are no exceptions to this. The fact that a witness might be deceased is irrelevant."

Judging by its postcode, the Conference of Religious is housed in premises which are close to St Benedict's School, Ealing. Ironically, at this time the school is the subject of an enquiry by Lord Carlile of Berriew QC into clerical child sexual abuse at this establishment, which is run by the religious order of Benedictines.

Click on http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.com/?gclid=CJDbqaSwv6QCFchH4wodQXhs_w where you will find that a sensible chap called Jonathan West is exasperated in the same way that I have been by the lack of transparency and general inefficiency of the Catholic Church in dealing with the messy business of sex abuse at one of its top UK school. His email address: jonathanwest22@gmail.com

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My response to Mike Denton was as follows:
To: Mr Mike Denton (by email, 5 October 2010)
Southern Area Safeguarding Co-ordinator for the Conference of Religious
3 Montpelier Avenue
Ealing
London W5 2XP

Dear Mr Denton

Physical and sexual abuse by Christian Brothers in the 1950s at Prior Park Preparatory School

Thank you for your lengthy email of 29 July 2010.

I appreciate many of the points that you made, including your explanation of the roles of the statutory authorities. While it is true that I am not intent on seeking legal redress I was curious to understand what steps the Catholic Church is prepared to take in order to convince the victims of clerical child abuse that it is doing all it can to make reparation. I was also interested in discovering how efficient the mechanism is for making complaints about such abuse.

Over the last six months I have made contact with former Christian Brothers' pupils from other schools in the UK. I have read and gathered enough material to convince me that Britain is no exception in providing examples of child abuse committed by certain members of the Congregation, although most of the cases highlighted by the media have occurred in Canada, the USA, Australia and of course Ireland.

There do seem to have been some procedural failings in dealing with my complaint, which was originally made on 3 April 2010 in an email to Archbishop Nichols. This was apparently misdirected by the Archbishop's office to the Clifton diocesan safeguarding officer rather than to your office at the Conference of Religious, as I was told it should have been.

It was only by chance that I discovered the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission's website where at http://ncsc.onlinebusiness.uk.com/contactus.htm I completed the details as required on that page and was promptly told that my submission had been verified successfully and that I had been given a case number 1442248.

I now believe that this is the organisation to which I should have been directed in the first place. I have since been in contact with Philip Dand, Chair of the North West Commission for Religious Orders. A copy of his letter to me dated 22 September 2010 is attached. The Commission has apparently advised that the Irish Christian Brothers make the circumstances of my case known to the police, and that the case be given a record number.

As regards your view that the police "would not know what to do" with my letter I would refer you to https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q133.htm where the issue of historic child abuse is dealt with and where I find the statement that "Any person reporting historic sexual abuse to the Police will be treated seriously and the matter will be investigated." You may also like to know that according to Jill Sewell of the Department for Education Public Communications Unit http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/ "the police have a duty to investigate all allegations of child abuse thoroughly, and to undertake a complete investigation, even if the incidents happened a long time ago." (Correspondence between a Christian Brothers' former pupil and Secretary of State for Education Ed Balls, 29 June 2009).

There is therefore no need for you to contact the Christian Brothers. I look forward to corresponding with Bro Eamonn O’Brien, Safeguarding Representative for the Christian Brothers, regarding my case. I believe that it is important in the interests of transparency for this matter to be brought to light so that other victims of the Congregation will be encouraged to seek recognition of the wrongs that were done, however many years ago.

Yours sincerely

Michael Downes



Heather Cottage
9 Exmouth Road
Budleigh Salterton
Devon EX9 6AF
Tel: +44 (0)1395 446407

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I will say something about my correspondence with Philip Dand in my next post.