Rubane House Was "Hell on Earth"

UTV
October 17, 2014

http://www.u.tv/news/Rubane-House-was-hell-on-earth/562bbd93-e942-42d2-9f0a-a4cdfebd147f

On 17 January 1951, John was one of the first boys to enter Rubane House, the boys home run by the De La Salle order which is currently being investigated by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

John (not his real name) was 14 years old at the time.

"I was frightened because I didn't know what to make of it. The big place looked like somewhere medieval," he said in an exclusive interview with UTV Live Tonight.

John, now aged 77, recalled how he was sexually abused on the day after he arrived there under the guise of horseplay and was continually beaten for no reason.

On one occasion, he was caned on the hands so badly that his fingernail came off and he was left on his knees crying in pain.

Another time, he was sent to get a film but lost the ten shilling note. Terrified of what would happened to him, he ran away and was picked up by the police.

When the Brothers came to collect him from the station they whipped him across the face in the car, but worse was to come when he returned to Rubane.

"They took me downstairs, stripped me off and cut my hair."

He explained that as a young teen the one thing he liked about himself was his hair.

"I was crying with the pain."

Then, they turned on a cold shower and pushed him under it.

"I was absolutely shivering with the cold," he added, saying that next he was beaten all over his body until he had welts on his backside and was left unable to sit.

"I remember saying to myself when I go to sleep don't let me wake up again."

John, speaking of his time at Rubane House

Until recently, he didn't even know that his younger brother Bill was also in the boys home. They were separated for 30 years.

Bill also recalled constant horrific and violent beatings, with boys who had no parents or relatives of any kind visiting the home being targeted by the brothers.

At the age of 14, he arrived in Rubane House in 1958, five years after John had left.

On his first day there, a De La Salle Brother told him he was from the country, smelled and put him into a shower where he then joined him.

Rejecting the order's explanation that the Brothers may have been checking the beds to ensure none of the boys had wet themselves, Bill described how two or three times a week he would wake to find a Brother from the order by his bed and he would be sexually abused.

Bill explained: "A certain Brother in there used to come round with a big cloak on him and nothing on underneath it.

"And he would have pulled you out of the bed, and made you sit at the end of the bed.

"He would have opened his cloak and you had to do what he wanted to do or he stood on your toes."

He said that the boys in the home were so scared they would try and hide under the covers to escape their tormentors - but one day there was no escape.

Sent to work on the 250 acre farm, a De La Salle Brother, who he said would never leave him alone, locked his head in a cattle crusher and raped him.

In tears, he told a priest in confession what had happened to him.

"The next day, the Brother who assaulted me, he came and took me into the room and he battered me with a walking stick. It was the priest that told him what I said - that was the kind of people that were in there."

The order has since said that they don't believe that the Brother Bill referred to was capable of this.

So traumatised by what happened to him that day, Bill wasn't even able to tell his wife.

"I held it in for years, never mentioned it. Never told my wife. She died. I was always ashamed of it."

The Order has apologised, paid compensation and accepted some Brothers - not all - did abuse boys in their care and, in their words, were overly physical with the residents in Rubane House.

The Brother who reigned over the home when both John and Bill were there is now dead.

For nine years he preyed on children in Rubane - but was never reported to the police nor interviewed.

Both John and Bill are deeply distressed that no-one has ever been brought to justice for what happened in Rubane when they were such vulnerable children.

Last week, both John and Bill gave evidence to the Historical Abuse Inquiry in Banbridge.

John said that he felt he was on trial, but that he wants justice - acceptance that the abuse happened.

Bill said that he doesn't accept an apology and will never forgive those involved.

"I don't have any grudge against the priests or the Brothers of today because there are some great people."