De LA Salle Order "Failed to Report Child Abuse Claims" in 1980s

By Kevin Sharkey
BBC News NI
September 3, 2015

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-34136479

Two boys made claims of abuse at St Patrick's Training School, west Belfast, but senior staff failed to report the allegations to police

A member of a Catholic order failed to report alleged child abuse at a Belfast school at the height of the Kincora sex abuse scandal, an inquiry has heard.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry has been told that two boys had informed staff at St Patrick's Training School about alleged abuse.

The boys alleged that a worker "offered them money to do bad things with them".

The claims were made in the 1980s, just months after news broke of the Kincora scandal in an east Belfast boys' home.

St Patrick's Training School, run by the De La Salle Order of Christian Brothers, was a juvenile justice centre based in west Belfast. It closed in 1995.

The alleged abuser of the two boys was a young lay worker who resigned his position shortly after the allegations were made.

He was prosecuted for sex offences years later.

But, at the time, the De La Salle order failed to tell the police or the board of management, including the then Bishop William Philbin, about the boys' complaints.

It also emerged at the inquiry that the senior De La Salle figure at St Patrick's Training School provided a reference for the lay staff member stating he "was diligent and conscientious at his work and was punctual at all his duties".

The reference concluded: "He resigned his position at St Patrick's of his own accord."

The De La Salle Order has acknowledged to the HIA inquiry its "failure to deal appropriately" with the allegations against the lay member of staff, who has since died.

The inquiry also heard evidence of boys regularly engaging in secret sex with each other at the school, and during leave from the school.

One boy, who said it was voluntary, later revealed that he stopped having regular sex with another boy because of the AIDS warnings on TV.

He told police he knew AIDS could kill people and he was "afraid of dying".

The difficulties facing the De La Salle order at the school were acknowledged in an official social services report in the late 1980s.

The report stated that the level of care at St Patrick's was "very difficult to sustain".

It concluded that it was "to the credit of all the staff, through the commitment given by Brothers and successive directors, that it has been possible to sustain the quality of care provided for young people."