NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
Social workers were told of child sex abuse allegations at the former Kincora Boys’ Home as early as 1967, a public inquiry has heard.
The Historical Institutional (HIA) Abuse Inquiry was shown a handwritten letter sent to the Belfast Welfare Authority in which it was claimed boys were being regularly assaulted by the house warden Joseph Mains.
The letter, dated September 1967 also described how one boy, known only as R5, was sent to bed early, made to scrub floors and work in the garden for rejecting Mains’ advances.
R5 wrote: “I first realised something was wrong as far as Mr Mains was concerned.
“Very often when boys were washing he would come into the washroom and put his arms around our chests and hold us tightly to him.
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