Amid blanket coverage of high-profile child sex abuse investigations in the wake of revelations involving
Jimmy Savile and other celebrities, one child abuse inquiry has remained below the public's radar. But the
Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry is slowly emerging from relative obscurity.
The
inquiry is separate from a recent major police investigation in the
country that has led to the arrest of more than 30 people for sexual
exploitation of
children and young people who have gone missing from the care system over the past 18 months.
Formally
established by law in January this year, the historical inquiry is
tasked with examining if there were "systemic failings" by state and
church in children's homes between 1922 and 1995 – a period spanning
more than 70 years. Earlier this month, the inquiry held its
third public hearing
in Belfast, where its chairman, the former high court judge Sir Anthony
Hart, named, for the first time, some of the institutions under
investigation, including former children's homes run by the Catholic
church.
Hart also confirmed that the final deadline for victims
wishing to apply to give evidence would be the end of November, and he
made fresh calls for people now living outside
Northern Ireland
who had been abused as children in the country to come forward. Earlier
this month, 363 people had already made formal applications to speak to
the inquiry; some were in their 80s. Hart said that more than 100 were
living in mainland Britain, the US and Australia.
Humiliation
Margaret
McGuckin was one of the first victims to submit an application to give
evidence to the inquiry, which is looking at all types of abuse:
physical and emotional as well as sexual.
In 1968, aged 11,
McGuckin left Nazareth House, a children's home in Belfast run by the
Nazareth Sisters. After eight years in the home, she did her best to get
on with her life, but like many survivors, she told no one for decades
what had happened to her there. "You didn't want to think about it
because the memories were just too much," she says. "We were child
slaves from a very young age." Young children were expected to carry out
gruelling domestic chores and were wantonly punished, she says. "We
were getting practically drowned in baths, beaten and starved. It was
pure and sheer neglect: coldness, cruelty and humiliation. Can you
imagine the damaged goods coming out of that? And I was certainly
damaged goods. I was made to feel worthless, that I was a bad person."
She was eventually diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
McGuckin,
now 56, became a campaigner for survivors of abuse a few years ago,
after seeing someone she had been in Nazareth House with talking on
television about the abuse she had experienced. "The scales came off my
eyes. I couldn't ignore this any more and I immediately got in touch
with her."
It was at a time when people across Ireland were
beginning to speak out, thanks in large part to the Ryan commission into
the abuse of thousands of children in more than 250 mainly church-run
institutions in the south of Ireland. It published its
damning report in May 2009, not long after widespread media coverage of the
Magdalene Laundries scandals, involving the incarceration and abuse in convents of women and girls.
McGuckin
and others are grateful for the inquiry, and are keen to ensure that it
hears from as many survivors as possible, that awareness of what
happened is raised and that people and institutions are held
accountable. But as the next stage of the hearings approaches – where
evidence will be given in public – concerns are being raised about the
scope of the inquiry and the processes for supporting survivors.
Alison
Diver, 44, was placed in care in numerous institutions during the
1980s. She says she experienced various types of abuse and that the
impact on her life was "devastating" – she has had severe depression and
has attempted suicide. The "extremely stressful" process of dredging up
memories in private, informal interviews with the inquiry team might
have been made easier, she suggests, if a dedicated mental health
professional specialising in trauma had been present. She says she
"needed more help" during and after giving evidence than the witness
support officers were able to give.
The Office of the First
Minister and Deputy First Minister, which announced the inquiry, has
recently commissioned the setting up of a helpline for victims. But
Diver and McGuckin claim that more support is needed for victims when
they first encounter the inquiry.
"There are no counsellors on
hand," says McGuckin. "We feel like we are going there and we are being
retraumatised. I'd like to see better support."
Hart said that,
although inquiry members are very aware of the emotional distress that
coming to see them can generate for applicants, "unfortunately, this is
unavoidable by the very nature of the task". He added: "The role of the
inquiry is not to provide expert counselling or psychiatric care. That
is for the health and
social care services and specialist organisations."
Another
survivor, Jim McCleave, 47, believes that, in addition to support
issues, the scope of the inquiry should have been wider. For example, it
isn't investigating clerical abuse and has no power to determine the
civil or criminal liability of individuals. McCleave, who was raped at
13 by a youth worker, went "off the rails" as a result, and ended up,
aged 15, in St Patrick's Training Centre in Belfast on remand, only to
be sexually abused by a monk in whose care he was placed.
He says
he worries that "it's all just words … a paper exercise", and that
individual perpetrators won't be brought to justice. He says he would
like to see a full-scale police investigation. "The cats and dogs in the
street know there was institutional abuse. There's no point in having
an inquiry to tell us what we already know," he says.
But the
inquiry is clear that it is not within its purview to instigate
prosecutions as a result of any allegations bought to its attention. It
can, however, report "matters of a criminal nature" to the police, who
could then refer cases to the public prosecution service.
The
final issue that victims want clarity on is compensation. The inquiry's
terms of reference state that compensation "is a matter that the
executive will discuss and agree following receipt of the inquiry and
investigation report". The final report is expected in January 2016. But
for McGuckin, who is now a spokeswoman for the charity
Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse, and whose brother was also abused in a separate home for boys, compensation is a crucial part of redress.
"It's
time to pay up and to compensate victims so they can live the rest of
their lives with no worry of deprivation," she says. "We want justice.
It's been a long time coming."
Source
Brothers recall terrifying cycle of sexual and physical abuse at children’s home
Willie Kelly is still haunted by his childhood experiences at Rubane House.
THE death of their mother (in Fintona) during the early 1950s dealt a
cruel hand to two local men and their six brothers and sisters.
At a time when they should have been enjoying growing up, the
brothers were separated from their siblings, and plunged into a
terrifying cycle of sexual and physical abuse in one of the North’s most
notorious institutions.
For Patrick Murphy and Willie Kelly, the painful memories of that
period will never fade. Both are now aged in their 70s and say they will
never forget the horrors of their youth.
The shocking nature of the abuse which children were subjected to at
Rubane House in Kircubbin, Co Down and other institutions is currently
being investigated by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.
Last week, The De La Salle Brothers – which ran Rubane House – was
one of two Catholic orders that said sorry for the abuse children
suffered in their children’s homes in Northern Ireland.
The Sisters of Nazareth and the De La Salle Brothers issued apologies
on the second day of the inquiry in Banbridge – the biggest public
inquiry into child abuse ever to take place in the UK.
It is investigating abuse claims in 13 children’s homes and juvenile
justice centres in Northern Ireland, from 1922 to 1995, including Rubane
House.
Upwards on 100 people from the Omagh and Strabane areas are said to have submitted evidence to the inquiry.
However, the brothers are not taking part because they feel it has come “too late” for them.
“I am 77 years of age now and the chances of me getting anything
other than a feeble sorry are remote,” said Patrick. “But if we had been
born in Donegal then we’d have received compensation.
“It is hard to say why all of this has taken so long and to be quite
honest our view is that they’re only going to be touching the surface of
what went on.
“My intention was to take this to the grave with me. But when the
inquiries started in the Republic my son began asking me about my
experiences because he knew I’d been in a children’s home here.
“He started to make the connection. The real truth became apparent
and he couldn’t believe that I had held onto those memories for all
these years.”
Patrick and Willie never met for almost four decades following their
mother’s death. Both now live in Strabane and it was only by chance that
they discovered their shared experience in Rubane House.
“You could have knocked me over with a feather when Willie told me that he had also been in Rubane House,” said Patrick.
After spending most of their lives being separated from each other
and their other brothers and sisters, the family is now reunited.
Despite the brothers’ reluctance to take part in the inquiry, Survivors
NI is appealing for other local people who have been abused to contact
them.
Spokesperson Margaret McGuckin told the Ulster Herald, “Our
organisation has been contacted by upwards of 100 people from the West
Tyrone area. Many more have not come forward, but I would urge them to
contact us because there is nothing to fear,” Ms McGuckin said.
“Victims now have protection and, while we have given a guarded
welcome to the apologies by two religious orders in the Catholic Church,
this must be supported by their full co-operation with the inquiry.
“At last the victims of this abuse have been given a voice and I have
seen grown men and women cry tears of relief that their stories are
finally being listened to.
“The pain which they have carried with them for a lifetime never goes
away. There will be more heartache ahead for them, but it will be worth
it.”
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