Redress Board A Sitting Duck for Frauds and Chancers

March 21st 2005

Editor,
Kilkenny People

Dear Editor,

RTE?s Liveline, and programmes on other radio stations nationwide, have in recent weeks aired the grievances of people who suffered physical or sexual abuse in state-run institutions at the hands of both lay and religious personnel.

All victims of cruel abuse or neglect in such circumstances deserve to be compensated and, where possible, to face their accusers. Not that any course of action will recover for them the months or years robbed from their childhood or teenage years by the abusers.

But what of those many people wrongly accused of physical or sexual abuse by ruthless fraudsters? Make no mistake. Such utterly amoral and despicable opportunists ARE out there, availing of the climate of fear, anger, and emotion generated by the tidal wave of abuse allegations against institutions run by religious orders.

In July 2003, the Residential Institutions Redress Board admitted to passing on half a dozen complaints of abuse to the Gardai on the suspicion that these were fabricated. Many other complaints lodged with the Board have been eliminated at an early stage for similar reasons.

Yet other allegations of abuse that failed to make it past the DPP, let alone to trial or to result in convictions, ended up with the Redress Board and the complainants received large awards. They walked away a lot better off financially (the average award is about E 77,000) even though the criminal justice system had refused to countenance their accusations.

A complete lack of evidence, including that of independent eyewitnesses to the alleged offences, is not enough to prevent a complainant from netting a substantial award from the Board. The accused person is therefore found guilty by implication, though not convicted of the crime in a criminal court.

A man who formally withdrew a complaint he made against a brother in a West of Ireland Industrial School told a national newspaper that he had overheard ex-residents of other such schools discussing whether to accuse certain Christian Brothers of abuse.

The men, in his recollection, decided on accusing one brother they had targeted despite admitting among themselves that he had never abused anybody: a frightening scenario.

Another brother faced abuse accusations from a total of fifteen ex-residents of an Industrial School. But it turned out that he was NOT in the school at the time that 13 of his accusers alleged he had abused them! The allegations were withdrawn, and no complaint was made against any of the schools at which he DID teach.

A man who had his case against three Christian Brothers thrown out of the High Court in 2001 was later awarded compensation by the Redress Board, despite the fact that two of the brothers-who had always pleaded their innocence- had died in the meantime, and the third remains steadfast in denying the allegations.

None of the three had ever been convicted of anything in a court of law. In the case of those three brothers, the principle of ?Innocent until Proven Guilty? was cast aside, allowing their reputations to be attacked and shredded without mercy: A strange form of justice.

One of the most high profile set of accusations involving the Christian Brothers in recent years has been comprehensively exposed as a macabre and sinister fabrication. This concerned a well publicised claim that more than a hundred boys who attended the Industrial School at Letterfrack in County Galway had been? murdered? by the Christian Brothers and buried in a ?mass grave?.

A full Garda investigation yielded not a shred of evidence to support this allegation.

The statement from the Gardai in relation to the Letterfrack issue, which I have to hand, was quite unambiguous in rejecting the horrific and patently absurd accusations that had surfaced in a Sunday tabloid newspaper: ?There was no evidence available that would suggest that foul play led to the deaths of anybody buried inside or outside of the cemetery at the Old Industrial School in Letterfrack. And there was no evidence of a mass grave?.

Undaunted by the Garda findings, a high profile campaigner for abuse victims publicly alleged that a former Letterfrack resident, whom he named (I have the name in front of me) had died as a direct result of a savage beating by a Christian Brother.

The man?s body was exhumed in 2001 and an autopsy revealed that he had died from natural causes. There was no evidence of a blow to the head as described by the campaigner (a man who attended another Industrial School).

I totally support efforts to achieve real and lasting justice for ALL victims of abuse. There should be no hiding place or sanctuary for the sick human beings who preyed upon their childhood innocence, ripping apart their lives.

But one evil cannot justify another. The plight of genuine abuse victims is hardly helped by the free-for-all Salem Witch Trial hysteria that has been whipped up by certain elements within the tabloid media and the more extreme advocacy groups.

It?s time for a drastic overhaul of the way the Redress Board conducts its affairs. While accepting that its officers and staff are well-motivated, honest people, committed to compensating and achieving a form of closure for victims of institutional abuse, I think it is equally clear from the Board?s performance record to date that its compensation scheme is fatally flawed.

It has become a sitting duck for these gold diggers from Hell.

Thanking you,
Sincerely,
John Fitzgerald