Children suffered decades of sexual, physical and emotional abuse in institutions run by the state, charities and churches in Northern Ireland, an inquiry has found.
Instances of sexual abuse by priests and lay people were detailed in a 2,300 page, 12-volume report published today that identified widespread failings and extended responsibility to the Northern Irish government and church authorities.
“Some institutions providing residential childcare were responsible for a range of institutional practices which constituted systemic abuse,” Sir Anthony Hart, a retired High Court judge who chaired the four-year Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry, said.
Sir Anthony said that a redress board should now be established to ensure that justice was done for those who were resident in the institutions. Payouts were capped at £100,000 and he said that the minimum should be £7,500, with the maximum given to those who had experienced severe abuse as well as being transported to Australia in a controversial migrant scheme.
He recommended that the organisations responsible for the abusive homes should contribute to the scheme, run by the Stormont executive. “There was evidence of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, neglect and unacceptable practices across the institutions and homes examined,” he said.
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“The inquiry also identified failings where institutions sought to protect their reputations, and individuals against whom allegations were made, by failing to take any action at all, failing to report matters to, or deliberately misleading the appropriate authorities and moving those against whom allegations were made to other locations. This enabled some to continue perpetrating abuse against children.”
Sir Anthony said that the inquiry found “evidence of systemic failings” in the institutions and homes it investigated but rejected longstanding allegations that a paedophile ring involving British establishment figures abused boys in the notorious Kincora boys’ home in Belfast.
Victims applauded Sir Anthony as he concluded his findings at a news conference in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Belfast yesterday. Margaret McGuckin, a campaigner for fellow abuse victims, said: “We have waited a lifetime. Today were are vindicated, our time has come.”
The inquiry also found that a predatory priest’s sex crimes were ignored to protect the good name of the Catholic church. Brendan Smyth attacked children “far and wide” at residential homes in Northern Ireland from the 1940s and was eventually convicted of more than 100 offences.
He was allowed a car to roam the country even after he fled to the Republic when he was charged by police in 1991, and over many years his Norbertine religious order and others within the church failed to ensure he did not harm more youngsters, the panel found.
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A “deliberate decision” was taken to withhold information about Smyth when he was sent to other church dioceses around the world and he was given medical treatment as a “cure” despite continuing to attack minors.
“For the Norbertine order and for others outside the order in positions of responsibility in the church, their overriding priority throughout was to protect the good name of the church and at all times to prioritise Father Smyth’s interests, instead of doing what was best for the children abused by him,” it said.
“By doing so they were prepared to ignore their responsibilities under the canon law of the church and their obligations under the criminal law as well as their moral responsibilities to the victims of his abuse, thereby allowing him to continue to abuse children far and wide for many decades.”
Smyth was convicted of 43 charges of sexually assaulting children in Northern Ireland in 1994 and was sentenced to four years in prison. He was later found guilty of another 26 charges and given a three-year sentence to run concurrently. Upon his release from prison, Smyth was immediately arrested and extradited to the Irish Republic and died a month into a 12-year sentence on 74 charges in 1997.
The inquiry heard evidence from hundreds of people who spent their childhood in homes from 1922 to 1995, the latter three decades against the backdrop of conflict during the Troubles.
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Sir Anthony said the poverty, social conditions and government policies of the period had a significant impact in creating the setting in which the abuse occurred.
Of the 22 institutions investigated, systemic failings to “a greater or less degree” were found in 20. Rather than protecting children, institutions sought to protect their reputations and individuals, the inquiry said.
Those failures also included the running of the so-called child migrant scheme, administered by the Northern Irish government, where up to 144 children as young as four were sent to residential homes in Australia.
It was wrong to send children so young, Sir Anthony said, and to deny parents truthful information when they inquired about their whereabouts or when children sought to trace their parents. He said that the institutions and the Northern Irish government should formally apologise to the victims.
Many did issue apologies in the hours after the publication, including the Diocese of Down, the Sisters of Nazareth and the De La Salle Brothers.