shocking allegations of verbal and sexual abuse... an industrial school testimony? No

[mmrebel]

The rash puzzled Mother Two. It was there again, pock-marking her daughter's genital area. The child said there wasn't enough toilet paper in school. After that, the mother sent her off with a packet of 'Disney' wipes. But the rash kept coming back.

There had been a fuss about her being left-handed. She told her mother the first-class teacher had made her stay in the classroom during lunch, practising writing with her right hand. She got no lunch. The mother went to see the principal and the class teacher. The teacher said the child needed support learning. Later, the child told her mother the class teacher had taken her to the toilet, pulled down her panties and helped her wipe herself. The mother thought it odd. The child didn't need assistance at home.

Slowly, things started to click. On 7 September 2006, the parents of other children in the class called a meeting in the village hall. It was 10 o'clock when about 14 adult neighbours gathered. Parents One said they had called the meeting because their two daughters had told them they were sexually abused with a stick by the class teacher.

They said the girls had named children of the other parents present as those they had seen being taken individually to the toilet by the teacher and returning distressed to the classroom. Their girls had not said the other children were sexually abused.

Parents One said they were notifying them as good neighbours, that they had been advised to do so by Childline and that the HSE would be contacting them soon. As they left the hall, some of the mothers were in tears.

The village is still spinning since that night. It has become the Valley of the Squinting Windows. To date, 10 children from seven families have said they were physically assaulted in the school. Five of the children alleged sexual abuse by the class teacher. They said she rubbed a thorny stick against their genitalia which sometimes penetrated them vaginally and anally. Three of them said the principal also participated in the sexual abuse.

In the past 24 months, about one-fifth of the children in the national school have been removed by their parents, although some assert they were not motivated by the allegations. Petitions have been organised in support of the teacher and the principal. Complainant parents have been threatened with lawsuits for defamation. One couple claims a gate on their property was damaged and their horses let loose on the roadway. At a meeting in the village hall, a farmer fulminated that those families should take their children and "their filth" out of the community.
Read the full article
School of Shame

Makes for strange if some what shocking reading will we ever learn

[cactusflower]

It seems to me that once a matter has been referred to the Gardai, they should investigate it and not Boards of Management or the HSE, who have conflicting interests.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

I am sure the parents are being investigated also. Any child who presents at A&E with an unusual injury immediately raises suspicions about the parents among medical staff.

These are allegations. If you re-read the report you will find that the parents took their children to medicos.

Interesting that you seem to be happy to insinuate that the parents of what four different families at the same time began to abuse their kids but would presumably howl the house down if someone went into a rant about child abuse.

There are some strange elements to this report and an open mind should be kept either way until some sort of findings are drawn legally. The way I read the article the alleged abusers are female in this instance which is a little different to most of the cases of recent abuses in Ireland.

The one thing I can readily believe though is that the newspaper will have had legal clearance on this story by their own lawyers down to the last comma. Another is the comment by a local farmer about the families and the kids claiming abuse happened; what was it now 'They should get their filth out of here' or something to that effect.

The local farmer seems to have inside knowledge of the case. Perhaps the Gardai should ask him for his evidence?

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Are you quite an elderly chap? Of course they took their kids to the doctor. Who wouldn't you pillock?

None of the parents have been questioned or are under suspicion. That would happen straight away from the doctors calling in gardai and social services wouldn't it. Doctors are not exactly going to send kids home with what they think are abusive parents, FFS. Apart from care considerations they wouldn't want to be sued afterwards would they?

Switch the light on, there's a good lad.

[Kilbarry1]

Quote buried deep in the article
School of Shame
All HSE files of complaint are now closed in the case. So too are the garda files. The DPP instructed in four separate cases that no charges be brought. The class teacher was reinstated last autumn. The principal remains in her post.

A communiqué from the board of management at that time said that the allegations against the two women "have been thoroughly investigated by the Board of Management (following equally thorough and rigorous investigations by both the HSE and the DPP) and have been found to be without foundation and unwarranted in both instances."

So the DPP dismissed the allegations, the HSE dismissed them and so did the Board of Management, the suspended teacher is back at work and the other accused teacher (the Principal) never left her post. This sounds like a conspiracy all right - by idiot parents!

[reknaw]

A very disturbing story, but I find it hard to believe the parents are colluding in an effort to frame a teacher.

Given our history of sexual and physical abuse in schools, I believe the HSE and the Department of Education should create a special team of experts to be sent into action whenever the faintest whiff of suspicion arises and work with the Gardai to investigate such allegations as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Interesting bit for me is the series of clerical 'mistakes' that always seemed to lean towards derailing any progress in investigating what happened.

Oh- and the farmer who had obviously completed his own Kilbarry1 style investigation and concluded that 'them and their filth' should go away in speaking of the families concerned.

In his case I think investigatory teams should carry a handy rifle in the boot of their car. Couple of short years and we'd be ready to apply for entry to the 20th century, with a view to eventual full membership of the 21st.

Probably afraid property values locally would drop, I imagine. You can't help but admire the farmer for keeping his eye on the ball.

[Andrew49]

Parents of young children who allege they were physically and sexually assaulted in a rural national school want the handling of the case by the HSE, the gardaí and the Catholic Church independently investigated. Seven families in a village in the diocese of Ossory claim their children, aged between five and eight, were beaten and sexually abused by the school principal and a class teacher.

The first complaints were made in September 2006. One of the teachers was placed on administrative leave by the Department of Education during a garda and HSE investigation. She was reinstated last autumn after the DPP instructed that no charges be brought. The principal remained in her position throughout. She is also on the school's board of management, which dealt with the complaints.

The school was previously investigated by the Department of Education in 1990 on foot of a complaint that a seven-year-old boy was grossly mistreated. That complaint related in part to a teacher who is now the school principal. The Sunday Tribune has established that the former bishop of Ossory, Dr Laurence Forristal, who retired 18 months ago, failed to notify the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) of the case, as he was obliged to do under church guidelines and as patron of the school. His successor, Bishop Séamus Freeman, informed the NBSC in February 2008.

The families, who claim they have been ostracised from their once close-knit community, are calling for the immediate removal of the school's board of management, the retraction of a letter circulated by the school last October announcing the teacher's reinstatement, which the parents fear "may be placing children at risk", and an independent investigation of the HSE for not investigating suspected corporal punishment and inappropriate behaviour, as urged to do by its own senior psychologist.

On foot of questions put to the HSE by the Sunday Tribune, the health service wrote last Monday to Cusack McTiernan, a Dublin solicitors' firm acting for four of the families, apologising for an 18-month delay in replying to written complaints about the handling of the case. The HSE explained the omission as "an error of transcription".

The families' solicitor claims the admission is grounds to reopen the investigation as the board of management relied on inadequate information supplied by the HSE to conclude that the complaints were unsubstantiated.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

I notice Kilbarry has put in an appearance on this thread already although he's in my 'f*ckwit file'.

He should get a job with the HSE. He can carry out investigations licketty split. The children involved would probably end up in a labour camp.

[Andrew49]

I notice Kilbarry has put in an appearance on this thread already although he's in my 'f*ckwit file'.

He should get a job with the HSE. He can carry out investigations licketty split. The children involved would probably end up in a labour camp.

I was tempted to opine that he believes children should be seen and not heard, then I remembered that he is a former member of a Religious Order that has raped, sodomised, buggered and electrocuted children around the world!

That said, it's no surprise he would appear on a thread where the words 'child' and 'sex' appear.