Abuse survivors in North seek Ryan-style inquiry

[Andrew49]

VICTIMS OF child abuse in Northern church and state institutions have called for a public inquiry similar to the Ryan report. Solicitor Joe Rice has said he received representations from what he called “a significant number” of abuse survivors, understood to be in the hundreds, and has written to the heads of the Stormont Executive to press for an inquiry.

Mr Rice referred to those who suffered all forms of abuse and neglect in Northern Ireland since 1947. “It is apparent that the level of abuse was widespread and endemic, and moreover that all the institutions involved had a duty of care to those children placed in their trust, and responsibility under the different statutory frameworks in the post-war period,” he wrote.

His letter specifically refers to the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in the Republic, and “respectfully suggests” this should be the model for an inquiry in Northern Ireland.

He cited the investigation into a sex scandal at the Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast in the 1980s as a template for the new inquiry which he wants to be held.

Link

If memory serves me - there were prosecutions and jailings in the aftermath of the Kincora abuses .... it's 5 months now since the publication of the Ryan Report and there have been no prosecutions.

[the_beat]

It seems though that even prosecutions can be deeply flawed.

A FORMER trainee policeman, whose young wife died of cancer in June, has been freed on probation for downloading extreme child pornography

He pleaded innocent and was proven quilty. I always thought leniency was shown for an early quilty plea.

McEvoy was convicted last month of 14 counts of making an indecent image of a child between August 2007 and January last year. He vehemently denied the charges – claiming he could never view such “filth”

Not that I believe any leniency should have been shown in this case.

His trial had heard that when McEvoy’s computer equipment was seized from his home last April, officers from the Tactical Support Group uncovered a series of video images including scenes of incest and children being raped.

Prosecutor David McDowell said yesterday that the bulk of the files uncovered were in category four – “the most serious category given the nature of the content”.

Mr McDowell said that the files were “all in the form of videos and not simply individual still images”, and that in one case one child was blindfolded while being abused.

Irish News: NEWS: Man convicted on child porn offences freed on probation

Apologies Andrew for the slightly off topic post. I cant start threads and thought this was the best place for this case to be highlighted.
And I believe the lenient sentence in this case needs to be highlighted.

[Andrew49]

Apologies Andrew for the slightly off topic post. I cant start threads and thought this was the best place for this case to be highlighted.
And I believe the lenient sentence in this case needs to be highlighted.

It's very very hard to understand the sentencing policy in child abuse cases:

Kelly case I (Brother Ambrose)
Brother of Charity James Kelly was charged with assaulting five boys, aged between 10 and 16, at the Lota school in Glanmire, Co Cork, pleaded guilty to 77 charges of sexually assaulting disadvantaged and mentally handicapped boys who were in his care 1950s-60s. He was also convicted of sexually abusing 10 children, aged 9-14, over a three-year period in the 1960s at the Holy Family School in Renmore, Galway. Kelly was sentenced to 18 consecutive two-year sentences in at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, November 1999. His sentence of 36 years made history, the longest sentence ever handed down for a crime in Ireland, other than capital murder.

1. Kelly appeal:
He served just 18 months in prison before the review of his sentence when the Court of Criminal Appeal granted early release providing his order, the Brothers of Charity, could find a home for him abroad, but religious houses in Britain and Belgium refused to have him.

In February 2002. Mr. Justice Geoghegan said Kelly had at that stage served at least three years in prison, which the court felt was ample punishment.

As one victim put it,

“I feel I’ve been raped again by the court. They might as well have a struck a knife in me.”

2. Kelly case II:
Kelly was served with a further 77 summons relating to sexual assaults on children in Cork and Galway and was sentenced at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to five years in prison with four years suspended March 2004.

BACKGROUND: Brothers of Charity (sic)
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Meanwhile up north a petition calling for justice for former residents of institutions run by Catholic religious congregations in Northern Ireland is to be presented to the De La Salle Brothers in Dublin today. It's not known that Sister Callida's fervent admirer Kilbarry1 will be there- after all he was a member of the Religious Order who liked to electrocute children !

Petitoning the Del La Salle Religious Order

[Andrew49]

A state inquiry to discover the extent of historic institutional and clerical child abuse in Northern Ireland should be considered, Stormont's health minister has told Executive colleagues. As damaging allegations continue to rock the Catholic Church across Ireland, Michael McGimpsey proposed an investigation north of the border similar to those that already have unearthed a litany of past crimes in the Republic.
Source