Monk ‘ran a sex club’ in his Catholic school study
But authorities let him stay for eight years after claims
A MONK accused of running a ‘sex club’ for boys was allowed to stay at a leading Catholic school despite allegations from former pupils.
Father Jeremy Sierla was said to have invited selected youngsters to his study at £33,000-a-year Ampleforth College, where they were served sherry and performed sex acts.
He also liked to tickle his favourite pupils, whip their bottoms with his monk’s habit, get them to tie him up with dressing-gown cords, put his hands under their duvets and shower naked with them, it was claimed.
After a police investigation, prosecutors decided not to bring charges against the monk, but officers were so concerned that they asked education chiefs to bar him from working with children. Despite this, he was allowed to work in the school shop, in close proximity to pupils, for another eight years.
One ex-pupil alleged he was routinely subjected to serious sex assaults by Mr Sierla while the monk was his housemaster at Ampleforth in the early 1990s.
The boy did not make a complaint at the time. But soon after starting at the school aged ten, he begged his devoutly Catholic parents to let him leave.
In a handwritten letter, describing how unhappy he was, he said: ‘I just want to be at home with you and begin to enjoy life for once. I haven’t laughed in ages.’
In another he wrote: ‘I don’t really like Father Jeremy any more.’ Meanwhile, the monk sent reports to the boy’s parents describing how their son was ‘capable of great affection’.
‘His most significant characteristic is his almost unlimited capacity for giving and receiving affection,’ Mr Sierla added.
‘Loyalty, friendship and trust are food and drink to him. Fortunately, he gets plenty of all these and gives as much in return.’
In 2004, the former pupil – by then in his early twenties and beginning to develop a serious psychiatric condition – complained to police about the alleged abuse.
After examining Mr Sierla’s computer, detectives discovered he had posed as a teenage girl in internet chatrooms, using aliases including EasyGirl19 and Cyberbitch, The Times reported.
Police also seized a photo of the ex-pupil whose complaint had sparked the inquiry, taken when he was 12 and holding a rose in his mouth. North Yorkshire Police said it submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service, who decided not to charge Mr Sierla. Officers were so worried by the risk he posed that they wrote to the Department for Education in 2005 asking that he be denied access to children. But he stayed at Ampleforth until 2012, working in a shop in the main hall.
He also featured in newspapers and broadcasts promoting Ampleforth’s own-label Abbey Beer.
The school said the decision was taken with the approval of child protection professionals.
Mr Sierla was finally removed when education officials ruled his presence was ‘incompatible with good safeguarding practice’.
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph shortly before police began investigating, the monk had criticised teachers who ‘condemned the feminine side of boys’ lives’ and ‘banished anything that smacked of flesh, sacrament or emotion’.
Mr Sierla, 59, now lives in a closed religious order ‘some distance from Ampleforth’, the college said. He told The Times he had ‘always denied any wrongdoing’ and ‘gladly co-operated when asked to do so by the authorities’.
Three Ampleforth monks and a lay teacher have been convicted of historical sex crimes against more than 30 boys since 1996. The school’s handling of such cases will be examined this year at a public hearing of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
A school spokesman said: ‘Ampleforth remains committed to ensuring the safety and welfare of each and every pupil in its care.’
He said the result of the 2004 investigation was ‘clear’, adding: ‘Father Jeremy was not charged with any offence. He co-operated with police at all times and denied any wrongdoing.’
The school said after the investigation a meeting led by the then assistant chief constable of North Yorkshire Police recommended that the monk could continue to live in the Ampleforth community and work in the shop.
This was reviewed by the DfE in 2007 and 2012 – when Ampleforth decided he should move off site.
The spokesman added: ‘All the relevant authorities are aware of this and gave their approval. The situation is regularly monitored.’
‘I want to enjoy life for once’