Court fight A dozen people sue St John of God cleric
Court action against alleged abuser f irst exposed by Irish Mail on Sunday as Garda ombudsman queries original investigation
A ST John of God brother at the centre of a covered-up abuse scandal – first exposed by an Irish Mail on Sunday international investigation – is being sued by more than a dozen alleged victims.
Those suing are all former pupils of St Augustine’s, a school for children with intellectual disability in Blackrock, Co. Dublin, where Brother Aidan Clohessy was headmaster for almost 25 years.
This comes as the Garda Ombudsman confirmed it has begun a probe into the original Garda investigation into Brother Aidan after a complaint by an abuse survivor who gave a statement in 2001 but heard nothing back.
After Brother Aidan was first accused of child abuse, the St John of God (SJOG) order covered up the allegations, misled a statutory inquiry, secretly paid compensation to some victims and dispatched him to Malawi without informing the authorities there of any potential risk to children.
In Malawi, Brother Aidan was allowed to run the order’s children’s programmes for almost two decades even as his order told child protection authorities here that he had no contact with minors at all. While there, he routinely collected street children whom he housed at a specially built garage at his home where he showered
Funding worth millions was withdrawn
and washed them. Brother Aidan and his order also lied to international donors in order to obtain more than €1m in funding for operations in Malawi – telling a German charity he had never been the focus of any child abuse concerns.
The MoS first exposed Brother Aidan in 2017 after a lengthy investigation traced several alleged victims in Ireland and Malawi.
The story resulted in funding worth millions being withdrawn from the St John of God order by international donors and the Irish Government.
Our coverage also sparked a Garda investigation and today files relating to at least half a dozen alleged victims are awaiting a decision from the Director of Public Prosecutions, which is believed to be imminent.
Now the MoS can reveal more than a dozen former pupils of Brother Aidan – who was head of St Augustine’s from 1970 until 1993 – have decided to take High Court cases against him and his order.
Those taking cases include Joe Devine, who came forward to speak publicly about his experience after he saw Brother Aidan’s photo on the front page of the MoS.
The Department of Education, which largely funded the order’s St Augustine’s school and oversaw the now-closed redress scheme for those who suffered abuse in Statefunded institutions, is also facing lawsuits.
Some survivors are also suing the Provincial of the St John of God Order, Donatus Forkan, and the recently retired Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin.
As the then-head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Archbishop Martin would likely have been aware of a secret Vatican investigation into Brother Aidan, although the Archdiocese has refused to comment on the matter.
That investigation – referred to as a Canonical Inquiry – was set up in 2012 as Brother Aidan was withdrawn from his mission in Malawi overnight.
No one at the order’s operation in Malawi was ever told why Brother Aidan had been suddenly withdrawn without any notice and no one there was aware of his history of abuse allegations until the MoS exposé.
Legal firms currently preparing High Court cases against Brother Aidan include Coleman Legal, a Dublin firm with a significant track record involving institutional abuse cases.
Dún Laoghaire-based Murphy Solicitors has also initiated numerous High Court cases on behalf of former pupils who came forward after our initial investigation.
One of the cruellest aspects of the alleged abuse scandal at St Augustine’s is that because pupils were intellectually disabled and often illiterate, many remained unaware of and unable to access the
Residential Institutions Redress Board Scheme (RIRB).
None of the alleged victims involved in the current legal actions have been through the RIRB.
Those pupils who did get compensation from the RIRB were silenced from speaking out publicly or pursuing legal cases by the terms of the scheme which imposed criminal offences for such actions.
At the time of redress, several of these former pupils did make formal statements to Garda detectives about Brother Aidan.
But these survivors never heard back from the force until after a new investigation was launched in 2017 on foot of this newspaper’s revelations.
Now the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) is investigating the conduct of the original investigation into Brother Aidan on foot of a complaint from one survivor.
In recent days, GSOC confirmed it is investigating a complaint made by survivor Con Carroll, who made a 2001 statement to gardaí about being allegedly abused by Brother Aidan at St Augustine’s.
Mr Carroll never heard anything more after making his original statement in 2001. And he is now seeking answers about what happened to his case.
‘The GSOC has decided that your complaint is admissible and is conducting an investigation into possible breaches of Garda discipline and regulations,’ GSOC confirmed to Mr Carroll a week ago.
When contacted by the MoS this weekend, an SJOG spokesman said the order had ‘no comment to make at this time.’
The order has previously apologised for childcare failings and said it would ‘cooperate fully’ with Garda investigations into Brother Aidan.
‘Investigation into possible breaches’