THE MONK WITH A KNOWN HISTORY HIRED BY SCHOOL
THE Christian Brothers appointed an Irish brother to St Ninian’s boys school in Scotland despite knowing previous allegations of child sex abuse had been made against him.
Brother John Bernard Farrell, from Dublin, served a five-year prison sentence for the sexual assault of children at the school after his conviction in Scotland in 2016.
He told a Tribunal of Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse in Scotland in 2019 that he had been born in Dublin in 1942 and was educated by the Christian Brothers and that at the age of 17 ‘requested to become a member of the Congregation’.
He then taught at a large school there in a ‘less affluent’ part of the city where he was known as Brother Mark, before going abroad.
After teaching in southern Africa, he arrived at St Ninian’s in the late 1970s.
The Tribunal reported that Farrell went on to abuse boys at the school after he had already been accused in 1972 of sexual abuse of a boy or boys at Christian Brothers College in Pretoria, South Africa.
The report found Farrell abused a number of different boys, including one called Max (not his real name) at St Ninian’s as well.
In evidence to the tribunal, Max said: ‘He used to give me cuddles and stuff and say to me, “Everything will be okay, don’t worry about it.” I liked it because I was getting attention. It was the first time in a long time that somebody actually showed me affection, I would say, because I never got it at home.’
Farrell would instruct
‘Max’ to bring boys to his room.
Seven or eight boys would be in Farrell’s room at a given time.
‘Basically, we would just sit around talking and then we would take our clothes off and sit in our underwear and he’d give us sweeties,’ he recalled.
On these occasions Farrell would also engage in sexual activity with boys.