Clearly crimes were committed against children who were placed 'in care' and institutional abuse was at one time, standard practice. The testimony of a survivor of the 'care' meted out by the Sisters of Nazareth will hardly differ from that of a survivor of the Sisters of Mercy or the Magdalenes, the punishments and tortures almost identical.
A civilised society chooses (democratically) to care for and protect its most vulnerable children and adults, and it entrusts and funds the authorities and the administrators to care for these children and adults on its' behalf.
And such is bureaucracy, the deals for these 'care packages' are made in the boardrooms, the finer restaurants and on the golf courses. 'We will pay you £x per unit (child)' says the councillor to the bishop, what you do with the units, is pretty much up to yourself, we won't bother you, and the cheaper you can do it, the better for all of us - Father'. 'No problem there', the good Father replies, we teach humility. And thus the deals are made and the 'units' are doomed. In Eire, under the Magdalen Sisters, the good fathers and sisters had a double whammy, they were supplied with enough fallen girls and women (free labour) to run a thriving laundry industry. They already had the whiplash crew. The answer to every question is money.
The problem the Defendants in these historic abuse cases have, is that there are so many of them. What the Authorities and the Churches are defending is a system of abuse that ran rife throughout the UK, and that they never expected to come back and haunt them. In defending each case individually, they are holding back the tide because the very public CSA Inquiry has opened the floodgates.
Their form of Defence is Attack, and I am illustrating these attacks on this blog and with snippets of my own Court case, in the hope that other survivors are reading this and can form an idea of what it is they will have to face. Forewarned is forearmed. If I had known what these defenders of abusers were going to throw at me in the Courtroom, I would have been much better prepared.
What they are playing now is the 'blame' game, through whatever means possible, they must shift the blame onto the claimants or elsewhere. Be under no illusion that the abusers and the punishment systems will be put on trial, they won't be, the claimant will. The only reason I made it as far as a Courtroom, was because I have a clean CRB, no skeletons in my closet , I'm not an addict, nor am I a liar (proven) lol. More importantly, I can speak out loud and clear because I wasn't sexually assaulted (probably because I was a gobby know-it-all as one poster pointed out) and I have long since abandoned the old 'guilt and shame' shite that the good nuns tried to batter into me. I very rarely, if ever, feel the need to tell a virtuous man in a confessional box what I got up to behind the bike sheds.
For those who were sexually assaulted, I cannot even begin to imagine what an ordeal standing in a witness box would be like, and it is why I and others have to speak out on their behalf. Not only do those who were sexually abused have to deal with the horrible memories, they also have to deal with the 'guilt and shame' that accompanies them. Catholicism successfully combines both 'Guilt' and 'Shame' cultures, so that believers have more to punish themselves with, this especially appeals to the masochists who can flagellate away in the name of God and not look in the least bit loopy. That it appeals to the sadists too, is a given. We all have to suffer as Christ did and there are always those willing to help the less reluctant.
But back to my Court case. Because they had nothing on me, they attacked my parents (why I am still here fighting now - some things are unforgiveable). I was not 'damaged' enough, the sad fact is, those that are, will never reach a Court room, most are already dead. The Defence tactics are brutal - they have to be, we are the Tyger Tyger, unaware (as yet) of the power we have to expose the greedy underbelly of the fatcats who dined on our misery. United we would be formidable, and if we had a common goal, we would be more formidable still.
At the moment, those defending, and indeed trying to cover up, the systematic abuse that went on, and may indeed still be going on, are making amends to the survivors by promising to track down and punish the individuals who carried out the abuse. This is an almost impossible task that will plunge the claimant into years of recalling every miserable detail of their childhoods until they are finally broken. There will be very few, if any, happy endings while the CSA Inquiry continues in this direction.
Of course the abusers should face justice, but whilst some of these crazies may still be alive and capable of facing trial and punishment, there is very little satisfaction for the victim, and it doesn't heal the wounds. It is a system that is designed to carry on ad infinitum, one that will always protect the powers that be, one that attracts wannabe Witchfinder Generals (inquisitors) under the guise of child protection and one that has no intention of ever paying financial retribution to the real victims.
An entire middle class industry has sprung up around the issue of historic child abuse. One that profits the lawyers, the inquisitors, the media industry and even the medical profession. And one in which, not a penny goes to the victims. It would be nice to think that all these 'sympathetic' helpers are doing this for altruistic reasons, but in many cases they are not, they are simply making a living and some are 'striving to make a name for themselves' (most of us are - we are driven by our inner 'whats in it for us' desires, whether we acknowledge it or not).
Unfortunately, whether they are aware of it or not, they are simply prolonging the agony of those they are 'helping'. It isn't their fault, its the way the system is designed, there is nothing in place to pick up the pieces when the case fails, which it almost inevitably will - try proving a crime took place yesterday, then try it again with one that took place 40 years ago. If a paedophile is found guilty of sexually assault 140 boys, each and every one of those boys will have to prove (beyond reasonable doubt) that the same paedophile sexually abused them, giving full and graphic details of every incident of assault together with witnesses, before they will receive an award for the suffering they endured. Its akin to the old Nazi joke; The Commandant to the Bishop, 'we will spare your life if you can tell us how many passengers went down with the Titanic', then to the Rabbi, 'name them'.
And when thy heart began to beat, what dread hand? and what dread feet?
William Blake
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