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Newspaper ArticlesChild Abuse Introduction
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Paddy, we would like to congratulate you on your interview with Canadian Radio on the 17th February 2008 in relation to your criminal record.
As you know, because of the wrongs visited upon victims of institutional child abuse in their childhood, many have suffered very greatly, and many, including many of advanced years, remain highly vulnerable to this day.
Accordingly, we must be particularly mindful of the unique personal difficulty experienced by each victim of institutional child abuse re-visiting the painful memories of their childhood.
As your enquires will already have established in many cases very serious criticism is levelled at the State, and in particular against the Department of Education and Science for permitting the appalling state of affairs, including the great injustice that many victims of institutional child abuse have been left with a criminal record.
When Bertie Ahern T.D, said that his apology on the 11th May 1999 and all that depended on it would have to be "wholeheartedly" he omitted a key problem for many abused people.
This was that they had been criminalised by the court processes, which had consigned them to the industrial schools - to all intents and purposes 'prisons' - and they had not been exonerated.
Many victims of institutional child abuse who have made submissions to the Ryan Commission spoke strongly of their bitterness at having "a criminal record" as a result of their committal to a reformatory or industrial school thirty, forty or more years ago, some told us that they had even been refused employment on account of such record.
The Ryan Commission at that time failed to give such matters any detailed consideration in relation to the Criminal records Page 83 Criminal records 8.13.
It was their wish for the record to be expunged in some way, so that no reference could or would be made to their confinement in an institution.
We do not know, for example whether a persons formal criminal record includes the details of his/her detention in an industrial or reformatory school.
We have been informed that there would normally have been a record in respect of children who committed offences as a result of which they were detained in a reformatory or industrial school, but that there ought not to be a criminal record in respect of a child placed in such an institution for care reasons.
We are not however in a position to arrive at any conclusions on this question.
The Ryan Commission is aware that the Children Act, 2001 provides in section 258 a type of rehabilitation.
From another source Michael McDowell, the former Minister of Justice said that the reason the forms with the Heading: Order of Detention was used after our trips to the District Courts was because the Court Service had no other types of forms on hand.
Obviously Michael McDowell, the former Minister of Justice has never seen an Order of Detention.
These forms had only one obvious use and that use was to do with the detention of children in the institutions.
In their recent attempts to rectify these wrong doings, the Religious Orders, the Department of Education and Science, the Department of Health and Children, Ireland and the Attorney General, have all failed to make discovery of documents, notes, records or memoranda in their possession, thus undermining any possibility of abused victims getting true justice.
This particularly applies to the orders for detention and the case history files of victims, admission records and discharge records.
But even though the Ryan Commission had seen, and read our submissions, they are prepared to ignore our evidence, and do nothing about it.
We take the view that the Ryan Commission as presently constituted is fundamentally flawed and carries the serious risk of compounding the harm already suffered by victims of institutional child abuse.
Albert King on behalf of Mary King. (victim of institutional child abuse).