Oldest Witness Tells Hia Panel of Abuse

UTV
January 6, 2015

http://www.u.tv/News/Oldest-witness-tells-HIA-panel-of-abuse/f8905dc8-e259-4530-98d3-c89dcf69a0e6

An 89-year-old man - the oldest person to come forward to speak to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry - has described how he was beaten every day by a nun and constantly sexually abused by older boys in Nazareth Lodge in Belfast.

Helped to the witness box in his wheelchair, the 89-year-old man told the inquiry he had been sent to Nazareth Lodge in 1929 when he was just three years old.

He described a life of fear and abuse, telling the panel that because he wet the bed every morning he would be placed in an ice cold bath and had buckets of water thrown over him.

He would then be forced to kneel naked outside the office of a particular nun, belonging to the Sisters of Nazareth, and when she came out of her office she would force him to lie on the tiled floor and beat him with a leather strap.

"It was so sore," he said, "it made me cry."

The 89-year-old recalled how he was sexually abused by the older boys at night in the bathroom and he would cry in bed every night because of the abuse.

When asked by the senior counsel if he thought the Sisters of Nazareth knew about the abuse he said: "I don't believe they did because they were occupied with other duties".

The inquiry heard that his mother visited him for an hour every summer, but he said he could not tell her about the sexual abuse because he was too ashamed.

Before leaving the witness box, the 89-year-old said while the horrific memories of Nazareth Lodge will never leave him, as an adult he lived abroad and made a success of his life.

He said: "I was as free as a bird then and I could do what I wanted to do."

Two further former residents from Nazareth Lodge also gave evidence describing very similar experiences.

The children were sent to live and work in farms, one when he was only 10.

He told the inquiry they were never paid and no one ever came to check up on them.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, chaired by the retired High Court Judge Sir Anthony Hart resumed on Monday, with a focus on the former Nazareth House and Nazareth Lodge, ran by the Sisters of Nazareth order of Catholic nuns.

More than 100 witnesses from the now closed Belfast care homes have come forward to the Historical Institutional Abuse with their accounts.

On Monday, the inquiry was read a statement from a former senior nun which said the order accepted that notorious paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth abused children while they were in the nuns' care.