NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

300 victims of child homes horror to tell their story as abuse inquiry finally opens

BY JOANNE SWEENEY – 13 JANUARY 2014

A £19m Government investigation on the abuse of children over a 73-year period in Northern Ireland residential institutions is under way.

More than 300 men and women will give evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) on the physical and sexual abuse and neglect they suffered from those who should have cared for them.

The witnesses, now middle-aged and older, will tell their harrowing stories at the inquiry, which will be held in Banbridge Courthouse, Co Down.

At the end of the 18 months of evidence, involving at least 14 individual institutions, the inquiry will determine whether there were “systemic failings” in preventing such abuse.

The inquiry will investigate historical institutional abuse – if there were systemic failings by institutions or the…