NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times
Gerry Moriarty
The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry in the North heard on Monday that paedophile priest Brendan Smyth admitted that he could have sexually abused more than 200 children during his period in the religious life.
Junior counsel for the inquiry Joseph Aiken said that new information had emerged from its investigations about Smyth including how after his arrest he told a doctor in 1994 that more than 200 children may have been abused by him.
Mr Aiken said that Smyth admitted that over his years in the religious life that he could have sexually abused 50-100 children” and that “number could even be double or perhaps even more”. The abuse is believed to have run from the late 1940s to the early 1990s.
Mr Aiken said that Smyth was convicted of 117 cases of indecent assault against 41 children in the North and South. There were 74 convictions against 20 children in the Republic and 43 convictions against 21 children in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland convictions were between 1964 and 1984 and the Southern convictions between 1967 and 1993.
Mr Aiken referred to how Smyth also spent time in Wales, Scotland and the United States where he faced allegations of “similar abuse” and that there were many more allegations against Smyth, some of which he accepted.
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