NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
22 JUNE 2015
The activities of Ireland’s most infamous paedophile priest sparked concerns years before he was ordained, an inquiry has heard.
There was suspicion that Fr Brendan Smyth, who admitted sexually assaulting hundreds of children, had abused a boy while training in Rome during the late 1940s.
The revelations were made to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, which is examining whether systemic failings allowed Smyth – a member of the Norbertine order – to perpetrate the abuse over more than four decades.
Jospeh Aiken, counsel for the inquiry, said: “The Norbertine order believes that knowledge of Brendan Smyth’s activities exists prior to his ordination yet he was ordained as a priest in any event.
“A complaint had been made about Smyth when he was a student in Rome in the 1940s. He was accused of abusing a child in the vicinity of the college.”
Retired judge Sir Anthony Hart is leading the HIA probe, one of the UK’s largest inquiries into physical, sexual and emotional harm to children at homes run by the church, state and voluntary organisations.
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