Christian Brothers apologise for abuse of boys at Fife school

SCOTLAND
Fife Today

LIZ ROUGVIE

22 June 2017

A religious order has apologised for ‘systemic failures’ which allowed paedophile priests to abuse boys at a residential school in Fife.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has heard that safeguarding measures put in place by the Christian Brothers at the former St Ninian’s school in Falkland fell ‘well short’ of what would be expected today.

Last year two former teachers were jailed for a total of 15 years after being convicted of the physical and sexual abuse of boys in their care.

Victim Dave Sharp, who was sent to St Ninian’s at the age of 10, has previously told how he was repeatedly raped, shut in a coffin with the lid closed and even taken to Ireland to be passed around priests at sex parties.

His abuser has since died. Appearing before the inquiry in Edinburgh on behalf of the Christian Brothers, Michael Madigan said the congregation acknowledged with ‘deepest regret’ that children had been abused.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.