WALES
The Guardian
December 5, 2017
By Amanda Gearing and Steven Morris
‘Alice’ says she fled UK to escape the painful memories but would return to give evidence in any inquiry into abbey
A victim of a monk who abused girls on Caldey Island has described how she took drugs to numb the emotional pain and eventually fled the UK to escape the memories.
Alice – not her real name – told the Guardian her earliest memories were of the monk, Thaddeus Kotik, and how he lured her with sweets and pets into dens he had set up around the remote island off the Welsh coast.
She had planned not to return to the UK but now says she will come back to give evidence if an inquiry is called into the abuse she and other girls suffered and how it was covered up.
Caldey Abbey is at the centre of a growing scandal after the Guardian revealed a string of allegations against Kotik dating back to the 1970s and 80s. Kotik was a member of the Cistercian order of Benedictine monks and lived on the island from 1947 until his death in 1992.
Six women sued the abbey over the allegations against Kotik, and another six women and a man have come forward reporting that they, too, were abused by him.
It has also emerged that police are investigating a second man over accusations of sexual abuse on Caldey and that a convicted sex offender, Paul Ashton, who is wanted by police, hid there for seven years until 2011.
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