Man insists sex abuse-accused escorted him from school
A jury has been given copies of letters exchanged between a Christian Brother and the family of a boy who was lodged in a Galway residential school after his father lost their family home to a neighbour in a game of cards.
The now 50-year-old man is one of six former residents who claim they were sexually assaulted over a six-year period by another brother who is on trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The 72-year-old accused has pleaded not guilty to 35 counts of indecently assaulting the boys between 1967 and 1973 when they were residents at the school.
The man rejected the suggestion by Mr Hugh Hartnett SC (with Mr Philip Rhan BL), in cross-examination on day two of the trial, that he was discharged from the school in 1974 when he reached 16 years of age as indicated in the correspondence and that the accused had been transferred from the school in 1973.
"I know it was the accused who brought me to the station when I left the place," he insisted.
He had earlier told prosecution counsel, Mr Eanna Mulloy SC (with Mr Fergal Foley BL), that he was made leave the school weeks before he was due to sit the Group Certificate in 1974 because he threatened the accused with a glass bottle and warned him not "to come near me anymore".
Mr Hartnett read a letter dated November 1973 to the witness's father in which the brother then in charge of the residence described the witness as "a fine boy" though "hot-tempered" and went to claim he had "little ability (and) had no hope of getting the Group Certificate".
The father was advised that his son would therefore be discharged in April 1974 when he reached 16 years of age and that the family should have a job ready for him when he got out.
Mr Hartnett noted that a replying letter dated March 25, 1974 from the man's father asking that he be put on a train from Galway to a certain town where he would meet his son and have a job ready for him.
"There was no job waiting for me. My father brought me into a pub and gave me a glass of Guinness with a spoon or two of sugar in it," the man replied.
"My father then said to me: 'You are home now, make a life for yourself' and I was on my own after that. I didn't even live with my parents who were in a mobile home but went to my brother's house."
He added that he didn't believe his father wrote the March 1974 letter because he wasn't good at writing.
He agreed with Mr Hartnett that it was his first time to see some of the documents introduced by the defence which included a copy from the register of people sent to industrial schools stating he was lodged there because his parents had failed to exercise "proper guardianship" and he was undernourished.
He said he was "undernourished" when he was lodged there at six years of age and he weighed "nine stones, seven pounds" when he left. He said he had also been continually physically abused by a nurse in the residence.
The trial continues before Judge Tony Hunt and a jury of six men and seven women.
