Sunday 10 December 2017

"The monks stole my childhood"

Today's Sunday Times contains an extremely powerful article by the Sunday Times travel editor Steve Bleach, who happens also to have been a pupil of St Benedict's. He has written in reaction to the conviction of Laurence Soper.

The monks stole my childhood
Forty years ago, I was just one of the pupils beaten and molested by a teacher at a top Catholic school. Last week I saw him convicted of a litany of abuse — and I wept

Although the article is behind the Times' paywall, you can access it for free - you can see two articles a week for free if you register.

The article goes beyond Soper's abuses, it describes the terror of the regular beatings there, of the sexual assaults by other monks and teachers. He names a number of other abusive monks and he has accounts from a number of former pupils (none of them complainants at the Soper trial).

Here's an important point from the article
How did it happen? How did an institution nominally dedicated to Christian values end up as a haven for abusers?

On a practical level, that’s simple. The religious life had obvious attractions for men with paedophile leanings.

Many were struggling to control their sexuality and were sincere when taking their vow of chastity. Others, presumably knowingly, sought communities of like-minded men with — in religious schools — large numbers of defenceless children at their mercy.

Those in denial — and I think there were many at St Benedict’s — could get their thrills from beating children and still convince themselves they were doing the Lord’s work.

Take a wider view, though, and the answer is more disturbing. They did it because they were allowed to: by the school, by the church, by society at large.
Later he goes on to describe this in more depth.
I asked St Benedict’s to help me trace teachers from that time. The school declined. Eventually I tracked down a retired lay teacher whom I recall as a strict master but a decent man.

“I’m not going to criticise the school,” he wrote in response to my request for an interview. “The actions of a couple of monks have done enough to damage its reputation without anyone else contributing.”

Damage to the school’s reputation. No mention of damage to the children in his care. I have no reason to think this teacher, who has now asked not to be named, was aware of the abuse while it was going on. But he certainly knows of it now and still his priorities are clear.
For as long as the reputation of the school is given a higher priority than the welfare of the victims abused there, anger towards the abbey and school will persist and people will wonder whether the place has changed all that much.

The school of course now claims to be a different place. Bleach mentions the review conducted by Lord Carlile and then later points out:
And when the Soper verdict came in, that same Lord Carlile who had conducted that review popped up to issue a statement on the school’s behalf. “The tough lessons of the past have been learnt,” he said. Tough lessons: a turn of phrase worthy of the very teachers who so enjoyed caning me and my mates.


43 comments:

  1. Well im married to a victim. And I'm so pleased the priest got guilty on all nineteenth charges its been very difficult for me and my husband but I stood by him it hasn't been easy at all my husband suffers from mental illness because of this horrible man. My husband was over the moon when he got that phone call. He was the happiest man I've seen.

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    1. I hope you have been able to get some support for yourself. So often the family and partners who care for victims get forgotten.

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  2. My heart goes out to to you. If it helps I was victim one in the recent case so I know exactly how you feel. I was the first to give evidence and when I came out of court I just broke down. I had to get away from it all so have come out to Tenerife for a month. My police liason officer phoned me on Wednesday the 6th in the afternoon and I don't think a day has gone by that I haven't cried. 45 years ago I was abused and 13 years it took to get justice. I hope this brings you some relief.

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    1. You've been carrying a terrible burden for many years. I'm sure you needed that holiday. Look after yourself and seek any help you need.

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    2. Burden is an understatement I could write a book on our own life if it wasn't for the support I had from my good friend and the metropolitan police on operation Winter Key.

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  3. Jonathan I have been under mental health for 17 years now because of this man. I first reported this in 2004 but it was my word against his so the police could do nothing. I have waited so long for this and once it started to gather momentum I was optimistic. But due to the bravery of the other 9 victims we have a great result. Sentencing is on the 19th and people ask me what I think he should get. I don't care now. He has been found guilty and that means more than anything because for years I felt no one believed me. I urge anyone affected by this man to come forward. I know there are more they just need to be brave. The police are very caring and understanding. Victims wife and myself are very well looked after by the mental health team and in the New Year I start 3years of therapy. I started all this so to all the others I would say again please come forward!!

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  4. Jonathan I have been under mental health for 17 years now because of this man. I first reported this in 2004 but it was my word against his so the police could do nothing. I have waited so long for this and once it started to gather momentum I was optimistic. But due to the bravery of the other 9 victims we have a great result. Sentencing is on the 19th and people ask me what I think he should get. I don't care now. He has been found guilty and that means more than anything because for years I felt no one believed me. I urge anyone affected by this man to come forward. I know there are more they just need to be brave. The police are very caring and understanding. Victims wife and myself are very well looked after by the mental health team and in the New Year I start 3years of therapy. I started all this so to all the others I would say again please come forward!!

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    1. Nothing can take away the suffering he caused you, but I hope that the verdict will help bring you some peace.

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    2. Have you forgiven Soper ? It's the hardest thing to do but if you haven't forgiven , even 50 years of therapy are not going to heal you. I say this as a man who was raped repeatedly when I was a boy. I said elsewhere in this blog that when 40 years after the event I found out where my abuser lived my first thought was to lay in wait for him and club him. However the last 10 years I have tried to forgive and on bad days the thought of revenge come back and on good days forgiveness is easier. As a Christian I am commanded to forgive because I too want to be forgiven . Jesus desires us to be merciful not revengeful and he should know how hard that is.

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    3. I hesitated very much before deciding to publish the Anonymous at 10:43 comment.

      I don't think exhortations to forgive are all that helpful, especially when (as I am sure is the case for many former pupils) the idea of forgiveness has no emotional reality for them. Forgiveness is not something that can be achieved as an act of will.

      From having spoken to a considerable number of survivors, it seems to me that there is a huge range of reactions to abuse, from shrugging it off with no apparent major effects all the way through to suicide. I know of former St B pupils at both ends of that spectrum. There is no single "right" way to react, and no fixed time that it takes to recover to the point of being able to lead a fairly normal life. Forgiveness will be easy for some, impossible for others, and I would not want to criticise those who find it impossible.

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    4. As a man who has just gone through the trauma of the trial please don't ask me to forgive. Whilst I may be enjoying the sun in Tenerife I'm recovering from a four inch cut in my wrist and a six inch cut across my stomach which was operated on after I had taken a large overdose. This was after I had given evidence at The Old Bailey at the trial so please don't ask me to forgive as yet. I do however respect your comments.

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    5. thank you for on reflection, posting my view of forgiveness. I know it is something that is not a popular view and it is incredibly hard to put into action. my father was on the burma siam railway in ww2 and i saw what unforgiveness towards his captors did even though it was pushed as far down and hidden as it is humanly possible to go, he never talked about it and that was part of the problem, so yes therapy is good but i believe that forgiveness is the key to being set free from the past however that said i will go to by grave with feelings of wanting revenge it is a human condition.

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    6. One particular reason I hesitated is that Christian forgiveness has been used by many Benedictine abbots to justify not reporting things to the authorities when monks have abused. The phrase is likely to taste very sour to those who suffered abuse knowing that it could have been avoided had their abuser been reported the first time he was caught.

      I believe that you were speaking with good intentions, which is I on balance I decided to publish, but I ask that you reflect on the way the concept has been poisoned because it has been misused in such a self-serving way by the church.

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  5. I find it very sad that someone has seen fit to pop up on here with the old chestnut about "having to forgive." I find it especially sad that the person insisting on this is someone who was themselves abused. No-one HAS to forgive anything, it is something that someone who has been harmed might CHOOSE to do, of their own volition. Not because "Jesus says so", or because other people int heir circle tell them that they should, but because they genuinely want to. And it is absolutely their call if they do or don't. Whether a victim has forgiven Soper should be fairly low down our list of concerns, tbh.(and especially in view of the fact that Soper has shown absolutely no remorse. If he felt remorse, even just a bit, he surely wouldn't have pled "Not Guilty", thus making sure that each victim had to relive the abuse in the witness box.). I belong to another forum that seeks to support abuse survivors (abuse within the family rather than in the context of a school) and, happily, I have not yet seen on it any exhortations to forgive. That is completely inappropriate, placing as it does yet another burden on the shoulders of people already struggling with a terrible legacy.

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  6. There are arguments against both the 'anonymous' peoples arguments. Yes I do believe that to fully get closure is to forgive but that takes an awful lot of working at and will take a long time for me as Soper put me through so much. Not just the abuse but the ruin of my life up until now. He is actually quoted as saying these allegations have ruined his life! Yes that's why he went on the run and didn't face up to the truth five years earlier!! And yes why did he plead not guilty? It is any defendants right to plead not guilty. But I can assure you with ten victims and nineteen charges I was amazed he went down that route. I even had nearly a week waiting in a hotel waiting to give evidence as it was put off and put off. It nearly destroyed me but thanks to the help of my wife and the Metropolitan police I made it to the witness box and I'm so glad I did. So arguments for both sides and I will remain neutral!

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  7. Dear Victim,
    Thank you for having the courage to keep seeking justice. Perhaps now is too soon to ask, especially as you will also be undergoing therapy, but would you be interested in writing your memoir? I would like to make contact with you to discuss.

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    1. I would be very interested in writing my memoirs as there is a lot more than that has been said on these interesting if not sometimes painful blogs. I am very confident that the Soper trial is only just the first for him and there is much more going to come to light. At present I want to stay anonymous but if you have a way of contacting each other I would be happy to discuss.

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    2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. i am the anonymous who talked of forgiveness and thanks to all the people who responded about the subject of forgiveness. I honestly understand the against forgiveness position and all i would do is reiterate that at the age of 63 i am a work in progress as far as forgivenss is concerned. There was a very good documentary called "chosen" made by 3 blokes who were at Caldicott public school and were systematically abused by teachers there the headmaster is inside with an 8 years sentence and his co accused killed himself the day before sentencing by throwing himself under a train. There are no winners in the saga of this type of abuse. One of the guys in the documentary who sadly died recently from cancer was the only one of the 4 who talked of forgiveness and from my eyes he was the only one who looked a little healed. I still watch the doc when i am going through a rough patch although. It is or was an endemic problem

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    1. I know one of the "Chosen" people well. If he decides to, he may reply. In the meantime, I would counsel against projecting your own hopes and beliefs onto others.

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    2. There are only 2 of the chosen left if I recall. i personally identified my personality with Mark Payge who sadly passed away but could identify my abuse with each of the "chosens" testimony. Mark said in the documentary that he could quite easily have become a heroin addict. Unfortunately that was my fate however i have been blessed by being clean for all drugs for over 14 years now. I acknowledge your caution against the preaching of forgiveness however you will forgive me but i will continue to bang that drum because as far as i am concerned that is the only place peace lies the alternatives just lead to a festering resentment. Of course you hold the stings to this blog and I am at your mercy. On a side note I grew up very close to Caldicott indeed the headmaster who went down for 8 years married the previous wife on my sisters god father. Like many of these predators he was charm personified and was able to pull the wool over many good decent people. When he went down he was a very sad looking broken aged specimen of a human being.

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    3. Anonymous Who Advocates Forgiveness, I would ask you sincerely to stop banging that particular drum! All this boils down to, as far as I can see, is that you yourself have felt able to forgive those who abused you. That is your right. But you overstep the mark when you tell us, repeatedly, that this way of doing things is the ONLY way, that people who don't do it will not feel the benefit, that they will continue to struggle, etc. You are evangelizing and that is always a form of arrogance. People whom you encounter who are struggling are not struggling PRIMARILY because they haven't forgiven X; they are surely suffering because they were abused in the first place! Stop trying to tell people what's best for them, that is not your role. Also, I would suggest you keep what Jesus might or might not have said about forgiveness out of this discussion. Partly because not all of us here are Christians (I for one am not, though I was brought up as one) and partly because as Jonathan says. the whole forgiveness thing has often been used by abusers for reasons that are totally self-serving. I'm puzzled that you don't seem to grasp the latter point, given your own experiences. Show some respect and empathy for other people here who are following another path, for goodness sake! We are not all you, what has helped you might be absolutely the wrong move for another person.

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    4. if you do not mind me saying I have not said that i have forgiven my abusers i have said that i am a work in progress and will be till the day i die nor have i said that forgiveness is easy because it is not.The damage to my life was total and the consequences are with me every day. However this whole being a victim thing is in my view unhealthy. how does it help anyone having a victim sign printed on their forehead.I think survivor is a much better term . I think the core problem with boys who have suffered this abuse is the sense that they have been complicit in their abuse and that they did not fight hard enough to stop it. self hatred and shame is all part of the package. so forgiveness flows a number of ways to the abuser and to ourselves. As for what has helped me, the short answer is nothing has helped me much other than forgiveness and i have tried everything else and even if the cps had decided to proceed with the prosecution of my abuser, i am almost 100% certain that would not have given me any succor either. I did make sure that all the local safeguarding people were aware of the man though.This is an open forum and we are all entitled to our views and it is up to Jonathan to moderate and censor as he seems fit and i dont knock anyone elses posts and also i dont knock anyone elses faith or lack of it.

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  9. I was a novice in another Benedictine monastery and am fortunate I was only psychologically abused and escaped the abusive sex others were subjected to there.
    My own healing only came with realising I will never forgive my abuser. I will never forgive my own mother for telling me the abuse was nothing. I will never forgive the Benedictine authorities for ignoring the multiple complaints.
    Why is this healing? Because *I* now have the power over my thoughts and life and that is where it should be.
    Soper feeling sorry for himself in a cell he can?t leave and as a nonce vulnerable to other lags' attacks, is getting a taste of not having power - exactly what he gave those children. This is as it should be.

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    1. were you a trainee monk? were you bullied? why cant you have power over your thoughts and life and be able to forgive at the same time? What makes those 2 things mutually incompatible?

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    2. Because abusers deny that they are abusing. Because people around the target of abuse minimise and deny it. Because it maintains the reality against the tide of denial. Because Benedictine congregations want to deny that anything is wrong. Because the church says it is sorry and has changed (it hasn't). Because when the illegal activity of which I only *suspect* my abuser comes out, it will be people like me who bring into the open that this monk's other behavioural problems have been repeatedly raised with his superiors... I could literally go on and on. The other targets of this monk are interestingly in the same place. Believe me the Benedictine scandals are far from over!

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  10. It's still abuse never the less I can't believe your mother ignored it when you mentioned it to her. Soper has ruined my husband life I hope he gets what is coming to him. My husband will never forgive him and for other's reading this comment. Don't throw Christianity at us until you been in the same position as my husband please don't comment.

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    1. @Victim's wife
      Thank you - tbh it says quite a lot about my mother!
      10:54

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    2. Your welcome it must have been very difficult for you that your own mother didn't believe you I know how that feels as I told my mother about a situation I had all she said I know how you feel. CRAP

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  11. I think we have now had enough discussion on the subject of Christian forgiveness. Everyone has had a chance to make their view known. No further comments on the topic will be published for this article.

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    1. Well to all those that are interested the sentencing for Soper has now been put back to Thursday 21st!

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  12. Another important element of healing from abuse is *validation* - those who have not been abused will never get how important the truth of what they are saying is to the target of abuse.
    My 2018 Benedictine Yearbook came today. Apart from Belmont and St Louis as far as I can see the EBC is moribund. And Ealing has a novice. Just why would you do that to yourself?

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  13. I was abused (in the late 70's) by a fellow Downside pupil (in one of the two classrooms above what was then the medical rooms, next to what was then a Barlow dormitory). It wasn't the worst of abuse, by far, but it still comes back to me every so often. I am so gad I didn't report it, as who knows where that would have led.

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  14. I was a pupil at St. Benedicts from 1967-1976 and before that at its then preschool Kindergarten St. Scolastica’s from 1964-67.
    Am very distressed to learn that fellow pupils were sexually abused at the time I was there. Though I did personally not experience any sexual abuse, I was aware of a culture of unchecked bullying by pupils and by a form of arbitrary discipline that seemed itself a form of bullying. This has left me with a deep distrust of authority; this has been confirmed tenfold by what has now come to light.
    In the Junior School I was beaten with the jocari bat at the age of 9/10 by a senior lay teacher for misspelling the word „it’s“ and my entire form were similarly beaten when a couple of boys in a play fight knocked over the class bookshelves. In the middle School I witnessed a mass beating by father Gregory when a fire alarm was set off in the middle school; I can still see the expression of fury on his reddened face as we were forced to watch him beat child after child in the school playground where we were assembled.
    The atmosphere in the senior school was depressing ; a combination of neglect and discipline. There was a crazy physics teacher who would threaten children with „a whole heap of trouble“ if they didn’t come up with answers within ten s finds which he counted in a shouting voice. One day he even struck a child in front of the whole class for standing up to him in a cheeky way; the child was a severe epileptic with behavioural problems.
    On the other hand there were some inspirational teachers who had no need of threats or corporal punishment; their lessons provided a refuge from the other dark side of the school, for which I am immensely grateful.
    The worst experiences for me, however , we’re in the pre school Kindergarten, St. Scolastica’s whose elderly headmistress , Miss Everett, imposed a Victorian regime of military discipline. She was rumoured to have been a governess for the last Viceroy of India’s family; not sure how accurate this was. She had military style inspections in a line up of the children every morning; if a tie pin was missing , the child at fault would step forward for a slap in the face. On other occasions at these military assemblies, a child would be picked out fir misdemeanours such as wetting a toilet seat, be humiliated for thus crime, and slapped in the face. Speaking out of turn was forbidden; I was wrapped over the knuckles with a wooden ruler and slapped in the face for speaking to my neighbour in the milk break. I still find it difficult to stand the smell of milk. The worst experience I recall was seeing a child tied with rope by Miss Everett to a chair for “fidgeting”. When the smaller children started crying fir their mothers out of fear, Miss Everett instructed the other children to laugh at the “cry babies”. I remember fir the first time being paralysed by fear into a state of numbness; I still weep at the age of 59 when recalling Or recounting this event which I experienced as a six year old.
    It is ironic that when I eventually left this Dickensian prison Kindergarten for the junior school I thought I was entering a paradise in comparison.
    Does any one else recall St. Scolastica’s under Miss Everett? The school was closed shortly afterwards and demolished to make way for the new accommodation wing of the monastery.
    My heart goes out to those who suffered far worse than me, as I know the memories of traumatic events at suffered a young age are as intense as if they happened yesterday.

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    1. Can I please make a suggestion that before you say anything more about Father Gregory that you phone and discuss this with someone from Operation Winter Key on 02082176582 for fear of putting in jeopardy any investigation that might be currently being carried out. Not that I am one to tell anyone what to do. My thoughts are with you.

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  15. I don't understand why didn't you report it even though it was in the 70s it still happened.

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  16. I well remember St. Scolastica's under Miss Everett it was a horrible fearsome place to start your schooling. I also remember Father Gregory's mass beating of a class. There was a culture of vicious arbitrary discipline at St Benedict's, a culture of fear. My heart goes out to those who experienced the horrors of sexual abuse. I was lucky and did not.

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  17. I thank you for your thoughts it was horrific and I understand it must have been terrible what you had to go through at St Scolasticas. No one should go through any form of abuse and let's hope that what we all suffered in the past stops any abuse at schools in the future!

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  18. One thing I keep coming back to when I read things like the horrific abuse by Miss Everett is: what on earth were the PARENTS doing? Surely they knew about these "incidents"? The whole culture within such schools was one where adults (to a man and woman) were cowards of the worst kind, people who stood by while their own children were being mistreated and sustaining long-term trauma. They disgust me more than I can even begin to say.

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    1. I think it comes down to the power the Catholic Church had in Ealing at the time. It was also sadly a different and very repressive era. Would you have been believed? These black robed monsters exercised enormous power. Horrific as it sounds their brutality was normalised. It has taken the bravery of the victims of terrible sexual abuse to speak out in a more open time to expose the real rottenness at the core.

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    2. I am absolutely not blaming the victims of the abuse. Yes, more than likely they would not have been believed about SEXUAL abuse. But beatings like the ones detailed above would leave marks. . .did the parents really not notice? (Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think either St Benedict's or its junior wing were entirely boarding. In other words, there would have been children going home after these attacks with physical injuries.) My comments at 15.42 are largely rhetorical: yes, the Catholic Church exerted far too much power, to the extent that people would rather let down their own children than challenge a priest or a teacher at a Catholic school. Shame on them though, as adults they did have some power which they chose not to exercise. That is the only thing that abusive people need: other people, other ADULTS, who choose to stand by. (For the record, I was brought up in the Church and spent some time at a Catholic school. As far as I know, there was no sexual abuse there and maybe no physical abuse either but the head was a mentally disturbed man with an explosive and terrifying temper. He had a hugely negative effect on the school. . .but teachers and parents alike, all in the know (there was nothing secretive about his behaviour), chose to do nothing. Apparently they were afraid that the local press might get hold of the story and that the Church might "be made to look bad." So it's pretty much the same mentality.)

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  19. The fact is that physical punishment was an expected and tolerated part of school life in those days. Society has moved on though, and it isn't any more.

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