The abbot's new letter

Today, the Abbot of Downside sent the following email to the Old Gregorians mailing list. I'm going to reproduce it in full and then comment on it in my next article, so that nobody can claim that I'm quoting him out of context.

Dear OG,

The letter that follows is about historic safeguarding issues and the present condition of Downside School.

We have received our Ofsted progress report, which is on our website and which is attached to this letter. It is very short and I hope you will read it in its entirety. It concludes that ‘robust risk-assessments are in place to ensure the safety of pupils from adults who should not have unsupervised access to children’, and highlights improved security, a greater culture of awareness among staff of safeguarding through extensive training and found, overall, that Downside meets all the required standards of safeguarding. We can be confident that the children with us are safe and able to flourish. We have the right structures in place, but we have to remain constantly vigilant and I recognise that you will help us to do that.

We are also in contact with the Charity Commission, who are advising us on our governance structures. Writing of St Benedict’s, Ealing, Lord Carlile has concluded in his report that a ‘more modern form of governance would have rendered it more likely that abuse would have been suspected, detected, rejected and the future secured.’ I want to thank our Governors for what they have done; we owe them an immeasurable debt. We are continuing to develop our governance structures and bringing in new governors to ensure that we are fully accountable to the world outside the monastery and school and that there is no room for accusations of cover-ups.

Media interest has greatly increased since the conviction and subsequent sentencing of Richard White (known at Downside as Fr Nicholas White) last week for child abuse committed when he was working at the school in the late 1980s. This raises questions about what was done during the period between the abuse and Fr Nicholas’s eventual conviction. He received counselling and therapy and conformed entirely with all the restrictions that were imposed on him. However, the standards of supervision and communication with the relevant outside agencies have changed over the years and his case would not be handled in the same way today as it was in the past.
You may have read the articles in The Times on Monday January 9 or in the Daily Telegraph on January 11. Local families may have seen the Points West interview with one of Fr Nicholas’s victims. There is a piece in today’s Times, on which we were not asked to comment, which takes no account of the recent positive Ofsted report. I am writing to The Times to correct the misleading impressions given in the article. There is an article in the Tablet and in the next issue of the Sunday Times on the Catholic Church and safeguarding in a more general context, though we have not been approached directly by the Sunday Times. In these circumstances it is very important that you should feel that Downside is keeping you properly informed.

As part of our response to safeguarding concerns, I made all the monks’ records, stretching back for half a century, available to the police and the diocesan safeguarding office in 2010 as part of a wider review of historic cases and to help ensure that nothing remained unknown and undealt with.

Those investigations are now complete and this letter is to inform the whole Gregorian family of the outcomes. It is not appropriate to name the parties in all cases because that information is not in the public domain and naming them could lead to the identification of victims. However, in a spirit of openness and transparency it is important that what has been investigated is not hidden.

Fr Raphael Appleby has accepted a caution for abuse of a vulnerable person, not a pupil in the school, over a long period in the 1980s. He has expressed profound sorrow for what he has done and has left the Abbey. He will not return.

Father Antony Sutch was subject to a police investigation that concluded without any action being taken. He was subject to an independent investigation and risk assessment which gave no reason why he should not return to ministry from his voluntary suspension.

A monk who left this country many years ago received a formal police caution for the abuse of a pupil during his time at Downside in the 1960s.

Another monk was issued with a police warning. This case does not involve a vulnerable adult or a pupil in the school.

Two other monks have been subject to investigation and, whilst the allegations against them, dating from the early 1990s, were founded, no prosecutions were brought. Both have had restrictions imposed on their ministry in order to protect children and are living in the monastery under supervision approved by the outside agencies. This situation is kept under constant review.

Although not mentioned in recent media reports, there was also the case of Fr Dunstan O’Keeffe who was convicted of possessing indecent images and was subsequently imprisoned and who is no longer a priest or a monk.

We are truly sorry that children and young people have been abused by those whom they should have been able to trust. We are committed to doing everything possible to ensure that such things do not happen again.

Downside Abbey and School have changed from a policy of dealing with safeguarding in house and now have the Clifton Diocese safeguarding office co-ordinating all matters. Any allegations that might arise now will, without exception, be referred to the diocesan safeguarding officers, the LADO (Local Authority Designated Officer for allegations) and to the statutory authorities in line with national safeguarding procedures.  Through this approach, along with the major restructuring of school governance, safeguarding decisions will always be made independently of the monastic community.

We must never underestimate the great damage suffered by the victims of abuse. Their bravery in telling their stories has resulted in radical changes in the way safeguarding is approached. Victims of abuse are in our prayers and the sadness we feel for what they have suffered will be with us always.

These unhappy events inevitably cast a long shadow, but your chief concern will of course be the welfare, security and happiness of children currently at Downside. Many steps have been taken to ensure that the Downside portrayed in some parts of the media is a thing of the past.

By any measure it is now a safe, happy and thriving school whose many recent achievements will be built on in 2012 and beyond.

Yours sincerely,

Dom Aidan Bellenger
Abbot of Downside

Now there are seven

From today's Times

Inspection reports on Downside, which is run by the Benedictine order and charges boarders fees of £26,000 per year, refer specifically to seven monks who have worked at the school at different times and whose behaviour has been “a cause for concern”.

The figure includes two former employees who despite worries about their past conduct, continued to live in Downside Abbey which shares the school grounds. The practice of allowing senior school pupils to have overnight stays in the abbey recently ended because of child protection concerns.

So now we know of seven. This is definitely a number of abusers comparable to what has been discovered at Ealing.

But Downside is in a way worse than Ealing in its utter recklessness over child protection. Even though the Abbot knew that he had monks living under his roof who were potentially a danger to children, pupils of the school were regularly invited into the monastery itself for overnight retreats!

Thunderer

The following article by Lech Mintowt-Czyz, a Times journalist and former Downside pupil, appeared in the Thunderer column of the Times last Thursday. It provides a vivid account of what it is like to be a boy at boarding school trying to survive the presence of paedophile monks.

There have been a number of very touching comments on the Times website in response to the article, many of them addressing the issue of "survivor's guilt". Of course, the children weren't responsible for the abuses they or their friends suffered, and now they have reached adulthood they should not take on guilt at not having been able to stop it. But we don't always think entirely rationally about these things, and several people have expressed similar regrets to me that they weren't able to do more to save their friends from abuse.

If emotion is to be involved, let it be the appropriate one: anger, directed at the adults who were responsible, who knew about the abusers in their midst and did nothing to stop the abuse and everything to hide it for so many years.


Father Nick, the paedophile priest, was my teacher

We all knew where his desires lay and, dark jokes aside, stayed silent

Lech Mintowt-Czyz
January 5 2012 12:01AM

Richard White is a name that means as little to me as it does to you — to me he will always be Father Nick.

As you read this he is starting a five-year jail term for child abuse — crimes he committed while I was in his care in the late 1980s. White, the name used in court, taught me geography, he was my housemaster, he watched me in the showers and he molested my friends.

When one victim had the extraordinary courage to speak out Father Nick was shuffled aside. Initially removed from some teaching duties at Downside School but allowed to stay in the abbey (which was attached to the school buildings) he abused again, paying 50p to his victim each time.

As it happens, “50p” was one of his catchphrases — a term we inmates at the school used to say in his nasal tones by way of an impression: 50 pence was the maximum he would allow us to withdraw from our school accounts to spend on sweets each day.

Another catchphrase (wheedle as you hold your nose and you will hit the right sound) was: “Come out where I can see you.” This was what he said to us pubescent children as we tried to dry ourselves in the relative privacy of the heated pipes after our showers.

He used to give boys early morning detention — a ruse that meant he knew they would be alone in the showers. And he would join them, even though he had his own private bathroom. Some stopped washing — it didn’t save them. He seemed to enjoy giving corporal punishment too.

We all knew where his desires lay and, our dark jokes aside, we all stayed silent — conspiracy ruled us and betrayed us.

But this was almost 25 years ago. Boarding schools are different now, the Roman Catholic Church is changing, child protection systems are much better. Yes, yes and yes. And no.

Boarding schools are indeed more humane in their trappings these days but when I think back to the silence that protected Father Nick it had nothing to do with lumpy mattresses or a lack of carpets.

When you are a child away from home, if it’s not happening to you, you are grateful and keep your mouth shut. Be it bullying or child abuse there is nowhere to hide and you will do nothing that might bring it on your head. The moral cowardice of a child collaborator? Yes, and I feel the guilt ... but count yourself lucky you’ll never have to face that same test.

Furthermore, when you are in a closed community — a monastery, for example — it is incredibly hard to take tough action against a member of that group. A different type of collaboration — but effective nonetheless.

So I feel no joy at the sentencing — I am too compromised for that. And I know that it will happen again.

And then there were five

We now know that the abuse at Downside was far more extensive than just Richard White, or Fr Nicholas as he was known at the school. The Times reported yesterday that the police have cautioned two others.

Detective Constable Mark White, of Avon & Somerset Constabulary, said: “As a result of our inquiries a 79-year-old man living in the Irish Republic received a caution and an 80-year-old man, resident in the South West of England, was also cautioned. The second man was removed from Downside Abbey following our inquiries.”

And BBC Points West reported yesterday that there are in addition a further two monks are still living at the monastery on restricted ministry.

That makes five. It's a bit of a pity Fr Aidan couldn't have come clean about that initially. This is beginning to rival Ealing Abbey in terms of scale - not a competition that Downside should want to win.

Restricted ministry failed at Ealing in the case of Father David Pearce, who was able to abuse a child even after he had been placed on restricted ministry. He was arrested in January 2008 and pleaded guilty in August 2009 to a string of offences spanning 36 years. The ISI, DfE, Charity Commission and Lord Carlile have all condemned the use of restricted ministry as ineffective. The Schools Minister Nick Gibb took a personal interest in ensuring that the practice ended at St Benedict's. That the policy of restricted ministry is still in use at Downside four years after Pearce's arrest is nothing short of a disgrace.

Downside's most recent ISI report is a nightmare. I'm going to describe that in more detail in future articles. The school has published a response on its website.

We have prepared an Action Plan in consultation with the appropriate agencies, and it has been sent by the Department for Education to Ofsted and ISI for their evaluation.

We are working with our Trustees, Governors and outside advisors to ensure that the plan is implemented in a timely and effective manner.

We fully subscribe to the principle that the protection of children is paramount in all that the School undertakes.

Talk is cheap. If a practice known to be ineffective at protecting children is still in use, then they can "subscribe to the principle that the protection of children is paramount", as much as they like but it won't matter in the slightest since the practice doesn't match the principle.

Explanation incomplete

So, Fr Aidan Bellenger told something less than the whole truth in his email to the Gregorian mailing list. What a surprise. The Times today (behind paywall) has been talking to the police, and it turns out that the police enquiries have been going on for some time.

However, the abuse allegations are not confined to one priest, The Times can disclose, and two other Downside monks, also former teachers, received police cautions during an 18-month criminal investigation, which is continuing.

Detective Constable Mark White, of Avon & Somerset Constabulary, said: “As a result of our inquiries a 79-year-old man living in the Irish Republic received a caution and an 80-year-old man, resident in the South West of England, was also cautioned. The second man was removed from Downside Abbey following our inquiries.”

He added: “We identified a number of offences by a number of offenders. However, there is no evidence that offenders were co-operating together to victimise particular individuals. A lot of the victims in these cases have not wanted to give evidence.”

It is clear that Fr Nicholas was not the only abusing priest who was being permitted to live at Downside Abbey on restricted ministry.

Rob Hastings is White's victim, he has waived his right to anonymity to be interviewed in the Times today. This is what he had to say.

“I believe now he singled me out as someone who was vulnerable to grooming,” Mr Hastings said. “I had an interest in old books and maps and he used to take me to the library in the abbey. That’s where the abuse happened, and it went on for 18 months.”

Mr Hastings said: “I didn’t know how to deal with this when I was 12. I was told then that the Church knew how to handle it. I am aware of one boy abused by White before me, but the Church dealt with that by allowing him to carry on teaching in the junior school.

“I believe there are other former pupils out there who suffered similar experiences and I would encourage them to come forward to the police.

I'd like to commend the courage of Rob Hastings in coming forward and being willing to waive anonymity and be interviewed. I have spoken to a considerable number of victims of the abuses at Ealing Abbey, so I am aware of how very much courage his actions required.

I echo his call for victims and witnesses to come forward to the police. I know it is difficult. I have spoken to enough victims of the abuses at St Benedict's to understand how very difficult it is. But those who have gone to the police almost without exception tell me that once they have got over the exhaustion and emotional stress of actually giving the statement, it has helped lighten the load on them, that they feel better for having grabbed a bit of power back from those who would keep them silent and helpless.

It is also extremely powerful for abuse survivors to come forward and tell their stories, and even more so for them to be prepared to show their faces. It helps to lift the sense of shame from other victims. Abusers depend on everything remaining hidden so that few people realise what is happening and even fewer realise its effect. I think it very likely that Mr Hastings' willingness to go public will prompt others to come forward. He has made a real difference.

The Press Association has an extremely interesting twist in one paragraph of its article on the subject.

White's court case in Taunton heard that the school received legal advice in the early 1990s that they were not required to tell the police what happened. Instead White was sent to a number of monastic retreats in England and Scotland over the next 20 years.

Though it might beggar belief, their legal advice was correct as far as I know. Even if a pupil is raped by a member of staff, the school has no statutory obligation to report the matter to the police.

But I will leave it to you to decide on the moral status of an organisation that relies on legal advice to justify putting its reputation ahead of the welfare of the children in its care in this way.

With this most recent conviction, monks at five out of the six English Benedictine monasteries in England have been convicted in recent years of offences against children. There have been convictions at Ealing, Ampleforth, Belmont, Buckfast and now Downside, all since 2005. Only Worth has so far not had any monks recently convicted (at least, not that I have heard of). What is it about the Benedictines?

The Abbot of Downside explains

... or does he?

The following email has been sent out to the Old Gregorians mailing list, and has been forwarded to me.

On Tuesday 3rd January 2012 Richard White, known at Downside as Father Nicholas White, a House Master and teacher in the School was sentenced to five years imprisonment for the abuse of children at Downside School. The Media have already made this public. This letter is to inform the whole Gregorian Family about this sad episode. Father Nicholas showed a fundamental betrayal of trust and, on behalf of the whole community, I apologise without reservation for what he has done. We are conscious that the care of children is our paramount concern as educators and we are truly sorry that any child should have been abused here while under our care. We must not underestimate the great damage such abuse can inflict on people and we will do everything possible to ensure that it does not happen again in the future.

The offences for which Richard Nicholas White has been convicted occurred over twenty years ago, when safeguarding procedures were clearly not adequate, something that is a matter of great regret to all of us now associated with Downside.  The School has since fundamentally reviewed the way it approaches safeguarding issues, and continues to reform in order to provide the safest possible environment for those in its care.  This will include a major re-structuring of Governance over the next year.

In 2010 the police and the safeguarding office of the Clifton Diocese, with the full co-operation of the Abbey, undertook a detailed review of historic cases that involved safeguarding concerns. It was after this re-opening of his case that Fr Nicholas was brought to court.

Before that, Richard Nicholas White had been through therapy and a risk assessment and had lived under restrictions. After Abbot Aidan Bellenger's election as Abbot in 2006, Richard Nicholas White continued to live under the same restrictions as during Abbot Richard Yeo's period of office (1998-2006), and remained withdrawn from public ministry and any direct contact with children.

I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Apud bonos iura pietatis
Aidan Bellenger

Let's take the key points one at a time.

"Father Nicholas showed a fundamental betrayal of trust and, on behalf of the whole community, I apologise without reservation for what he has done."

Two points here. First, it is very convenient to put the blame onto Fr Nicholas, but it won't wash. The offences to which he pleaded guilty occurred after it was already known to the abbot of the time that he had already abused another boy. Despite this, he was not removed from contact from children, and the police were not informed. This abuse should never have happened. Even if the formal policies were inadequate, any person with the slightest concern for child safety must surely have realised leaving a known abuser in a position supervising children is wrong. It is so obvious, it shouldn't even need to be said.

It is also not Fr Aidan's job to apologise for what Fr Nicholas has done, only Fr Nicholas can do that. What the Abbot should be doing is apologising for what he himself has done or failed to do, or what the monastic community as a whole (including his predecessors as Abbot) have done or failed to do.

"We are conscious that the care of children is our paramount concern as educators and we are truly sorry that any child should have been abused here while under our care." 

"Should have been abused"? Rather odd form of words here. It seems as if he is trying to shrink from the fact that at least two boys were abused at the school. If it turns out to have been only two, I'll be astonished. If Ealing Abbey is anything to go by, once the first one or two victims come forward, others will gather the courage to do the same. I suspect that this story will run and run.

"We must not underestimate the great damage such abuse can inflict on people and we will do everything possible to ensure that it does not happen again in the future."

That's a promise that the parents have a right to hold him to. I've taken a look today at the school's child protection policy. It has clearly been updated recently (August 2011), no doubt as a result of official scrutiny, both because of Downside's association with Ealing Abbey and St Benedict's and also because of the police investigation at Downside itself. I have to say that on first reading it seems to be considerably better than the travesty of a policy still being operated by St Benedict's School (how Lord Carlile ever thought the St Benedict's policy was as good as any in the country is still a mystery to me), but it is still short of best practice.

One absolutely key element of best practice is that all allegations of abuse of children by staff or volunteers, must without exception be reported promptly to the LADO. Whenever I look over a school's safeguarding policy, this is always the very first thing I look out for. The Downside policy requires that the school "consult" with the LADO rather than "report". At least it seems to be without the glaring exceptions present in the St Benedict's policy, but there is a distinction to be made between reporting and consulting, and Downside has come down the wrong side of that line.

"The offences for which Richard Nicholas White has been convicted occurred over twenty years ago, when safeguarding procedures were clearly not adequate, something that is a matter of great regret to all of us now associated with Downside."  

The problem is that it seems that Fr Nicholas remained a monk at Downside (though he visited other monasteries for a time as well) until he was arrested. His offences were known to the Abbot of the time, and to all his successors, including Aidan Bellenger himself, and none of them thought it appropriate to report the matter to the police, social services or the LADO.

So an obvious question is to ask whether Fr Aidan is aware of alleged abuses committed by any other Downside monks, either past or present, which have not previously been reported to the police or social services. If he does know of any others, then since he has promised to "do everything possible to ensure that it does not happen again in the future" he must immediately contact the police in order to fulfil that promise.

The other point is that by emphasising how long ago the offences occurred he is making himself a hostage to fortune. He's implying that things are different now, and that this sort of thing won't have happened more recently. We shall see.

I would be more convinced by that assurance if I knew that the school had called in outside experts (such as the NSPCC or the Lucy Faithfull Foundation) to review the school's policies and provide additional child protection training to staff. Once a school gets into the habit of turning a blind eye to abuse, it is desperately difficult to change the culture into one of awareness, vigilance and automatic reporting. Just changing the written procedures isn't enough, they have to be zealously implemented.

The school had an inspection from the ISI in December 2010, an inspection of boarding provision from OFSTED at the same time, and a follow-up inspection from ISI to review progress in June 2011. In all three inspections safeguarding was rated inadequate and not meeting statutory requirements. Some of the criticisms are very severe and the shortcomings described extremely basic. So the issue of inadequate safeguarding is not a matter of an historical mistake long since corrected, it is a matter of shortcomings which extend to the present or at least the very recent past.

"In 2010 the police and the safeguarding office of the Clifton Diocese, with the full co-operation of the Abbey, undertook a detailed review of historic cases that involved safeguarding concerns."

It's not really enough that the abbey co-operated with a review of historic cases conducted by somebody else. There ought not to have been anything that needed to be reviewed - the case of Fr Nicholas was known to Fr Aidan, and he did nothing to report it until the police happened across the file when looking into another case.

After Abbot Aidan Bellengers election as Abbot in 2006, Richard Nicholas White continued to live under the same restrictions as during Abbot Richard Yeos period of office (1998-2006), and remained withdrawn from public ministry and any direct contact with children.

In January 2008, Father David Pearce was arrested, having abused while already under restricted ministry at Ealing Abbey. The descriptions of the abuses and grooming techniques are really very similar. The Charity Commission, the Independent Schools Inspectorate, the Schools Minister and Lord Carlile have all severely criticised this policy. And yet, it appears that when Fr David's abuses came to light, a fact which must surely have come to the attention of Fr Aidan, he continued with the policy which had so disastrously failed at Ealing. This must change - there must be a policy henceforth that any monk under restrictions because he is considered a risk to children must not live at the Abbey. As far as I can see, there is no such commitment in the Downside Child Protection Policy.

When Fr Nicholas stopped teaching at the school, the school had a statutory duty to return a Notification to the Teacher Misconduct Section of the Department for Education (or whatever it was called then) outlining the nature of the abuses he had committed.

Also, perhaps inadvertently, Aidan Bellenger has rather dumped is predecessor in it with the statement about restricted ministry. Because it is clear that it was Abbot Richard Yeo who set up the restricted ministry, and by the time Yeo was appointed to the Apostolic Visitation to Ealing, he will have known that one of the major criticisms of Abbot Martin Shipperlee was the fact that precisely the same policy failed at Ealing with respect to Father David Pearce. Knowing that he had operated the same policy at Downside, Yeo should have recused himself from the Visitation at the very start. It shouldn't have taken pressure from Lord Carlile to get him to offer to resign.

This letter from Abbot Aidan Bellenger shows every sign of being from somebody still in deep denial about the scale of abuse at the school he runs. There is every reason to believe that more bad news from and about Downside has yet to appear.

Not just Ealing, Downside as well

The BBC website has a story this morning Monk jailed for abusing two boys at Somerset school. Richard David White, a monk at Downside Abbey and a teacher at Downside school, has been jailed for five years for five counts of indecent assault and two of gross indecency with a boy. The BBC report states

The court heard that White was warned about his behaviour after molesting one 12-year-old boy but, instead of being reported to police, the Benedictine abbot of the monastery, which is attached to the school, simply prevented him from teaching younger students.

He went on to indecently assault a second boy - the one he was charged with assaulting - over the course of several months while he was aged 12 and 13.

Later in the article we have the following.

The Abbott for Downside School said: "Our first thoughts are for those who were abused as children.
"Being conscious that the care of children is our paramount concern as educators, we are truly sorry that any child should have been abused at Downside."

He added that White has lived under restrictions since 1998 and has been withdrawn from active ministry.

This is precisely the approach to safeguarding which failed so thoroughly at Ealing in the case of Father David Pearce. The restrictions imposed on White in 1998 would have been applied by the then Abbot of Downside, Father Richard Yeo. Yes, the same person who was appointed to the Cumberlege Commission to make recommendations on effective safeguarding practice in the Catholic Church, and the same person appointed to the Apostolic Visitation to look into the child protection failings at Ealing Abbey.

Lord Carlile suggested that Yeo should resign from the Visitation because of conflicts of interest arising out of his prior connection with Ealing. The case for his resignation is even stronger now, he has operated the same policy of keeping monks at his abbey under restrictions when he knew them to be a danger to children which was so severely criticised by the ISI, the DfE and Lord Carlile at Ealing.

The Daily Mail also has details of the case.

White lured the pupil, who was interested in old books, to the monastery library, which was usually off-limits to students.

He was discovered after other pupils at the independent Catholic School in Stratton-on-the-Fosse near Bath, Somerset saw the boy had extra money to spend at the tuck shop and he admitted how he had come by it.

Astonishingly, the police were not told even when the matter was again reported to the monastic school authorities, and White himself told the principal what he had done.

Instead the former British Army soldier, whom the court heard was repressing his homosexuality at the time, was dismissed from his teaching post and sent to monastic communities across the country over the next 20 years, a move designed to keep him away from children.

After the News of the World ran an article about the scandal, the boy's own family obtained a court injunction to keep him out of any further reports before removing him from the school.

Despite the publicity, no complaint was ever made at the time to the police and White's offending was only brought to light when police investigating another teacher at the school for child pornography offences found a file in school records detailing what he had done and contacted the second victim.

This is why a policy of always reporting abuses to the authorities immediately is so important. White should have been prevented from abusing before he ever got to the victim of the offences for which he was charged.

If you are going to cover up abuses in this way, word will get around about the cover up, and so both monks and lay teachers will see that they are protected if they abuse. You might as well put up a sign at the gate saying "paedophiles welcome here".

This is all of a piece with the various reports into clerical abuse in Ireland. The welfare of the abusing priest is always put ahead of the welfare of the abused child. This has to change.