Nuns accused of stalling in response to abuse claims

An order of nuns has been accused of supplying evidence in a “haphazard and piecemeal ­fashion” to Northern Ireland’s investigation into historic ­allegations of abuse.

Christine Smith QC, the inquiry’s senior barrister, said material submitted by the Sisters of Nazareth in Northern Ireland was not properly ordered and was still being received on Friday last week despite the initial request for documents being made in November 2012.

She said: “This less than wholehearted and rapid response on the part of the congregation has caused considerable difficulties to the work of the inquiry.”

The Northern Ireland Historical Abuse Inquiry, led by retired judge Sir Anthony Hart in Banbridge Courthouse, County Down, is investigating abuse claims against children’s residential institutions from 1922 to 1995. In Derry, the Sisters ran Nazareth House Children’s Home and St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca. The inquiry has received statements from 49 former residents of the two homes.

Ms Smith welcomed an apology the nuns made on the second day of the hearing two weeks ago. The De La Salle Brothers also apologised at the same time for abuse in their institutions.

On Monday the inquiry was told that at the two Sisters of Nazareth homes some sick children were forced to eat their own vomit, those who wet their beds were forced to put the soiled sheets on their heads, and children were known by numbers rather than their names. Ms Smith said the submissions included allegations of sexual abuse by older children, visiting priests, employees and a nun.

In a submission to the inquiry, a senior member of the order acknowledged that an individual sister or other staff member, working long hours with children from troubled backgrounds, may have lost her temper and acted inappropriately. She accepted there was scope for bullying because the staff could not keep their eyes on all the children.

But she added: “The sisters always tried to provide the best care with the staff and resources available to them.” She said they had little information to tell the inquiry about sexual assaults but were extremely upset about them.

An allegation of sexual abuse at Nazareth House was made to the police in 1996. “Police advised the home in 1997 that a prosecution would not be made,” Ms Smith said. In August 1997 two people made a further allegation of abuse against the same person, who was subsequently dismissed.

As early as 1953, government inspector Kathleen Forrest said in a report on the two homes in Derry and two others run by the sisters in Belfast that “hundreds of children are being reared in bleak lovelessness”.

But she said that staff faced an impossible task because of the high numbers of children in their care. “It is just not possible for the number of staff to show affection to such a large number of children,” she wrote.

The inquiry will look into 16 church- and state-run orphanages, care homes and other institutions and is expected to last until June 2015.