Ireland: Brothers of Charity convictions at Lota — repeated pleas across three courts

Proceedings

1. 1999-11-01 · guilty pleas across three prosecutions; one sentence suspended on review

   Cork Circuit Criminal Court; Galway Circuit Court. A Brother recorded in the Ryan Report under the pseudonym Dieter pleaded guilty in November 1999 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to eighteen sample counts of child sexual abuse, receiving two years on each — a nominal thirty-six years — which was suspended following a review in June 2001. In November 2000 he pleaded guilty at Galway Circuit Court to twenty-two counts arising at Renmore, receiving three years concurrent, and in February 2002 he pleaded guilty at Cork to two further sample counts with seventy-five other charges taken into account, receiving five years with four suspended. A second Brother, recorded as Guthrie, pleaded guilty in December 1996 and was sentenced on 14 February 1997 on sample charges covering thirty-two years of abuse, with more than a hundred alleged victims; he received four years, reduced to one. The chapter records six separate Garda investigations at Lota, of which only these two produced convictions.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• religious-order custody of disabled boys in a residential institution
• victims' disabilities compounding their inability to report