Brown University Students (Rhode Island) Can Accuse Others of Sex Attacks Anonymously

 Brown University Students Can Accuse Others of Sex Attacks Anonymously

Brown University in Rhode Island first hit headlines over alleged assaults in the early 1990s

The Times by Will Pavia, New York

March 23 2021, 

[I made use of my two free Times articles a week, to view THIS article and to make a contribution to the Comments section. RC ]

A lavatory at Brown University once made headlines across America after women at the college began writing the names of men who had allegedly sexually assaulted them in a list on the wall.

The “rape list”, as it was called, appeared amid complaints from female students that administrators treated allegations as misunderstandings or indiscretions by “boys” who “do not know the rules yet”. It also prompted complaints from men who claimed that they had been anonymously slandered.

Three decades later Rhode Island’s oldest Ivy League university has set up an online reporting system in which students can make allegations of sexual assault or harassment anonymously to college officials. Some student groups say that it will encourage victims who might be reluctant to speak about their experience in person or over the phone.

“Anonymous denouncements,” Professor Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician at Yale University, tweeted. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Professor Amna Khalid, a historian at Carleton College in Minnesota who writes about higher education, said: “It’s a way for some people to come forward with stories about what’s happened, but if they are going to name the person but not be willing to put their name forward then it could become a way of targeting people they don’t like.”

Brown said the system was “one additional mechanism through which community members can report incidents of sexual violence” and allowed for support to be offered even if there was no formal complaint. The system would also provide “as complete a picture as possible about alleged incidents”.

Extract from COMMENTS:

MQ

This looks on the surface to be outrageous, but may well be effective as long as the accusees remain anonymous as well. Ms. Alpha lodges a complaint against Mr. Beta. If, within a short time, another complaint is lodged against Mr. Beta, an investigation begins. It should at least be a deterrent for all but the most sex-crazed predators

Rory Connor - replying to MQ

(i) And what if Ms Alpha tells her friends MS Gamma, Delta, Epsilon etc what she has done and encourages them to make lying anonymous complaints against the same guy in support?  Will there be ANY stage at which the College authorities refer this to police as a criminal conspiracy? OR will they make a private decision to ignore complaints that seem frivolous?

(ii) There is also the question of libel - which doesn't necessarily mean a false allegation has to be broadcast to the nation. A female student who tells College authorities that she has been sexually assaulted by a male student at the same College, IS going to affect the attitude of the authorities to that student!  

Again this online accusation system is being set up for the benefit of female students at  "Rhode Island's oldest Ivy League University" too embarrassed to talk about sex. Should they be at University at all?

Cardinal Pell and Royal Commission Report: Myself and Ryan Commission Report [3]

"Abuse Survivor" John Kelly reading Ryan Commission Report May 2009

[1] Cardinal Pell - Acquitted by High Court, Denounced by Royal Commission

As per the Wikipedia article on Cardinal George Pell, on 7 April 2020, the High Court of Australia  on a unanimous verdict of 7 to 0, quashed Cardinal Pell's convictions for the sexual abuse of two boys and determined that judgments of acquittal be entered in their place. The court found that the jury, "acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant's guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted".The court agreed with the minority judgment in the Court of Appeal, finding that the majority might have effectively reversed the burden of proof; the majority had been so impressed with the accuser's evidence that it had gone on to ask only whether, despite the testimonies of the "opportunity witnesses", there was a "possibility" that the alleged assaults had taken place and not, as was required by the test of reasonable doubt, whether there was a reasonable "possibility" that they had not. In their judgment, the judges said with respect to all five charges that, “Making full allowance for the advantages enjoyed by the jury, there is a significant possibility ... that an innocent person has been convicted.”

However on 7 May 2020 Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse revealed its findings on Cardinal  Pell concluding that he knew of child sexual abuse by clergy by the 1970s, but did not take adequate action to address it. The Cardinal responded that the commission's views "are not supported by evidence".

There seems to be a strong resemblance between the behaviour and attitude of Australia's Royal Commission and the Irish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse ("Ryan Commission") that produced its report in May 2009. Both appear to have accepted as true any allegation that accused parties could not prove false and largely ignored the issue of false allegations. In Ireland these included claims of child murder made against the Christian Brothers and Sisters of Mercy - many relating to periods when no child died of any cause. (Accordingly I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders"). Leaders of four "Victims'" Groups made the child-killing claims, all of which have long been discredited but the Report of the Ryan Commission drew no conclusions regarding the credibility of these leaders! 

Australia seems to have avoided the Blood Libel aspect of child abuse hysteria!  However as per Andrew Bolt: 
Bear this in mind, police have tried 26 times to jail George Pell using nine different alleged victims that it advertised for to come forward, a process that is highly suspect in itself. Every single one of those cases failed. And not because the organs of the state were defending Pell, they were against him, but because those allegations turned out to be so ludicrous, so poorly investigated, so weak that every one of them crumbled in the police’s hands.

As in Ireland, the Australian Royal Commission draws no conclusions from this farrago of anti-clerical lies!

The following are two letters published in the Irish Examiner in November 2011 regarding the Ryan Commission and the omission of many clearly false stories from its final Report. (Tom Hayes was then Secretary of the Alliance Victim Support Group).

[2a] Ryan Report Did Not Deal With False Allegations

Irish Examiner Monday, November 07, 2011

I REFER to the letter from Mr Tom Hayes published on November 2 regarding the Ryan Report on child abuse, and in particular the following:

Referring to “victims having been portrayed as guilty of exaggeration”, surely Mr Justice Ryan does not include those who gave evidence to the investigative part of the Child Abuse Commission and whose well-publicised, loud and exaggerated claims (so exaggerated as not to have been suitable for inclusion in his final report) were not proven when challenged under oath?

“What are we to make of these claims and those who made them? Can all survivors claim that ‘Ryan vindicated them’?... [Authorities] must be prepared to separate childhood abuse experiences, given confidentially and recorded within Mr Justice Ryan’s report, from some of the many clearly false stories that were omitted and which were challenged in the investigative part of the report.”

In the period 1996 to 2003, leading members of four victims’ groups made allegations that the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy were responsible for the deaths of children in their care. Some of these claims relate to periods when no child died of any cause.

Accordingly I coined the phrases “murder of the undead” and “victimless murders” to describe them.

I made representations to the Ryan Commission both personally and as a member of a delegation from Let Our Voices Emerge — a group representing those falsely accused of child abuse — during an official meeting with representatives of the Commission.

We requested them to investigate those allegations.

The report of the Ryan Commission published in May 2009 makes no reference to these claims of unlawful killing. Originally I thought that the commission had ignored them completely. It now appears that the commission did investigate the allegations in private session, found no evidence to support them and took a deliberate decision to omit them from its published report. I find this reprehensible.

Allegations of child abuse, made decades after the alleged events, cannot be properly investigated. Claims of unlawful killing can be investigated and their truth or falsehood determined. This is especially true when no child actually died at the time the accusation refers to.

When the people who made those claims also allege that they were sexually abused, then we can also judge the credibility of the latter allegations.

The Ryan Report is gravely deficient by failing to include the results of the Commission’s investigation of these claims.


Rory Connor
11 Lohunda Grove
Clonsilla
Dublin 15

[2b] Ryan Report Must Be Put to Real World Test

Irish Examiner, Wednesday, November 02, 2011

IN Mr Justice Sean Ryan’s address in Cork about the ‘Protection of Children Post-Ryan Report’, he talks about "knowledge of abuse". We have such knowledge of abuse again, this time in relation to HSE childcare.

What effective action is being taken? Having been subjected to all of the failures that brought about Mr Justice Ryan’s report, many of us today cannot be confident that the State, and its many agencies working in support of children, has fully grasped its responsibilities. Children are suffering, and will continue to suffer. A third generation of children from the institutions in all of the major cities, both here and in the UK and further afield, are subject to social services monitoring.

Our voluntary efforts working for survivors and our experiences within the institutions count for nothing among the professional bodies who regard academic qualifications as more important than life experiences.

Referring to "victims having been portrayed as guilty of exaggeration," surely Mr Justice Ryan does not include those who gave evidence to the investigative part of the Child Abuse Commission and whose well-publicised, loud and exaggerated claims (so exaggerated as not to have been suitable for inclusion in his final report) were not proven when challenged under oath?

What are we to make of these claims and those who made them? Can all survivors claim that "Ryan vindicated them"?

The Ryan Report has yet to be fully understood. Government, and other professional bodies, have yet to implement its main recommendations. Social scientists, religious scholars and other professionals and learned persons must be prepared to separate childhood abuse experiences, given confidentially and recorded within Mr Justice’s Ryan Report, from some of the many clearly false stories that were omitted and which were challenged in the investigative part of the report.

There is a need to challenge the Ryan Report if we are to fully benefit from its findings.

Tom Hayes
Richhill, Co Armagh

[3] Royal Commission and Journalist/Pell Critic Paul Bongiorno

In 2015 high profile  journalist Paul Bongiorno spoke to ABC Radio National presenter Fran Kelly about the Royal Commission in an interview published in The Standard on 22 May 2015 

Bongiorno related his shock and disgust over the actions of disgraced priest Gerald Ridsdale, whom he worked alongside in Warrnambool in the diocese of Ballarat . The Channel Ten personality served as a Catholic minister in Warrnambool during the early 1970s before leaving the priesthood to pursue a career in journalism.
 
Bongiorno outlined his memories of Ridsdale, who was moved to Warrnambool by then Ballarat Catholic bishop Ronald Mulkearns in the early 1970s.

 “I know Gerald Ridsdale, I lived in a presbytery with him in Warrnambool,” he said. “I’ve had the victims approach me to appear for them in court cases. Let me tell you this Fran, I had no idea what he (Ridsdale) was up to. And when people look at me quizzically, I say ‘let me tell you this — there are married men and women now that sleep with their husbands and wives that don’t know their husband or wife is having an affair’. “Let me tell you that Ridsdale never came into the presbytery in Warrnambool and said: ‘guess how many boys I’ve raped today.’ They (paedophiles) hide it, it was certainly hidden from me and when it came out after I left the priesthood, I was shocked and I was ashamed."

The Royal Commission found that Cardinal Pell was aware of general allegations that children were being abused in the Ballarat diocese from 1973. It also found that he was told that paedophile priest Gerard Ridsdale was being moved because of his alleged sexual abuse of children at a meeting with then Bishop Ronald Mulkearns in 1982 when Pell was one of the Bishop's advisors ("consultors"). The Cardinal denied that he was told any such thing and the other then advisors told the Commission the same. Nevertheless Paul Bongiorno has no problem in accepting the damning findings of the Royal Commission!

Witness to Royal Commission Said He Told Bongiorno about Ridsdale

On 10 May Andrew Bolt commented in an article in The Herald Sun If Pell knew, why not Paul?
 No one could understand better than Paul Bongiorno this blindness and culture of silence. That’s because he, as a priest, once shared a house with this same Gerald Ridsdale. What’s more, a witness to the royal commission claimed he’d told Father Bongiorno in 1970 or 1971 that Ridsdale had offered to watch him masturbating, but he’d done nothing. To be fair, Bongiorno said this alleged conversation did not happen because he’d have remembered it......"

Bolt goes on to say: Let me be clear: I believe Bongiorno. The royal commission believed Bongiorno. The ABC believes him. The media also believes he knew nothing. But why won’t they also believe George Pell? Is it because Bongiorno is of the Left and Pell of the Right? Because Bongiorno left the church, but Pell became a symbol of it?  

Bolt gave a more detailed account of this episode in a article in The Herald Sun 4 years ago (27 May 2016) entitled Why is Bongiorno not vilified as was Pell? Why is Pell the scapegoat?

Gerard Henderson and I accept the word of both Pell and Bongiorno that they had no idea of what Ridsdale was up to. Now, what I've said so far has been reported before, including on this blog. But now Henderson has uncovered an even more incredible example of double standards - of Pell being hounded for what seems excused in Bongiorno, and, moreover, not even reported.

Henderson: It’s a matter of record that the media has not reported some statements made to the Royal Commission with respect to Paul Bongiorno while, at the same time, covering George Pell’s appearances in extraordinary detail. 

On 29 October 2015 an anonymous victim of Ridsdale – given the title “BPL” by the Royal Commission – made a statement to the Royal Commission. It reads in part: 

9. I first came into contact with RIDSDALE on three or four occasions in 1970 and 1971 in or around Warrnambool. 
10.  I was sexually abused by RIDSDALE on three or four occasions in 1970 and 1971 in or around Warrnambool. 
11. Around the time of the abuse I went on a boys’ camp just outside of Warrnambool, to a little place I think was called Crossley. I went with some other boys from my class. It was organised though the school, I think as a sort of sex-education camp. They showed us a film about the birds and the bees. 
12. Father BONGIORNO, who was a priest in the parish at the time, came on the camp. There were also a couple of Christian Brothers at the camp, but I can’t remember which ones. 
13. When we were at the camp, I talked to Father BONGIORNO. It was only a brief conversation. I told him how RIDSDALE had approached me one afternoon in the bathroom of the presbytery after I had served at a wedding service. RIDSDALE had asked me how much I ejaculated and had said that he would get a teaspoon to measure it and check if it was “normal”. 
14. I also told Father BONGIORNO that I believed that similar things had happened with my younger brother Michael, who was also an altar server. Father BONGIORNO said, “Look, it’s a real problem. Me and Father BORPHY have talked to Monsignor FISCALINI about it and he is sorting it out with the Bishop”. Father BONGIORNO said he couldn’t do anything further and told me to talk to Monsignor FISCALINI about it. 
15. Father BONGIORNO was the first person I told about the abuse. He left the priesthood shortly after that camp…. 

On 24 November 2015, Paul Bongiorno made a statement to the Royal Commission.... Paul Bongiorno stated that he lived in the Warrnambool Presbytery with four other priests – one of whom was Ridsdale... Paul Bongiorno’s statement reads in parts: 

15. I have a vivid recollection of how shocked I was when I learned that Father Ridsdale had appeared in court and what he had been charged with. I had had no idea... 
19. I have been shown a statement made by BPL identified by the number [STAT.0738.001.0001">. The BPL name is vaguely familiar to me. There were BPLs in Warrnambool, however I cannot put a face to that name. 
20. At paragraphs 11-15 of that statement, Mr BPL sets out a conversation that he alleges he had with me in 1970 or 1971. The conversation did not happen with me. I would remember it. I would have been deeply shocked by the alleged substance of that conversation… 
26. At no time during my two years at Warrnambool did Monsignor FISCALINI discuss any allegations of RIDSDALE’s sexual abuse with me, and I never raised any issues of this nature with him... 
27. At no time during my three and a half years serving as a priest in the Ballarat Diocese did anyone make any report or complaint to me about the sexual abuse of minors by any priest or brother, and I was not in any other way made aware of these matters. I had no knowledge that these things were happening in the diocese at this time in my life...

Again, Henderson accepts Bongirono's word, as do I. Maybe BPL mistook him for another priest. Maybe he misremembered completely. Who knows? But why has one young priest of that time (Pell) been disbelieved, vilified and cross examined endlessly and denied - while another young priest of that time (Bongiorno) was not even required to appear as a witness to the royal commission, and has not had these claims against him reported? Different rules for conservatives?

ANNEX: 
STATEMENT  FROM  CARDINAL GEORGE PELL 
7 May 2020

Cardinal Pell said he was surprised by some of the views of the Royal Commission about his actions. These views are not supported by the evidence.

He is especially surprised by the statements in the report about the earlier transfers of Gerald Ridsdale discussed by the Ballarat Diocesan Consultors in 1977 and 1982.

The Consultors who gave evidence on the meetings in 1977 and 1982 either said they did not learn about Ridsdale's offending against children until much later or they had no recollection of what was discussed. None said they were made aware of Ridsdale's offending at these meetings. 

The then Fr Pell left the Diocese of Ballarat and therefore his position as a consultor at the end of 1984.

As an Auxiliary Bishop in Melbourne 1987-1996, Bishop Bell met with a delegation from Doveton Parish in 1989 which did not mention sexual assaults and did not ask for Searson's removal. 

Appointed Archbishop of Melbourne on 16 August 1996, Archbishop Pell placed Fr Searson on administrative leave in March 1997 and removed him from the parish on 15 May 1997.


ENDS.

quoted in George Pell 'surprised' by royal commission finding he was told of Ridsdale abuse ABC News

Are There Very Few False Allegations of Rape and Child Abuse [3]

Colm O'Gorman - 'One in Four' Victim Group and Amnesty International

This is a follow up to two previous posts with titles "Are There Very Few False Allegations of Rape and Child Abuse [1]" and "Are There Very Few False Allegations of Rape and Child Abuse [2]"

[I highlight  a photo of Colm O'Gorman because of his role as founder of one of Ireland's largest Victim groups 'One in Four', his present position as head of Amnesty Ireland and, not least, his statement in March 2006 that false allegations of child abuse against Catholic priests did not constitute a problem!]

The following is a extract from a discussion on the Spiked-online website in December 2015 that followed an article by Mike Hume entitled  "The Year We Forgot What Free Speech Means".  I am concentrating on a debate between myself [Kilbarry1 AKA Rory Connor] and an Australian Jack Richards. The debate ranges over the meaning of human nature, the colonisation of Australia, the Aboriginals and "White Guilt", Social Darwinism,  Islam, Christianity and Humanism - and of course the role of the Catholic Church! 

I start with a quote from Jack Richards directed at another participant, humanist Carl Barjer:
"Homo sapiens are animals, very clever animals who can make telephones, computers and rockets, but animals none the less. All animals herd with their own, mark out their territories and defend them, they protect their own gene pool, and as Muslims clearly demonstrate, hide their women away like precious possessions so they won’t be tainted by the blood of other tribes. Only complete fools like you, blinded by idealistic and ridiculous ideologies, believe that the lion will lie down with the lamb and we can all be one big happy family of “humanity”. That’s just such rotten bullshit and dangerous bullshit. Every pack has its dominant male and female and a pecking order and if you aren’t prepared to fight, lie and steal for yours you’ll get nothing. And that’s exactly what you’ll deserve."

This is Social Darwinism (although I don't think the term was used in the discussion) and it's not something I would normally sympathise with. However faced with the kind of leaders we have today in both Church and State, it's an ideology that I can at least understand!

Another unkind comment from Jack Richards follows regarding Australian Aboriginals:
"Everything in this country was built by whites: every road, railway, farm, bridge, house, dock, drain, power grid, airport, mill, factory every last endeavour of every kind. The Aborigine have contributed nothing. They are virtually unemployable and are a huge and costly burden on society. In 1990 there was a paper on what they cost us over and above the welfare available to all Australians. That was 25 years ago and between Federal, State and Local Aboriginal specific programs we were spending an extra $41,000 p.a. per person. I know that paper well - I wrote it and did the research when I worked for a then Federal Cabinet Minister."

Debate with Jack Richards on Spiked-Online website

I replied to him as follows (December 2015)

Kilbarry1: First reply to Jack Richards 
I agree with a lot of what you say, while being dubious about the way you say it - but then I wouldn't describe myself as a "dominant" male. For an example of the way a community can self-destruct by adopting a lunatic variety of idealism, see my article on the decadence of the Irish Sisters of Mercy
The Sisters responded to bogus allegations of child abuse (including child murder) by apologising to the false accusers on the basis that they must have suffered great pain in order to make them say such things. The apology was supposed to "heal the pain" but surprisingly it didn't - even after the Sisters repeated it on numerous occasions. After they paid £20,000 to the parents of a child who died decades before, the parents accused a nun of murdering the baby by burning holes in its legs with a red hot poker. Try Googling the newspaper headline:
"HOT POKER WAS USED ON LITTLE MARION.. NO CASH WILL GET HER BACK; I THINK MY BABY WAS MURDERED AT THE ORPHANAGE, SAYS PAYOUT MUM."

The present position is that the Merciful Sisters blame the Irish Bishops for their problems. Their rationale may be that the Bishops made some (albeit inadequate) efforts to defend themselves - including a couple of successful libel actions against false accusers.

Jack Richards: First reply to   Kilbarry1 
I once read that the number of Irish children who were molested by the Catholic Clergy in Ireland actually out-number those who were not.

Is there anyone in this world who is not an hereditary victim? Before about 1975 no-one believed that victimhood could be inherited - but indeed it can.

My whole life has been miserable and agonising because of my inherited victimhood - and so far I haven't received a cent in compensation nor an official apology from the British Government! Bastards!

You see I am the direct descendant of 10 Convicts transported to New South Wales. I'll forget about most of them who were just English thieves - even though one was a 14 year-old boy sentenced to death, along with his mother, for burglary in 1786 in Somerset. They hanged her but he received a reprieve and just got 14 years transportation. He spent 2 years on a hulk in Portsmouth Harbour and then shipped out on the "Neptune" with the Second Fleet in 1789. When it arrived in Sydney over a third of the convicts had died from mistreatment and starvation.

But my real claim to victimhood dates from 1803 when Mick and Kathleen arrived in chains from Cork, Ireland. They'd taken part in the uprising of the "United Irishmen" and were thrown into the dungeons of Dublin Castle. They both got 7 years and their crime was "Taking an Illegal Oath".

The British Government robbed me of my heritage, my culture, my language and all my relatives! I've never gotten over it!

I often think that if it hadn't been for the stinking British invaders of Ireland and their barbarism I'd be sitting in O'Reilly's Pub in Cork, drinking Guinness, singing laments in Gaelic, dancing without moving my arms and saying "to be sure to be sure" in a broad Irish brogue.

Instead of that luxury, here I am on the other side of the world enduring an Australian summer a few hours drive from the white-sand beaches on the Pacific Coast and being forced to drink Carlton at the local Pub and listen to Country and Western music on the juke-box and suffer all the horrors of living on a huge island full of useless stuff like all those Herefords grazing my paddocks, the iron, coal, gold, silver, copper, uranium, lead, bauxite etc and living in a country that rates only 2nd the UN's Human Development Index.

I think the British Government should compensate me for the huge personal and cultural losses my family has endured.

Kilbarry1: Second reply to Jack Richards  
"I once read that the number of Irish children who were molested by the Catholic Clergy in Ireland actually out-number those who were not.
Is there anyone in this world who is not an hereditary victim? ..."

The reason you heard that is probably because we have about 10 separate Child Abuse "Victims" groups in Ireland, almost every one of them funded by the Irish State and literally every one of them founded after our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) made a public apology to "Victims of institutional abuse" in May 1999.

Of the 10 groups, FOUR were involved in allegations of child murder against the Christian Brothers and Sisters of Mercy. The first claims related to real children who had actually died but later ones referred to periods when no child died of ANY cause. Re the latter, I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders". (Google will complete the phrases for you in Ireland and hopefully in Australia as well).

The leader of a FIFTH group wrote an article in the Irish Times in March 2006 explaining that some people believed that false allegations of child abuse were being made against Irish priests but "fortunately" that did NOT constitute a problem. A few months previously, two men had been convicted of trying to blackmail a well-known Irish priest, by threatening to make a false allegation against him but perhaps this gentlemen had "forgotten". His mistake was forgiven however as, a couple of years later he was appointed executive director of Amnesty International in Ireland.

The leader of a SIXTH group declared in a public outburst on national television aimed at a Government Minister that he had been "raped, buggered and beaten" in an industrial school run by priests of the Rosminian Order. The leader of a RIVAL "Victims" group unhelpfully pointed out that he had specifically denied this and praised the Rosminians in a radio interview years before. (The two leaders were involved in a difference of opinion as to how large sums of Government money for Victims should be spent).

The leader of a SEVENTH group was involved in a furious row with his own members regarding Compensation funds the group had received from Religious Congregations. He said he had come into his office one day and found a knife stuck in his desk etc

Possibly the remaining three (or so) Victims' groups are credible OR maybe they are just small and I don't know much about them.

Kilbarry1: Second reply to Jack Richards - Continued
For those who want to check out the gory details:

(A) In 2006 I attempted to summarise false allegations of child MURDER (in particular) directed at the Catholic Church. The link is here
"Letter to Sunday Tribune Re Child Killing Allegations"

I explained at the time that "If someone accuses you of child abuse 30, 40 or even 50 years ago there is no way you can clear your name. However if the same person claims you killed a child and no child died at the time, then this says a great deal about your accuser's credibility."

At the time I composed the article, I had forgotten about the claim in the UK Daily Mirror (11 October 1997) that a Sister of Mercy had murdered a baby by burning holes in its legs with a red hot poker. One reason I forgot, was that the Sisters of Mercy were so "compassionate" to the accuser that they failed to sue. (The editors of The Mirror employ very high powered lawyers to protect themselves against libel actions, BUT they also realise that decadent imbeciles represent to threat.)

(B) The current executive director of Amnesty International (Ireland) wrote in the Irish Times on 29 March 2006 that "In the past few months a number of commentators have suggested that grave injustice is being done to priests falsely accused of child sexual abuse. Such suggestions rightly concern fair minded people, but remarkably, no evidence of any kind has been presented to suggest that false allegations are being made or that the rights of those accused are being abused.”

Just two months previously, two brothers had been convicted of trying to blackmail a priest Father Michael Kennedy by threatening to accuse him of child abuse. I believe that Fr Kennedy is a relative of THE Kennedys so it is remarkable that Mr O'Gorman had forgotten about the case (or maybe didn't consider it significant?)
(See my article on "Colm O'Gorman" Note the  paragraphs headed "Colm O'Gorman, Nora Wall and Amnesty International" and the following one.)

(C) Very handily, there IS an easily available video of the man who denounced a Government Minister on national TV for ignoring his own experiences of rape at the hands of Rosminian priests. Check out the Comments section of the Spiked article "No Justice in a Year of Moral Crusades" by Luke Gittos. The video is one of two posted by "holliegrieg justice" and I replied to him.
[See my recent article "Recovered Memory in Ireland - and Allegations of Child Abuse" for video of Victims' group leader denouncing Government Minister]

(D) The saga of the Victims' charity "Right of Place" and the dispute about the use of its funds WAS actually covered by another Victims' group "Alliance Support". The resignation of the Right of Place founder is dealt with here   
and there are several background articles on the Alliance Support website about the affair.
[Alliance Support website is no longer operative.There are a number of articles about "Right of Place" and its founder Noel C. Barry on The Shame of Ireland website here. See also Comment below ] 

On a related matter, several Irish Bishops were also accused of being paedophiles or conspiracy to defend paedophile priests but I won't bother you with THOSE gory details here. (As per normal, the claims were nonsense. ) However that is just Ireland. Perhaps accusers and their Child Abuse Victims' groups are more credible in Australia?

Jack Richards: Second reply to Kilbarry1 
When I was 6 years old I was abused by a Sister of the Good Samaritan. The old bitch flogged me into unconsciousness in a beating that lasted for about 2 hours. She broke two canes on me and finished the job with a third. When my father complained, rather forcefully, to Mother Superior and showed her the 40+ "stripes' I had from the ankles up - including two across the face - she dismissed it as being necessary discipline. Later than night the Parish Priest, an Irishmen as they all were in those days nearly 60 years ago, rang my father and threatened to have him charged with assault for accosting the nuns! That was my last day in a Catholic School.

I am of the view that there were many genuine incidents of brutality and sexual abuse carried out by the Clergy in those days, and up to very recent times, who were protected by the Church and the police and judiciary. But it wasn't just the Catholics as the current Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse in Australia shows - they were all in it. So far they've nailed Catholic Priests and Brothers, Anglican Ministers, Salvation Army, Seventh Day Adventists, Methodists, Baptists, Jehovah Witnesses and Jewish Rabbis. It seems that any organisation that had unfettered access to children had its quota of paedophiles. From what has been revealed during the course of the RC, most of the "abuse" was homosexual in nature - especially in Catholic institutions.

Having said that, I recall that in the 80s and 90s there was an outbreak of "repressed memory" syndrome when literally thousand of people suddenly remembered being abused by their fathers who all seemed to belong to Satanic Cults. There was an epidemic across the USA, here and the western world generally - and 99.9999% of it was bullshit. Now it's called "False memory syndrome" because the ideas were planted by zealous "psychologists" who attributed all psychological disorders in later life to childhood sexual abuse. Some American enthusiasts wrote a text book on the "symptoms" of childhood sexual abuse and one of the symptoms, believe it or not, was "failure to remember sexual abuse"!

What's happening in Ireland is starting to remind me of the witch hunts of the 16th-18th Centuries and the epidemic of denunciations during the Purges in 1930's Soviet Union. All these accusations need to be looked at both sympathetically and with much scepticism because there's a very good chance they're not true. If there're large sums of money involved the credibility of the accusers must be proportionately reduced. But it's not just money that provokes denunciators: there's all that kudos and sympathy and victimhood to be milked. For some people, being a victim is the high point of their otherwise worthless life and they really get off on it. Human nature is a strange thing. I live by the theory that if you trust no-one you'll never be disappointed. I have met far more compulsive liars, frauds, swindlers and conmen than I have honest men. Indeed I can't remember ever meeting an honest man or woman.

I might add that for a few years I worked in a Government department investigating theft and fraud. It was often surprising that the people we caught stealing were very well educated, held high positions, and didn't need to steal - and often the theft was so petty. For example, one very senior Civil Servant was caught for stealing the tyres off a Government owned vehicle. For the price of a set of tyres - about $600 - he lost his job and was fined double their value plus has a life-long conviction for dishonesty.

But some people are such accomplished liars that, had I not known they were as guilty as sin and had the evidence of it, I'd have believed their denials. I got one woman for stealing a computer and a printer. When interviewed she denied it, of course, and was so terribly indignant that we'd accuse her! What she didn't know was that we had CCTV film of her loading the goods into the boot of her car. So after her swearing on the life her children that she was innocent, and quite convincingly doing so, we showed her the film.

One major investigation had to do with a Religious School. In Australia non-government schools get subsidised for every student they educate. I forget the exact amount but it was about $2,600 per student per year and the schools have to complete a census upon which the grants, capital and recurrent, are made. In any event, the Principal of the school - a very religious man who insisted on praying for us at every opportunity - had been fudging the census and claiming for 30-40 children who did not exist and pocketing the money for himself. This had been going on for some years. Again, he was a very convincing fraud and liar and, even when confronted with damning evidence in his own hand-writing, he denied having done it! He was so convincing in proclaiming his innocence that a Committee of supporters was formed to defend him against our "false accusations" and "racist" attempts to persecute an honest man. He kept up his charade until the day of his committal hearing in the Supreme Court - then he confessed, admitted it all, and pled guilty when the Prosecution offered to drop a couple of charges. 

Never trust anyone, no matter how honest and convincing they seem, and you'll never be disappointed.

Kilbarry1:  Final reply to Jack Richards 
Regarding your last sentence, I really think that you are TOO cynical. I know some very decent human beings who - nevertheless- would not be too scrupulous about twisting the truth to get an increased Government grant or insurance payout. I probably wouldn't do either myself but that is partly because I have poor communications skills; on one occasion when I had a genuine insurance claim, I handled it so badly that I know they suspected me of fraud!

Re your first sentence I know a lady who was very badly battered in kindergarten - by a female SECULAR teacher who later was admitted to a mental hospital. My friend also said that the woman could be very nice outside class but should never have become a teacher.

This discussion could go on forever. I believe that the overwhelming majority of paedophile claims are false. In Ireland members of "Victims'" groups hardly ever raise objections when their leaders make transparently false allegations - of child murder for example. (The only thing that seems to arouse their ire, is controversies about money). I assume the reason they don't complain is that their own allegations are equally spurious - and they are making them for financial reasons.

I know less about Australia but I recall a case a few years ago in which the head of the Vincentian Order was arrested amid huge publicity, for supposedly molesting a student 20 years previously. He was released when he was able to prove that he was not on the Australian subcontinent at the time in question. (If he had been, perhaps he would have been convicted?). There was a similar case in Cornwall, Ontario (Canada) when a number of nutcases accused practically every prominent citizen of the town of belonging to a paedophile ring. NATURALLY this included the then Bishop and it's not entirely unsurprising that he had not been Bishop, nor in the diocese, at the relevant time.

There have been several allegations against Bishops in Ireland, some so ludicrous that they embarrassed our anti-clerics. I summarised them here:
8 Falsely Accused Bishops - The Innocent Who Merit an Explanation
Note that three former Archbishops were accused. There are only four Archbishops on the island of Ireland so I await an allegation against the Archbishop of Tuam (present or past). Cynicism is the daughter of Hysteria and cynicism is all we will be left with when this wave of hysteria finally runs its course. REAL victims of child abuse will find it very difficult to be taken seriously then.

CONCLUSION: "Stolen Generations" of Children?

Jack Richards is no friend of the Catholic Church and Ireland has no real equivalent of Australian aboriginals. However some of what he says about the supposedly "Stolen Generation" of aboriginal children does resonate in this country. I am thinking about the allegations of "child abuse on an industrial scale" in residential schools and also the hysteria about the Tuam babies supposedly buried in a cess pit.

Jack Richards writes:
In 1962 I attended a public school in outback NSW [New South Wales] with a large Aboriginal cohort. There was a half-caste girl who was captured and carted away by welfare. She lived on the banks of the Lachlan River in a hollow under a sheet of corrugated iron. Being a "yella fella" she was rejected by the (racist) full bloods. She stank to high heaven, had head lice, scabies, impetigo and was malnourished - but the worst affliction was an untreated suppurating ear infection that had become fly-blown. You could see the maggots crawling in the oozing pus. She was about 10 years old and was regularly molested by bucks of all ages. She was taken away to the Far West Children's home - a hospital in the salubrious Sydney suburb of Manly where she was treated for those diseases as well as her gonorrhoea. About a year later she came back. 

She's still in the same town and is now an Aboriginal activist who claims to have been "stolen"!!!!! Her life was saved, she was cured of loathsome diseases and parasites and brought back to health from the edge of death, and yet she claims she was carted away by evil whites; indeed she was "stolen" from a loving family! The truth is, her mother was a drunken whore who'd sell herself for a bottle of beer and her father was unknown and no-one in the tribe gave a shit about her. The only people who did were the white welfare officers. .........

You see, the truth is a bit hard to confront. Like that girl I knew at school 53 years ago, it would be a very difficult thing to admit that your mother was a drunken prostitute who had no idea who your father was - just some anonymous white drifter who paid his shilling - and that your "tribe" didn't want you or care about you. It's much easier to believe that evil whites stole you so as to remove you from your "culture" and drove off your father who really loved you. 

Well perhaps the aboriginal girl's very difficult childhood provides at least a partial excuse. But what about the Irish journalists who publish allegations of child murder at a time when no child died, or the politician who brings down a government by inventing a tale of a conspiracy between an Archbishop and an Attorney General to protect a paedophile priest?

Restarting Blog

Testing - and returning to this Blog after 4 years plus. I am writing a book on the issue of false allegations of child abuse - especially false allegations of child murder - directed at Catholic clergy and religious. The point about the child-killing claims is that they can be tested even decades later and all official investigations have shown that such claims are nonsense. Since some of the people making these claims are leading members of "Victims'" organisations, this is a clear indication that they are not to be trusted when they make "ordinary" claims of child abuse i.e. the kind that CANNOT be investigated decades later!

Rory Connor