Ex Christian Brother and UCD employee charged with abuse

delta_bravo

Got quite a shock when I read this in the paper. Its published in several other papers but none mention his employment. There is a picture in the herald printed edition that first drew my attention as I recognised the face and then was shocked to fully read the article. He was working up till about last year as far as I know

The Evening Herald wrote:

A FORMER Christian Brother and UCD librarian who indecently assaulted 19 boys was moved to another school when the principal was informed of one of the attacks.

Sean John Drummond (61) remained silent in court yesterday as Judge Carroll Moran heard harrowing evidence of the abuse he inflicted upon second-class pupils aged between seven and nine at a national school between between July 1, 1967 and July 31, 1968.

Many of Drummond's former pupils were in court and provided testimony of the impact he had had upon their lives.

Drummond admitted 36 charges relating to indecently assaulting 19 boys at Creagh Lane National School in Bridge Street, Limerick, between July 1, 1967 and July 31, 1968.

Victim

The investigation arose after two former pupils met in 1999 and recalled the assaults they suffered. A formal complaint was made to gardai in 2002 and officers subsequently contacted a number of past pupils at the school.

Drummond, with an address at Broadford Drive, Ballinteer, Dublin, was responsible for the education of 55 second-class pupils in the school. He was in his late teens at the time and assaulted more than a third of them.

Judge Moran ordered that the victims were not to be identified and silence filled the courtroom when the litany of assaults was read out by John O'Sullivan.

One victim told gardai that he was often ordered up to Drummond's desk on the pretext of having his homework checked. His classmates could not see him when he was behind the desk where Drummond put his hand down the victim's pants and "would fiddle with his penis".

Another former pupil told how Drummond would drop a coin inside his clothes and would place his hands inside his clothing to look for the coin.

The court heard he put his hands down the victim's pants and fondled his private parts.

Gardai were given evidence from another victim that Drummond would often put his hands up the leg of his trousers and inside his underpants on to his private parts.

One pupil, who Drummond ordered to play with his penis in front of him, was warned that if he told anyone he would not go to heaven.

Another pupil informed the school principal of the abuse, but the principal became angry at the mention of it and the matter was not pursued.

One of the assaults happened at the Feile Luimnigh festival at a Limerick city theatre where the second class pupils were due to sing. Drummond ordered a pupil to go behind the stage curtains to change his pants and rubbed his penis while he was doing so.

Originally from Walkinstown, Dublin, Sean John Drummond later married and has five children. He was made redundant from Fiat in the 1980s and also worked as a library assistant as the James Joyce library in UCD. He is now retired.

Sentencing was adjourned until next month.

johnfás

I saw that - utterly shocking.

He was actually one of the sounder library security guards, most of them are eijits.

Despicable conduct though. But it should be noted that he was a product of a corrupt society and a corrupting church.

Whilst condemning all his actions, obviously, the Irish Times report provides some context in which to put the above.

Fergal Rooney, senior psychologist at the Granada Institute, told the court that Drummond was just 14 when he joined the Christian Brothers, and at 16 he was introduced to the practice of self-flagellation and public confession.

The witness said the teenager had picked up many negative messages about sexuality and was forced to ignore normal sexual urges of an adolescent boy.

Mr Rooney said he had carried out a psychological and risk assessment of the accused, whom he described as being in the low range risk of reoffending.

Aileen Donnelly SC, defending, told the court that her client’s family were present in court and were supporting him, but said they did not condone what had happened.

She said Drummond had himself as a child joined an organisation that “seemed to be quite inadequate when it came to matters of sexuality”.

Ms Donnelly said her client, a retired assistant librarian at UCD, was deeply ashamed of his behaviour and ashamed of the effect it has had on the lives of the victims in the case and on his own family.

Judge Moran said it was a difficult case, for which he had to find the appropriate punishment.

Powerhouse

johnfás wrote: »

Despicable conduct though. But it should be noted that he was a product of a corrupt society and a corrupting church.

This is just mealy-mouthed claptrap. A few million other people shared the same society and church and performed no acts of abuse. And many others who subscribed to no church at all abused people. The guy can take responsibility for his actions and no amount of "but it should be noted" and "provides some context" is admissible in mitigation.

El Siglo

johnfás wrote: »

Despicable conduct though. But it should be noted that he was a product of a corrupt society and a corrupting church.

I've never heard such shite in my life, that has to be the worst excuse for child abuse, next thing you'll be saying the Ryan Report was taken out of context and that institutional abuse 'wasn't all that bad'. There may be holocaust deniers like David Irving et al. but to find 'people' defending the actions of bastards like this is actually revolting, your post disgusts me, regardless of whatever shite you read in that muck arsehole paper the Irish Times. Would you tell abuse victims "Sorry lads, he might have like touching your penises but it wasn't his fault, it was the way the church taught him sexuality and repressed him", no you wouldn't have the balls to say such a thing. Is it possible that he could just be another, 'run-of-the-mill' paedophile that like touching children, regardless of being a Christian Brother? My own personal sentiments for creatures like this cunt devolves down to: Fuck him, the paedophile bastard, he deserves to go to prison.

johnfás

Did I say he shouldn't go to prison? No.

Did I condone any of his actions? No. Quite the contrary in fact, your own quotation of my comments, out of context it should be noted, highlight that I utterly condemn his actions.

However, do we simply look at criminals and apply a zero-sum situation of - that person is bad, send them to jail and that solves the problem. It does not solve the problem. Personally I would rather develop a society which educates and supports its children so that they're less likely to become criminals in the first place and I don't think that taking a 14 year old into a religious order and abusing him is the best way of ensuring he comes out the other side a rounded and ordinary individual who will not continue that cycle of abuse.

Retribution and anger are fine, but personally I'd rather as well as that, not have a repeat performance so it is necessary to examine the background of why these occurrences happen.

So you don't need to put words into my mouth which I didnt say, El Siglo, it just makes you look like an idiot. If you want to make society a simple equation, that's up to you. But there are plenty of us who don't and are as concerned about studying what factors in society and people's lives create corrupted minds to ensure that future children don't have to suffer. You're equation takes plenty of account, legitimately, of punishing people for wrongs, but it takes no account of recognising the ingredients in society which create and encourage wrong. Let's put words into your mouth shall we? El Siglo thinks we should only punish people who get caught, and that solves the problem. El Siglo doesn't believe that we should pay any attention to the factors in society and the manner in which mistreatment tends to perpetuate mistreatment by the mistreated in later life.

Do I think you believe that to be the case? No I don't. So you can have the cop on not to put words into other people's mouths either. You're whole post is a totally unintellectual misrepresentation of my point - I assume you have the intelligence to realise that now you are at a university level.

Powerhouse

johnfás wrote: »

Did I say he shouldn't go to prison? No.

Did I condone any of his actions? No. Quite the contrary in fact, your own quotation of my comments, out of context it should be noted, highlight that I utterly condemn his actions.

However, do we simply look at criminals and apply a zero-sum situation of - that person is bad, send them to jail and that solves the problem. It does not solve the problem. Personally I would rather develop a society which educates and supports its children so that they're less likely to become criminals in the first place and I don't think that taking a 14 year old into a religious order and abusing him is the best way of ensuring he comes out the other side a rounded and ordinary individual who will not continue that cycle of abuse.

Retribution and anger are fine, but personally I'd rather as well as that, not have a repeat performance so it is necessary to examine the background of why these occurrences happen.

So you don't need to put words into my mouth which I didnt say, El Siglo, it just makes you look like an idiot. If you want to make society a simple equation, that's up to you. But there are plenty of us who don't and are as concerned about studying what factors in society and people's lives create corrupted minds to ensure that future children don't have to suffer. You're equation takes plenty of account, legitimately, of punishing people for wrongs, but it takes no account of recognising the ingredients in society which create and encourage wrong. Let's put words into your mouth shall we? El Siglo thinks we should only punish people who get caught, and that solves the problem. El Siglo doesn't believe that we should pay any attention to the factors in society and the manner in which mistreatment tends to perpetuate mistreatment by the mistreated in later life.

Do I think you believe that to be the case? No I don't. So you can have the cop on not to put words into other people's mouths either. You're whole post is a totally unintellectual misrepresentation of my point - I assume you have the intelligence to realise that now you are at a university level.

"I don't think that taking a 14 year old into a religious order and abusing him is the best way of ensuring he comes out the other side a rounded and ordinary individual who will not continue that cycle of abuse."

97 per cent of all sexual abuse occurs outside of the religious orders and the majority of that occurs in the home. This has been the findings of reports which are not juicy enough for the newspapers. You seem to be trying to generalise teh circumstances behind this guy's case which is inappropriate.

It also has to be said that there are too many criminals around to justify the time, expense and threat to society that having a philosophical debate about each case would involve.

johnfás

Powerhouse wrote: »

"I don't think that taking a 14 year old into a religious order and abusing him is the best way of ensuring he comes out the other side a rounded and ordinary individual who will not continue that cycle of abuse."

97 per cent of all sexual abuse occurs outside of the religious orders and the majority of that occurs in the home. This has been the findings of reports which are not juicy enough for the newspapers. You seem to be trying to generalise teh circumstances behind this guy's case which is inappropriate.

It also has to be said that there are too many criminals around to justify the time, expense and threat to society that having a philosophical debate about each case would involve.

Indeed but what is therefore the point of a thread. Shall we all just agree to condemn the actions and hope that he gets a sentence which reflects the crimes he committed? Everybody agrees on that point so it makes the whole thread a relatively worthless exercise of discussion where we can just all share our mutually distaste and anger. We all find his actions abhorrant and we all hope to see him rightly punished for those actions. There is no disagreement there.

A topic far more worthy of discussion is how we seek to adapt society so that less crimes are committed. He should be punished, but punishing him isn't going to stop institutional abuse which is going on today, which continues to go on today and is hidden by institutions aside from abuse which occurs in a family setting. The function of our legal system is to punish those who commit crimes, absolutely. But the legal system is limited to punishing those who are caught out - we need a holistic approach which recognises the factors which contribute to abuse, and all sorts of other crimes, so that less of these issues come into the legal system in the future. Not because we don't want the legal system to deal with it, but because we want to have a society which is less institutionally abusive and thus protects children, full stop.

Powerhouse

johnfás wrote: »

Indeed but what is therefore the point of a thread. Shall we all just agree to condemn the actions and hope that he gets a sentence which reflects the crimes he committed? Everybody agrees on that point so it makes the whole thread a relatively worthless exercise of discussion where we can just all share our mutually distaste and anger. We all find his actions abhorrant and we all hope to see him rightly punished for those actions. There is no disagreement there.

What is the point of the thread? Well, that's a matter for the OP but I suspect it was purely for information purposes.

All discussion boards and other fora are full of "relatively worthless exercises of discussion" - you should check out some of the "Mr Always Angry, Dublin 4" windbags that sound off on The Irish Times letters page, and that's not to even get as far as newspaper columnists. It's a fact of life.

But sometimes trying to over-intellectualise something inappropriately can send out the wrong signals as has happened in this case with you.

Perhaps there is room for a different discussion on causes of abuse, but could we really be sure that such "intellectual jousting" would genuinely move beyond I'm-even-angrier-than-you-with-the-church-and-people-were-terribly-oppressed-in-the-1950s mentality which tends to dominate any such discussions in this country?

International experience suggests that the root causes of abuse are infinitely more complicated than the much of the traditional debate in Ireland - which is still obsessed with the simplistic notion of blaming the church - allows. It appears to me to defy all categorisation and I suspect few would have sufficient knowledge of the topic and the concomitant research to have a discussion that would not develop into just another self-righteousness contest.