The Mount Cashel Orphanage, known locally as the Mount Cashel Boys' Home, was a boys' orphanage located in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The orphanage was operated by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, and became infamous for a sexual abuse scandal and cover-up by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and NL justice officials.
History
In 1898, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. John's Michael Francis Howley donated land for an orphanage on the northeastern edge of the Dominion's capital, approximately north of Quidi Vidi Lake. The orphanage was named the Mount Cashel Boys Home after the Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary, where it is said that Saint Patrick baptized the pagan king Óengus mac Nad Froích in 450 AD. The facility was located on the eastern side of the intersection of Mount Cashel Road and Torbay Road. The Mount Cashel Orphanage, as with numerous other orphanages in Newfoundland, received a bequest from the estate of James M. Ryan in 1917.
Following Confederation in 1949, the provincial government began to place wards of the state at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in the 1950s.1945 Newfoundland Population Census St. John's East District
For the last 40 years of operation, the facility was operated by the Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada (CBIC). The CBIC announced on November 27, 1989, that the orphanage would be closing.Notoririous Mount Cashel Orphanage to close
Canada's largest sexual abuse scandal was disclosed in 1989, resulting in the closure of the facility in 1990 after the last resident was moved to an alternate facility. The property was seized and the site razed and sold for real-estate development in the mid-1990s as part of a court settlement ordering financial compensation to the victims.
Today a Sobeys supermarket at 10 Elizabeth Avenue and a small residential development called Howley Estates sit on the land once occupied by the orphanage.
Timeline of events
In October 1974, two boys, Johnny Williams and Derek O'Brien, both residents of the orphanage, are taken to NL's Department of social services by a female relative of Williams. The boys complain to the department that a Christian Brother had beaten Williams. The boys further allege that some of the Christian Brothers working at Mount Cashel are sexually and physically abusing resident boys at the facility. In September 1975, two boys, ten-year-old Billy Earle and his friend ten-year-old Bobby Connors, are taken to NL's Department of Social Services after being beaten by a Christian Brother. The two boys tell social workers that physical and sexual abuse is common at the orphanage. In October 1975, the two social workers inform the head of the department of the allegations of sexual and physical abuse reported to them by Earle and Conners. On December 7, 1975, a volunteer working at the orphanage suspects that Billy Earle's younger brother Shane was beaten by a Christian Brother. The RCMP is contacted, and the younger Earle boy, who is still sporting fresh bruises from the recent beating is interviewed. The boy reports instances of sexual and physical abuse at the orphanage. On December 8, 1975, the volunteer reports the beating to NL's Department of Social Services, who take the beaten boy to hospital. A doctor reports the abuse to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC). On December 9, 1975, the RNC open an investigation into abuse at the orphanage. During the following weeks, police interview 24 boys living at the facility, and learn that almost all the boys report being sexually abused and beaten by Christian Brothers. On December 17, 1975, police interview two of the Orphanage's Christian Brothers, who confess to child molestation. On December 18, 1975, the Chief of Police for the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary orders the investigation into sexual abuse at the orphanage closed. The police officer who had conducted the interviews with the 24 children and two Christian Brothers is told to destroy his report, and write another report without using any references to sex abuse. The police officer complies with the Chief's demand, and writes a report implicating the Christian Brothers in physical abuse only. In late December 1975, the two Christian Brothers who confessed to sexually abusing children under their care are transferred to the United States "for treatment." In January 1976, NL's primary newspaper, "The Evening Telegram," learns of the allegations of sexual abuse at the orphanage. Two NL journalists investigate the allegations, and prepare to break the news. However, the then publisher kills the story and prevents it from going to press. On March 3, 1976, NL's Justice Department, orders the Chief of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, to tell the police officer who was in charge of the sexual abuse investigation to produce another report on his investigation, and to omit any references of sex. On January 26, 1977, after reviewing the two police reports of abuse in relation to the Mount Cashel Orphanage, NL's Deputy Minister of Justice tells the Chief of Police that further police action is unwarranted, and the sexual abuse investigation into Mount Cashel Orphanage is officially closed. On April 10, 1979, a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary police officer is testifying at an inquiry unrelated to Mount Cashel Orphanage. The police officer states that the RNC police have previously been involved in various police cover-ups, and cites the Mount Cashel Orphanage sexual abuse allegations as an example. In 1982, NL's Department of Social Services inform the RNC of another report of sexual abuse from Mount Cashel Orphanage. The police investigate, and a Christian Brother is charged and prosecuted for molestation. The Brother is sentenced to four months in prison, followed by three years probation, but his sentence is reduced by a NL judge to 12 days time served, and his probation period is wiped clean. On February 3, 1989, a concerned citizen calls into a NL open-line radio program and demands a public inquiry into the 1975 RNC investigation into the sexual abuse allegations at Mount Cashel Orphanage. The caller alleges to the Newfoundland and Labrador public, who are listening to the radio program, that police and government officials had covered up sex abuse at the orphanage. On February 15, 1989, Lynn Verge NL's then Minister of Justice announces that the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary has re-opened its 1975 investigation into sexual abuse allegations at the orphanage, fourteen years after police had first learned of the abuse. On March 19, 1989, then twenty-one-year-old Shane Earle, the boy who had previously been beaten and sexually abused at the orphanage, and who had reported that abuse to NL authorities, goes public by telling the story of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Christian Brothers at Mount Cashel Orphanage to Michael Harris, a well-known Canadian investigative journalist, who publishes Earle's story in the Sunday Express Newspaper. On April 14, 1989, the NL government announces a public inquiry into the handling of the 1975 investigation by police, social services and its justice department. In November 1989, The Christian Brothers of NL announce that the Mount Cashel Orphanage would be closing, and the approximate remaining 70 residents would be placed in community foster care. From 1989 to 1993, nine Christian Brothers are charged and prosecuted for various criminal offences including sex offences against the boys of Mount Cashel orphanage.
Sexual and physical abuse scandal A pattern of physical and sexual abuse of more than 300 orphanage residents perpetrated by staff members, specifically members of the Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada (CBIC), was uncovered during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Multiple criminal investigations, a provincial Royal Commission of Inquiry (the Hughes Inquiry) and an Archdiocese of St. John's inquiry (the Winter Commission) resulted in criminal convictions and millions of dollars in court-imposed financial settlements. Compensation was provided by the Government of Newfoundland for orphanage residents who were wards of the state and several properties owned by the CBIC in Newfoundland and Labrador and other provinces were seized and liquidated.
As of May 2009, there were still approximately 50 civil lawsuits being processed by the courts by victims of the sexual and physical abuse at the orphanage.Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador, Mount Cashel Orphanage Abuse Scandal Timeline
Early complaints In December 1975, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) began an investigation into physical and sexual abuse allegations at the Mount Cashel Orphanage. This resulted in five staff who were members of the Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada being implicated by twenty residents. The investigation was curtailed by the Chief of the RNC on instruction from the Department of Justice, despite two members of the CBIC admitting sexual wrongdoing. No further residents were interviewed and the two staff members were placed in treatment centres outside the province and then transferred to other CBIC-operated institutions in Canada.
In 1982 the RNC began a second investigation into physical and sexual abuse allegations at the Mount Cashel Orphanage. Thirteen separate reports were written (nine by the Department of Social Services and four by the RNC). One staff member who was a member of the Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada was charged with sexual offences and convicted, receiving a sentence of four months in jail and three years probation.
1989 media revelations A caller to VOCM's radio call-in program Open Line on February 13, 1989, mentioned suspicion of a cover-up by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador into sexual and physical abuse at the orphanage. One of those listening to Open Line that day was a justice of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador who followed up on the issue with the provincial government's Associate Deputy Attorney-General. On February 14, 1989, the Crown prosecutor's file on the physical and sexual abuse allegations at the Mount Cashel Orphanage was officially re-opened and the RNC was instructed to complete its 1975 investigation and determine why charges were never laid.
On February 19, 1989 the independent weekly newspaper The Sunday Express, under the direction of publisher Michael Harris, began to publish allegations of sexual and physical abuse perpetrated by staff at the Mount Cashel Orphanage against residents, dating back to the 1950s. These editions of The Sunday Express created a sensation across Newfoundland and Labrador and quickly led to calls for a public inquiry; within weeks of Michael Harris's interviews with Shane Earle, the government appointed Justice Samuel Hughes to hold a public inquiry that was broadcast live on television.
1989–1996 criminal investigation The RNC investigation that was reactivated in February 1989 eventually resulted in the arrest of 14 staff members (nine members of the Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada, five lay people) on 88 counts of physical and sexual abuse. Charges were laid against four members of the CBIC in 1992 relating to the aborted 1975 investigation, followed by further charges in 1996 alleging sexual and physical abuse committed by six staff during the 1950s and 1960s. A further four staff members were eventually charged, although only nine members of the CBIC were convicted.
1989 Royal Commission The growing controversy during Easter Week in late March 1989 as a result of The Sunday Express publication regarding the alleged cover-up by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the RNC, and the Archdiocese of St. John's led interim Premier Tom Rideout to announce the appointment on March 31, 1989, of a Royal Commission led by a retired justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario, Samuel Hughes QC, to investigate the obstruction of justice.