Monthly Archives: February 2024

THE DE LA SALLE SITUATION  

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Letter to the RLSS.

As you know, I’m still waiting for action where the Knights of St Columba and the priest Knights  are concerned.

As it looks like it’s going to drag on much longer than I had hoped, in the meantime I will turn my attention to the De La Salles.

I’m putting a copy of this letter on my blog for the benefit of other survivors of the De La Salles.

The last communication I received from the RLSS on this subject was last September, as follows:

DLS – the current leader of DLS has watched the interview we did and said he is happy to meet with you in person (this is something you mention in the interview). I would like to suggest a mediated meeting with either myself or another member of staff from RLSS (your choice) and I suggest we need to do a little work ahead of that to ensure everything you need from the meeting can be discussed / answered.

This last communication was so lacking in substance as to be meaningless. What is he actually offering? And I don’t even have his name!

What I and other Survivors need from the DLS is already a matter of record. It’s an acknowledgement of DLS crimes against children.

You have mentioned several times that you were making real progress with the DLS and you have asked me to be patient, but the years are passing and the above does not look like progress to me.

In a probably vain effort to cut through the deadlock and the endless prevarication which is the hallmark of the DLS and I fear the RLSS, too, I have a suggested outline below of what I and other Survivors of the DLS need.

Roughly as follows:

The DLS acknowledges and apologizes unconditionally – without qualification – for the physical abuse and sexual abuse crimes of Brothers Solomon, Kevin and James committed on pupils at DLS schools.

To list all the other DLS and lay teachers who abused children in a number of DLS colleges in the South of  England from the 1960s through to the 1990s would be an exhausting task.

And also  the DLS and lay teacher crimes committed at ‘approved’ schools run by the DLS in the same period in the UK..

So these three DLS abusers  are taken as representative of and typical of the harm that DLS and lay teacher abusers did to children at these various DLS schools for which they also apologize unconditionally and without qualification.

Furthermore, the DLS acknowledge that the claim made by their representative to an Ipswich newspaper, a few years ago, that there would be a proper investigation of the ‘unheard of’ allegations on my  blog has never taken place and was therefore untrue.

So too is the suggestion they are ‘unheard of’ as the DLS had certainly heard of Brother Kevin’s crimes at least at this time.

 All three DLS brothers were transferred from one school to another at short notice which is a well documented ploy by the Catholic Church to hide the crimes of  their sexual abusers of children.

Some details may be added to above on the nature of the trio’s crimes which are confirmed by so many Survivors and therefore  were never in any doubt.

Other Survivors may have some further suggestions which would be very welcome, but this seems to me a relatively quick way of covering matters and finally providing some substance and a solution which seems beyond the abilities of the RLSS and the DLS.

And also to prove that the DLS are genuine this time – despite their track record of deceit and prevarication, both of which I can give examples of. The bogus DLS apology that the Tablet confirmed, for example.

There may be a case for a subsequent meeting or for victim impact statements, but I think the above  needs to happen first and would be real progress.

I look forward to seeing whether yourselves and the DLS will actually agree to this statement, the details of which can be refined further with dates, locations etc.