A High Court judge has awarded €300,000 damages to a man after finding he was subjected as a boy to "vicious and demeaning" sexual and physical abuse by female and male carers at a Kilkenny residential institution.
David Connellan (46) from Kilkenny had sued St Joseph's, Kilkenny, and the South Eastern Health Board; the Ministers for Education, Health and Justice, Ireland and the Attorney General.
Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan said in addition to physical and sexual abuse inflicted on Mr Connellan by a female carer, she had abused him racially and instilled in him that he was totally under her control. The abuse to which she subjected him was also done in the presence of other boys.
"If that is not arrogance and outrage deserving of aggravated damages, I do not know what is," the judge said.
The court had heard Mr Connellan was transferred from an orphanage to St Joseph's when he was aged 6½ and his life changed.
In his reserved judgment yesterday awarding Mr Connellan €250,000 general damages and €50,000 aggravated damages, Mr Justice O'Donovan said he had no doubt that over Mr Connellan's five years at St Joseph's, he was subjected to physical, sexual, emotional and racial abuse.
This abuse was "vicious and demeaning" and was calculated to kill his spirit, as it did.
It affected Mr Connellan's ability to concentrate when he was at school and he never achieved his potential academically, the judge said. Mr Connellan's period at St Joseph's was a hard cross to bear and only a substantial sum of money would be appropriate.
Notwithstanding the appalling ill-treatment to which he was subjected and the problems which that brought in its wake, Mr Connellan had done remarkably well in life, the judge added. He had rarely been unemployed and he had been married for 22 years.
Mr Justice O'Donovan said the defence accepted liability for the physical and sexual abuse at the hands of a female carer, physical abuse experienced from a male carer and sexual abuse from another male carer.
Mr Connellan was placed in an orphanage when just three weeks old. The court heard he was happy until September 1966 when, aged six, he was transferred to St Joseph's, a residential institution, where he also attended school.
Mr Connellan had said that when he went to St Joseph's, it was a frightening change and "like a dark cloud come down on me".
He claimed one female member of staff singled him out to perform sexual acts on her. He said he was taunted and she had called him a black bastard and a golliwog, for about three years. When he was 13, he was moved to another part of the complex where he claimed two male carers beat him.
Mr Connellan said the school manager was a nun and a lovely person but she believed everything she was told by staff.
After yesterday's judgment, Mr Connellan said he was happy justice had been done.