TV programme: Abused - breaking the silence

St Ethledreda's

A harrowing documentary was shown last night on BBC1, charting the experiences of more than a hundred former pupils from two Rosminian prep schools in England and Tanzania, who say they were were mentally, physically and in some cases sexually abused by the priests there in the 1960s.

One of the four accused priests was Fr Kit Cunningham, the well-known former Rector of St Ethledreda's, who died in January. We published tributes to him on ICN, which are shown in the programme.

One man in the programme describes him as "a monster" and says the school was a "loveless, violent and sad hellhole". Another man breaks down in tears as he describes a situation in which he said, there was no where to go and no one to confide in.

After they were confronted by the group, Fr Kit and some of the other priests wrote letters of apology to their victims and some had meetings with them. One man, Don, went to see Fr Kit at his care home shortly before his death. Fr Kit was in a wheelchair. He had two broken fingers and looked so frail Don said, after the meeting he felt his feelings of anger and bitterness lift for the first time.

Other meetings were less cathartic. One elderly priest who was confronted by a former pupil, couldn't remember having ever sexually abused him. He said he had never had a sexual experience in his life and that the man "must have conjured it up in his imagination because he hated him so much". Bizarrely, the same priest had apparently written a letter of apology to the same person earlier.

The Rosminians refused to take part in the programme as they said they felt any interview they gave would be edited. It is a great pity they could not at least have issued a written statement. The Catholic Church in England and Wales has very rigourous policies for the protection of children and vulnerable adults. If there is the slightest hint of something wrong we are obliged to report it to the safeguarding agency. Why on earth didn't this happen!

Twenty two of the men have now started legal proceedings against the Rosminian Order for compensation. The money isn't important to them they say, but they just want some serious recognition of what happened to them and some kind of closure.

We will be publishing a comment piece on the programme later in the week.

If you would like to see the programme Abused - breaking the silence go to: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0124y7n