The priest and paedophile Brendan Smyth has shown no remorse for the
20 victims whose lives he shattered over 36 years of sexual terror,
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told yesterday.
Judge Cyril Kelly heard a day-long litany of attempted suicides, broken marriages, depressions, mental illnesses, difficulties with sexual orientation and relationships, destroyed careers, and hatred of priests, organised religion, and, in some instances, the Catholic
Church specifically.
One man looked straight from the witness box to where Smyth sat between two prison officers in the dock at Green Street Courthouse and said: "I hate Smyth so much I could kill him".
When he was aged 12, Smyth told him God wanted him to learn to masturbate properly and wouldn't like him if he didn't do it right.
He slapped him on the hand because he wasn't doing it fast enough.
Smyth told him he had to know how to masturbate for when he grew up.
One woman concluded her evidence on the impact his crimes had had on her by saying: "All my life I have feared that man. From this day forward I do not fear him anymore". She had just told Mr Patrick
McCarthy, prosecuting, how she only realised the effect of Smyth's sexual abuse, which stretched over a number of years, when her child was born. She became depressed and attempted to kill herself three months after the birth. She left her husband six months later.
Smyth's sexual abuse of her began in a parish priest's house in a seaside resort to which he had taken her and another girl for a holiday with their parents' permission. She woke up one morning experiencing a sharp pain to find Smyth in her bed with his finger in her vagina.
Another woman who was assaulted many times by him in the parlour of her midland's convent boarding school tried to kill herself by swallowing tablets and needles. She told how Smyth ejaculated on her uniform and left it stained.
The next day she was humiliated and slapped with a stick in front of a class by the reverend mother because of the semen stains on her navy uniform. She was also slapped because she refused to see Smyth when he called to the school and was told by the nuns she was
"getting above" herself.
Smyth wrote to her family some years later to say he was very ill in the US and asked them to pray for him. She threw the letter in the fire and for the first time revealed what had happened. Her parents did not believe it.
The woman said she contacted gardai after she heard a Belfast woman on the Gay Byrne radio programme talk about Smyth's abuse of her after he had been convicted in the Crown Court. It brought everything back to her. "That woman's story could have been mine", she said.
She recalled spending most of her boarding school years looking for tablets to kill herself. She consumed 100 paracetamol pills once but just became ill and was confined some days in bed. She often swallowed needles with little effect until one stuck in her throat.
The nuns had her taken to hospital in a laundry van.
Another woman said her first sexual experience was with a priest at a time when the nuns were advising her and other girls not to dress in such a way as to arouse boys. This had a profound effect on her attitude to men.A man now living in Australia told of how he felt betrayed by a person in a position of trust. Like so many other victims it demoralised him and lowered his self-esteem. It led to an unhappy childhood and turned him against the church which, he felt, failed to protect him.
Judge Kelly was hearing evidence of the facts and victim impact reports relating to 74 charges of indecent and sexual assaults by
Smyth on 20 victims over a 36year period to 1993. The hearing continues today.
Det Insp Thomas Dixon told Mr McCarthy Smyth had expressed no remorse whatever to gardai for his crimes. He made three statements agreeing generally the allegations made against him by the victims, though disputing some details of the abuses claimed.
Smyth's modus operandi was always the same. He befriended the victims' families and got their permission in many instances to bring the children on holidays as well as to concerts, shows and films.
Some male victims were altar boys and one was from outside the jurisdiction. He once brought two boys and three girls to a Wombles pop concert in Dublin. Afterwards, in a guest house, he tried to get the two boys to masturbate each other in the bed they shared.
One female victim said Smyth's car resembled a sweet shop on wheels. Many victims recalled that every time he met them in their homes or at their primary schools he gave them sweets.
Another woman, who was the victim in five charges covering dates from 1984 to 1993, was given crosses, statues, a Bible, and portable stereo equipment as well as sweets. Smyth spanked her bottom on occasions and also talked to her about her school progress while she sat on his knee being sexually fondled.
Det Insp Dixon agreed with Mr McCarthy that one of the features of the evidence in many instances was that victims allowed themselves to continue to be abused to protect younger siblings.