A woman was yesterday given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting four young boys in an orphanage in which she worked.
Kilkenny Circuit Criminal Court heard that the woman had been abandoned by her mother as a baby and had been sexually abused by an adult for a number of years. "Normality to her was to abuse or be abused, because that was all she saw", a Garda sergeant told the court.
Teresa Connolly (48), now Healy, of Clarinbridge, Co Galway, pleaded guilty to seven charges of indecent assault on four boys at St Joseph's Orphanage, Kilkenny, between 1966 and 1974.
Sgt John Tuohy said that the accused woman, who had had a deprived and disturbed childhood, began work as a domestic help in 1966, when she was 16. She was in charge of some 30 boys, aged between about six and 12, and they slept in a large dormitory. The woman's accommodation was a curtained-off cubicle in a corner of the dormitory. She was working with children all day and had to sleep in the dormitory all night looking after them.
After some time she started taking some of the children into her cubicle at night and abusing them, Sgt Tuohy told the court.
Sgt Tuohy said it would be very difficult to evaluate or estimate the damage caused to the four boys, because three of them had been severely abused by other people at the institution.
The witness said he believed that what was done by Teresa Connolly was not deliberate or calculated. In many ways, she was a very good person, and as soon as she realised that what she was doing was wrong she had stopped. "I believe we are dealing with five victims here today, not four", he said. "She was a victim, too."
The witness said that the accused woman had remained in St Joseph's until 1987, when she married.
Mr Stephen Lanigan-O'Keeffe, prosecuting, said that about 130 children were being looked after in the orphanage by the Sisters of Charity and lay people. None of them had any training or specialist skills. An appalling catalogue of physical and sexual abuse had been perpetrated by members of the staff. Evidence of great acts of kindness had emerged during the investigation into the orphanage, but there was also savage sexual and physical abuse.
Sobbing as she gave evidence, Teresa Connolly-Healy recalled the sexual abuse she had suffered and said she thought at the time what she was doing was normal. It was only when she attended courses in connection with her work at St Joseph's that she realised what she was doing to the boys was wrong. Then she stopped.
Pleading for leniency, one of the injured parties said that the accused woman had suffered enough. What happened had not been entirely her fault, he said, and there were people who watched what was going on and did nothing about it. "I don't blame her, she was a good friend to me", he added.
Judge Olive Buttimer said she believed that all situations involving the abuse of children demanded a custodial sentence so that people in trust would know that the bodily integrity of those in their care had to be respected. "But this case is the exception to the rule", she said.