Caldey Abbey: first male victim comes forward to describe sexual abuse
Fri 9 Feb 2018
Man says he was abused by Cistercian monk during family holidays on Welsh island
A man has come forward to describe how he was groomed and sexually abused as a child by a Benedictine monk on Caldey Island, intensifying calls for an inquiry into what happened at the abbey in south-west Wales.
The victim, who has told police of the abuse he was subject to during summer holiday trips to Caldey Island, is the first man to allege he was sexually assaulted by Father Thaddeus Kotik.
More than a dozen women have come forward to report offences committed by Kotik, a member of the Cistercian order of Benedictine monks who lived at Caldey Abbey on the Pembrokeshire island from 1947 until his death in 1992.
The Guardian has learned that two other men who lived and worked on Caldey Island were subsequently convicted of child sex offences.
The latest victim, Mark (not his real name), came forward three days after the Guardian first revealed that Kotik was a serial child sex offender. He hopes others will step forward to report abuse, which would add to the pressure for a thorough inquiry into the sexual offences committed by Kotik that may have spanned five decades.
“I want a public inquiry to take place about Caldey Island and its lack of child protection,” Mark said. “I will hopefully encourage others to come forward and tell theirs. The more reports there are may prompt an inquiry.”
Kotik’s offences were reported to the monks at Caldey Abbey but police were not notified until after his death.
Mark, who cannot be identified, said he first met Kotik in the 1960s when the family first visited the monastic island, off Tenby in Pembrokeshire. Kotik, who befriended Mark’s father, spent years grooming Mark. “We were met on the green by this man dressed in what I at the time thought were very funny-looking clothes. This was the monk Thaddeus,” Mark said.
Kotik quickly made the visitors feel privileged by inviting them into the monastery’s private walled garden and serving them tea, squash and biscuits. It was not until the following year, in the same garden, that Thaddeus lifted Mark and sat the boy beside him.
“Whilst eating I felt this large rough hand touching my leg,” Mark said. “Throughout the time we sat there I remember Thaddeus rubbed his hand up and down my bare legs a few more times going from one leg to the other and crossing the front outside my shorts.”
Revealed: monk who abused children on ‘crime free’ Caldey Island for decades
Mark, then aged eight, said nothing because he did not want to get into trouble. Kotik behaved as if nothing had happened, leading the family on a personal tour of the island, to the farm, the church and the lighthouse.
Kotik invited the family back the following summer, arranging for them to stay at St Philomena’s guesthouse. Mark’s father carried out handyman jobs in lieu of payment for their holiday, and Kotik offered to mind Mark and his siblings.
On the first day of this holiday, Kotik took Mark into the monastery, beyond the reach of his mother. During a later visit to the monastery Kotik allowed the boy to help wash up in the monastery kitchen. While Mark was at the sink, Kotik stood behind him, wrapped his arms around him and rubbed the boy’s genitals. The monk told the boy to be careful not to leave knives in the water, to divert attention from his actions. Another monk walked into the room and Kotik moved away.
On a subsequent visit to the monastery, Mark was helping to wrap the chocolate bars made at the monastery when Kotik approached him from behind, sat him on a bench, and assaulted him.
“I just froze still. I didn’t say anything but I remember being frightened and upset,” Mark said. He deliberately knocked a chocolate bar to the floor, and moved to pick it up to escape from Kotik’s grasp.
Although Mark avoided being alone with Kotik, the monk remained a family friend and even visited the family in Wales for a week each year. As an adult, Mark returned to the idyllic island for holidays with his own young son but he was careful never to leave him unattended.
“Looking back, I cannot forgive myself for putting [my son] in such a vulnerable position despite me or another adult being with him all the time,” he said.
Mark’s father maintained his friendship with Kotik and attended the monk’s funeral in 1992, but Mark has struggled to accept the betrayal by a priest who he thought had been his friend for 27 years.
“It is only since hearing and reading of this abuse that I have finally come to accept that I was a victim of Thaddeus’s abuse,” he said.
Mark says he has not yet felt strong enough to speak to his elderly father, his siblings or his son about the abuse but has confided in an old school friend who is supporting his efforts to break the silence on child abuse on Caldey Island.
Caldey Abbey was asked to comment but had not responded by the time of publication.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/09/caldey-abbey-island-sexual-abuse-thaddeus-kotik
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-42922339
Caldey Island: Compensation call for sex abuse victims
Dec 29 2017
A call has been made for the founding monastery to compensate people who were sexually abused by a monk in Wales.
A devotee of the abbey on Caldey Island said Scourmont Abbey in Chimay, Belgium, had a “moral and ethical duty” to take some responsibility for the offences of Father Thaddeus Kotik.
Teresa Elwes, who regularly visited Caldey Island, off Pembrokeshire, said she was horrified by the allegations.
Scourmont Abbey denied responsibility, saying Caldey was a separate entity.
Father Thaddeus, who lived on the island for 45 years before his death in 1992, is accused of sexually abusing several young girls during the 1970s and 1980s.
Six of his victims were compensated by Caldey Abbey in an out-of-court settlement in March. A number of others have since come forward with allegations.
It is understood the abbot of Scourmont Abbey denied any legal liability in the civil proceedings.
Ms Elwes, a supporter of Caldey Abbey, claimed Scourmont, which brews Chimay – one of Belgium’s most popular beers – could afford to compensate victims more adequately.
She said: “When abuse is revealed you have to do your utmost to apologise, take responsibility, provide compensation and do everything you can for the victims.
“If [Scourmont] said ‘not our problem’ I’d say that’s pretty disingenuous… there are very strong links between Caldey and Scourmont.
“Whether they have a legal duty or not, they have a moral and ethical duty to make sure people are properly cared for and compensated… these people’s lives have been ruined.”
BBC Wales previously reported the former abbot of Caldey, Brother Robert O’Brien, became aware of allegations against Kotik in 1990 but did not refer them to police.
Ms Elwes, a former forensic psychologist who regularly visited Caldey Island from the age of 14 into her 20s, claims Brother Robert, who died in 2009, was appointed by Scourmont.
A book about Caldey Abbey, published in 1996, said the authority for the monastery reverted to Scourmont after the former abbot, Dom James, died.
Dom Guerric Baudet with pope
http://www.scourmont.be/histoire/05domguerric.htm
The book stated the then-abbot of Scourmont, Dom Guerric Baudet, appointed Brother Robert.
But this is disputed by the present abbot, Dom Armand Veilleux, who said Brother Robert was “elected” by the Caldey community.
Scourmont established a monastery on Caldey in 1929 and the earliest monks there were Belgian – some were still members of the Caldey community at the time of the alleged abuse.
Although Caldey Abbey became autonomous from the Belgian abbey in the mid-1930s, Ms Elwes points to books about the island which refer to Scourmont’s ongoing financial support for the abbey into the 1970s.
After joining Caldey Abbey, Father Thaddeus spent time at Scourmont as part of his training.
BBC Wales has contacted Dom Armand Veilleux asking him to address these points, but has not received a response.
Ms Elwes, from London, said she met Father Thaddeus on occasions when visiting the island, but was not among his victims.
“I had a wonderful and quite deeply spiritual experience of Caldey, so to think there was a monk doing this is shocking,” she added.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-42510923
Four men convicted or accused of sexual offences against children lived or stayed on tiny monastic Welsh island
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/12/priest-jailed-for-child-abuse-images-lived-on-scandal-hit-caldey-island?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The woman, who was abused by Father Thaddeus Kotik in the 1970s and 80s, said she wants an inquiry to be held.
Charlotte said she did not speak out as a child as Kotik had threatened her, saying her parents would not take her back home and that she would go to hell.
She said the impact of the abuse had been catastrophic.
“It changes how you grow up. It changes how you see the world and most importantly, it changes how you see your place in the world,” she said.
Charlotte said she “desperately” wanted an inquiry to happen.
“It’s very important for me to not just have my story told. I don’t want anybody to say to me ‘oh you poor thing, oh that’s really sad, that must have been really hard’.
“I want the whole world to say this is an outrage, and it’s happening and why is it still happening?
“We are destroyed souls and we are left to do our own healing. And it’s an epidemic. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of people like me.”
“I feel sad for the island that it’s had to harbour revolting creatures. I have nothing against the physical island, it’s a piece of nature and it’s absolutely beautiful but I think that Father Thaddeus needs to be removed.
“That’s just the first step. The abbey should be thinking about that themselves. They need to get with the programme and start realising that this is a very, very serious issue.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-42257053
July 19, 2009
Chapter at the community of Scourmont
In memory of Dom Guerric Baudet
Dom Guerric left us rather quickly. His heart, with a valve almost clogged, had more and more difficulty to beat. He simply went out slowly. Despite the difficulty of breathing of the last days, he did not experience agony.
His long life ended with a very beautiful old age and also a very beautiful death. He kept all his lucidity, his sharp mind and his memory to the end, to nearly 96 years. He saw death coming with great serenity. He talked about it more and more often, but in all simplicity. He was somehow surprised to be alive. He was happy to live, but was also quite ready to meet the Lord.
I had the privilege of accompanying his last moments. I recited some prayers very shortly before his last breath, and he recited amen at the end. He also raised his arms when I sang the Salve in a low voice. By the time his breath stopped, he shook my hand, looking at me with two very peaceful eyes, then he breathed his last breath. All serenely, as he had lived among us in recent years.
We will miss him. He has been so long in the heart of the community. For nearly forty years as superior, followed by twenty years of a much more discreet presence, but still intense. For me, who came from outside, eleven years ago, he was the model of the abbot who had resigned. It is never easy for someone who has served his community as abbot for a long time to find his rightful place in community (as it is not easy for his successor either). This was not the case during the last eleven years. For me, the presence of Dom Guerric in community has always been precious to me. His advice and advice – which he only gave if asked – have always been invaluable to me. As everyone knows, things were not easy for him under one of his successors. He never talked to me about it. He was a pacified monk, without rancor.
Although I only came to Scourmont eleven years ago, I had known Dom Guerric for 45 years. My first meeting was at Monte Cistello in 1964, at the first meeting of the Central Commission, which was to become an important organ of the Order. He was a member of this first meeting (which was originally due to the Westmalle meeting about the Achel group wanting to found in Denmark); and I was a young student. I was studying the liturgy, and one of the issues on the agenda of this meeting (and the next General Chapter) was the place of liturgy in monastic life.
I found him five years later at the 1969 General Chapter. He was the secretary of one of the commissions, and his succinct but witty reports were a treat to hear.
Dom Guerric has had, in a very reserved way, an important role in the history of the Order in the 20th century.
He was a student at the Generalate House from 1936 to 1939. The list of those who were there at the same time is impressive. A whole series of people who have marked the life of the Order. Here are the main ones: Vincent Hermans, Achel;
Edmond Mikkers , Achel; Jean-Baptiste Van Damme, Westmalle; Robert Thomas, Seven Fons; André Francheboud , Tamié; Jean de Ruette , Orval; Etienne Cheneviere , La Trappe. Not to mention his colleagues from Scourmont: Maur Standaert, Francis Mahieu, Theodore De Haene and Gall Schuon . This is undoubtedly where he acquired his sense of the Order.
From the beginning of his superiority, in 1950 he became a member of the Liturgy Commission (replacing Dom Anselme Le Bail) and it will be until the creation of a new Commission in 1967. He will also be the first chairman of the Law Commission from 1969 until 1977.
He was sent with Dom Félicien de Rochefort for an important Regular Visit to Latroun in 1961.
I will come back to another moment about his service to the girl-houses of Scourmont and his love of Africa.
Reading again his interventions in the General Chapters, especially the one of 1969, where we wrote the Declaration on Cistercian Life , I am surprised at how much I felt and feel on the same wavelength as him, despite our difference age. I can say that it is someone whom I have not only greatly appreciated but also loved, and of whom I have always felt accepted and appreciated despite our age difference and necessarily different sensibilities.
Armand Veilleux
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.scourmont.be/Armand/chapters/2009/090719-dom_guerric.htm&prev=search
Woman abused as a child by Caldey Island monk waives right to anonymity
22 Dec 2017
A woman has waived her right to anonymity to describe how she and her sister were sexually abused as children by a monk on Caldey Island, calling for an inquiry into how offences were covered up for decades.
Joanna Biggs also claims that a nun lied about the circumstances surrounding the death of her sister, Theresa, at the age of six in a swimming accident on the island 40 years ago, and wants her inquest reviewed.
Biggs is one of a growing number of victims who have come forward to detail offences committed by Fr Thaddeus Kotik, a member of the Cistercian order of Benedictine monks who lived at Caldey Abbey on the Pembrokeshire island from 1947 until his death in 1992.
In July 1977 the two sisters were among a group of children at Sandtop Bay beach on Caldey under the supervision of a nun called Sister Sheila Singleton, who was leading an educational course for Catholic children.
Theresa went swimming on a windy day unaware there was a dangerous undercurrent and she was swept out to sea. Three boys, 12, 14, and 15, swam out to try to help her but she drowned.
During the inquest at Tenby police station, Singleton, who died in 2004, testified in a written statement that Theresa had defied her instructions not to go swimming because the water was too cold. The boys told a different story but the coroner accepted the nun’s version and recorded a verdict of accidental death.
Biggs insists that Singleton’s evidence was false because the nun had given her sister permission to swim. “She [the nun] helped me to put Theresa’s armbands on. And then she said, ‘Off you go.’ My sister was not naughty.”
Biggs said she and her parents have lived with the nun’s lie for more than 40 years. “It is time for my sister to be released from false blame,” she said. Biggs argued that the story of her sister’s drowning was relevant to the abuse scandal because it showed that children’s voices were often ignored.
“The problem with things as they currently are is that everything to do with Caldey has been closed off, unmentioned, swept under the carpet or just whispered about for a very long time.”
The abuse on Caldey emerged after the abbey paid modest sums of compensation to six women who had brought a civil claim against the Cistercian order on Caldey for abuse they suffered as children by Kotik in the 70s and 80s.
After the Guardian exposed the abuse last month, the abbot, Daniel van Santvoort, apologised via the island’s Facebook page that allegations made against Kotik had not been reported to the authorities and expressed regret for any harm caused.
Since then the Guardian has revealed:
• A sex offender called Paul Ashton lived on the island for seven years while on the run from the police. It has also now emerged that he ran a cleaning company registered on the island with a convicted fraudster.
• A priest, Fr John Shannon, who was subsequently caught on the mainland with pictures of children as young as nine, lived on the island for nine months.
• Police are investigating another man over an alleged sexual assault that took place at the same period as the Kotik offences. He was not a member of the abbey or its staff.
Adding her voice to calls for an inquiry from other victims and Tory Welsh assembly members, Biggs said: “I feel like it’s just the start, the box is only just being opened. It seems to me that the best people to investigate that box fairly and thoroughly would be people and organisations who have not been previously associated with the island – and also who do not belong to a particular denomination or faith.
“I think this would be best for Caldey Abbey as well. If they want to try and win back people’s trust that they are truly interested in safeguarding their visitors in future.
“The fact that Fr Thad was left for so many years to continue to do whatever he liked suggests at the very least, tolerance or blindness by Caldey Abbey to that same behaviour in others. These are offenders who understand Catholicism and know how to hide within it and manipulate it.”
Biggs added: “There appears to be a firm position taken by the current abbot towards protecting the interests of the monastery, and a distinct lack of openness, clarity and even goodwill when it comes to the dealing with revelations of the abuse that took place. His order is responsible for covering it up and allowing it to continue. Acknowledgment is everything.”
It can also be revealed that the abbey’s wealthy “mother house”, Scourmont Abbey near Chimay in Belgium, denied legal liability for the abuse. Caldey’s webpage spells out how the island was sold to the Cistercian order in the 1920s to be occupied by a group of monks from Scourmont and adds that the present monks are the successors of the first Caldey Cistercians.
The Guardian has also established that Kotik spent time at Scourmont. But Armand Veilleux, the Scourmont abbot from 1999 until his retirement in November this year, said Caldey was an autonomous house in civil and canon law.
Teresa Elwes, a devotee who has maintained a relationship with Caldey and Scourmont for 40 years and knew Kotik, said the mother house – which is known for its brewery – could afford to compensate victims properly.
Elwes said: “These young women have been abused by a monk and now that abuse is continuing by the failure of the monastic community to take responsibility and willingly and eagerly pay proper compensation, whilst acknowledging that this alone can never be enough.”
The Caldey Abbey abbot has not responded to requests by the Guardian for an interview and has not granted permission for reporters to land on the private island.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/22/woman-abused-caldey-island-monk-waives-anonymity-joanna-briggs-thaddeus-kotik
Revealed: monk who abused children on ‘crime free’ Caldey Island for decades
Read more
Since the Guardian exposed the abuse in November there have been calls from victims and politicians for an inquiry. The Guardian has also revealed that two other men who lived and worked on Caldey were subsequently convicted of child sex offences.
In addition, police are investigating allegations that a seasonal worker sexually assaulted a girl on the island.
Biggs, 48, is the first Kotik victim to be named. She said one of her main motivations was to defend her sister against the accusation that she disobeyed the instructions of a nun and went swimming when she had been told not to go in the water. But Biggs said she and her sister were abused by Kotik, in the dairy on the island when they were aged six and seven.
Kotik’s modus operandi was to befriend families who lived there or who regularly visited. He gave them handmade chocolates and fresh produce, and invited the children to the dairy. He abused children in a room beside the dairy, on walks through the woods, in dens or in isolated rocky coves near the beach.
Biggs said that although she was the older sister, it was Theresa who suggested they avoid Kotik.
“We were always together,” she said. “We played together and talked about everything together. Although I was older, Theresa was more gregarious and bolder. Theresa suggested we should stick together for protection.
“I have a memory of me being in a huddle with her in a garden somewhere by ourselves and her saying that we shouldn’t go to see Fr Thad, even if he gave us sweets, and me nodding in agreement. I knew why she was saying that at the time. I didn’t like what Fr Thad did.
“I feel grateful that she was the one who voiced it. This helped me avoid a different paedophile about a year or so later – not on Caldey, on holiday somewhere else – it flashed into my head like a warning and I listened and ran away from him.”
Biggs told how she and her sister had once begun to act out the abuse they suffered. “We started to re-enact what happened in the dairy to us, taking our pyjamas off – and then we stopped and decided we didn’t like it and didn’t want to play that story.”
Biggs said the Guardian’s original article triggered panic attacks. “It was the picture of Fr Thad holding the two girls – they’re not Theresa and I, but you can see how tightly he held them in his arms. He was very strong and had rough hands. The most bizarre place I had a panic attack was in a supermarket one weekend, next to the freezer section. I was suddenly overwhelmed by the cold, the smell and the noise.”
Another protected Benedictine paedophile – Thaddeus Kotik of Caldey Island
Prince Charles HRH The Prince of Wales meets monks Father Robert, Brother Gabriel, and Acting Abbot Father Daniel during his visit to Caldey Island in 1997
July 26, 1997HRH The Prince of Wales Prince Charles meets Mrs Veronica Cattini as she works in the Post Office on Caldey Island
Director at Caldey Island JOHN CATTINI
https://companycheck.co.uk/nonLimitedCompany/978929/CALDEY-ISLAND/executive
Priest jailed for child abuse images lived on scandal-hit Caldey Island
Exclusive: revelations mean that four men convicted or accused of sexual offences against children lived or stayed on tiny monastic Welsh island
Father John Shannon, who was subsequently caught on the mainland with pictures of children as young as nine, lived on the island off the Welsh coast for nine months. Photograph: Archant Cambs/Archant
A priest who was jailed for downloading hundreds of pictures of child sexual abuse is the latest offender to be identified as having close links with the monastic island of Caldey, which is at the centre of a growing scandal.
Father John Shannon, who was subsequently caught on the mainland with pictures of children as young as nine, lived on the island off the Welsh coast for nine months.
The revelation means that four men convicted or accused of sexual offences against children have now been identified as having lived or stayed on Caldey and will increase pressure for an inquiry.
In November the Guardian revealed a string of allegations against a monk, Thaddeus Kotik, dating back to the 1970s and 80s. Kotik was a member of the Cistercian order of Benedictine monks and lived in the monastery on Caldey Island from 1947 until his death in 1992.
It later emerged that police are investigating a second man over accusations of sexual abuse on the island during the same period and that a sex offender called Paul Ashton hid there while on the run from police. Ashton was finally caught on the island in 2011, taken back to the mainland and jailed.
The abbot, Daniel van Santvoort, has confirmed that Shannon, lived on the island in 2008 and 2009.
Shortly afterwards, in 2010, police found 740 indecent images of children on a computer that he had downloaded while working as a lecturer at a Catholic seminary in county Durham. Three of the images were “level five” – of the most serious nature – and 75 were level four.
Shannon’s barrister argued at his client’s sentencing hearing that he had never had a chance to explore his sexuality and viewing the images became a compulsion.
Jailing him at Durham crown court for eight months, Judge Christopher Prince placed Shannon on the sex offender register for 10 years and banned him from working with children for life.
Van Santvoort told the Guardian that Shannon took on the role of priest on a trial basis in 2008 with the abbey’s approval after islanders asked for the parish church of St David’s to be re-opened.
“[Shannon] came with good references and took up residence in a cottage. During this period it was evident the role of a parish priest was not viable and he left the island within nine months of his arrival, in 2009,” the abbot said.
“We understand that some time later, whilst working on the mainland elsewhere in the UK, he was investigated by the police for offences committed on the mainland after he had left the island and was subsequently convicted.
“That inquiry did not involve any allegations of offences committed on the island and the police did not conduct any inquiries on the island in respect of this person. We understand therefore that he had no criminal convictions when he came to the island nor when he left.”
While Shannon was living on the island, Ashton was hiding from police there. Ashton was wanted after police found 5,000 images of child sexual abuse on his computer and in 2011 was found on Caldey , where he had been living under an assumed identity for seven years.
A whistleblower has told the Guardian that another convicted criminal, John Cronin, is suspected to have lived under an assumed name in a cottage owned by the monastery for a month in 2009.
Cronin was jailed in 1992 for sexually assaulting an adult Conservative party volunteer. One of his modi operandi was to pose as a priest.
The source said the man they believe to be Cronin left the island suddenly, taking keys to a property and owing money after he was recognised by a monastery employee from online photographs.
Cronin had allegedly requested through the abbey to stay at a monastery property on the island over winter.
However, Van Santvoort said the abbey did not know of Cronin’s alleged stay.
“We have no knowledge of this person whatsoever. The name is completely unfamiliar to us,” he said.
Caldey Abbey settled civil claims by six women in March this year and Van Santvoort has publicly apologised for the abbey’s failure to report Kotik to police despite its knowledge of his offences.
Another six women and a man have since approached the Guardian alleging abuse by Kotik.
The Conservatives’ children’s spokesman in the Welsh assembly, Darren Millar, has called on the Welsh government to launch an investigation into Caldey Island.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/12/priest-jailed-for-child-abuse-images-lived-on-scandal-hit-caldey-island?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
and also on Caldey island – paedophile Paul Ashton who was in charge of their internet – found with 5000 images
Sex offender hid in Caldey Island abbey for seven years
24 Nov 2017
Paul Ashton was found while on the run after his image was posted on a Crimestoppers Most Wanted list
A sex offender lived in the abbey on Caldey Island for seven years while on the run from police until he was found in 2011, taken back to the mainland and jailed.
Paul Ashton lived among the Cistercian monks on the private island off the Pembrokeshire coast in south-west Wales as police searched for him after finding thousands of images of child abuse on his computer. Ashton was finally found after his image appeared on a Crimestoppers Most Wanted gallery.
Caldey Abbey is at the centre of a scandal after the Guardian revealed a string of allegations against a monk called Thaddeus Kotik dating back to the 1970s and 1980s.
The abbey has been keen to emphasise that the Kotik allegations are of a historical nature and no members of the current community were on the island at the time. But victims claim there is at least one monk still alive who knew Kotik and say the abbot himself knew Kotik from 1990, two years before the monk died in 1992.
The fact that Ashton, a suspected sex offender wanted by the police, was able to live at the abbey so recently and for so long will cause huge concern.
The current head of the abbey, Daniel van Santvoort, has been abbot since 1999.
Following the Guardian’s revelations about Kotik, whistle-blowers came forward to describe how Ashton lived on the island under the name Robert Judd.
Ashton had been arrested by police in West Sussex in 2004 when officers executed a warrant at his address in Bracklesham Bay. He was given bail while police examined his computers. Officers found more than 5,000 images of children but he had vanished when they returned.
At that time, a man in his 50s calling himself Robert appeared on Caldey. Whistleblowers said Ashton arrived on the island as a monastery guest in 2004 but stayed and moved in.
“When Robert arrived, he offered to help and made himself indispensable,” a whistleblower said. “He operated the island’s satellite internet and phone system, managed online accommodation bookings and the accounts and worked in the mail room. He put himself in an ideal position.”
They said that “Robert” changed his phone number frequently, encrypted his emails and never left the island.
In May 2011, “Robert” further aroused the suspicion of the whistleblower by emailing him that he had “met another family” that included two young boys on the island and had invited them to his private quarters in the monastery.
Curious and worried, the whistleblower began investigating Ashton and discovered that a man called James Robert Judd was named as a director of a cleaning company called St Martins of Caldey, according to Companies House records.
The whistleblower carried on investigating. “ I just knew in my gut that something was wrong,” they said. Eventually an image appearing to be Robert was found on the Crimestoppers site. It named him as Paul Ashton.
“One evening we had a phone call telling us to look at a website and there [Robert] was, on the most wanted list,” he said. “I saved and printed the photo, showed it to the abbot and asked him who it was. He said: ‘That’s Robert of course.’ I asked if he was absolutely sure and he said: ‘Yes without a doubt’.”
Whistleblowers have passed on photographs they took of plainclothes police officers escorting Ashton to the boat Caldey Island II beside the island on 6 July 2011.
At Chichester crown court on 1 March, Ashton admitted possessing more than 5,000 indecent images of children and was jailed for 30 months. The court was told he was found after an anonymous call was made to the Crimestoppers charity.
It heard that South Wales police arrested him in relation to the Sussex inquiry – and said that more computer equipment containing further images were found on his Caldey Island computers.
Speaking after Ashton’s conviction, DC David Midgley, of West Sussex CID, said: “Credit must go to the anonymous informant to Crimestoppers who became suspicious and rang in. Thanks to their actions, Ashton was finally brought to justice after spending nearly eight years in hiding.
“In each image, a child was a victim of crime. The length of the sentence shows how the justice system will punish those who download indecent images of children.”
The Guardian has sought comment from van Santvoort who is believed to be in France but has not yet received a reply.
Six women sued the abbey over the allegations against Kotik and another seven women have now come forward to the Guardian since the article exposed the offender last Saturday. The victims have welcomed calls for an inquiry into the protection of child sex offenders on the island.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/24/sex-offender-was-hiding-at-caldey-island-monastery-for-seven-years
Friends of Our Lady of Tintern
The Patrons of the Project are:
Rt Revd Dom Paul Stonham OSB, Abbot of Belmont
Rt Revd Dominic Walker OGS, Bishop of Monmouth
Rt Revd Daniel van Santvoort OCSO, Abbot of Caldey
http://www.ourladyoftintern.co.uk/supportus.php?mnu=supportus
Dedication of the statue
On Sunday 9th September 2007 the statue was blessed and dedicated in a moving ceremony conducted jointly by the Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith, and by Bishop Dominic Walker of Monmouth, Church in Wales. A very large crowd gathered for the occasion, in the region of 800 people.
http://www.ourladyoftintern.co.uk/dedication.php?mnu=aboutus
Dominic Edward William Murray Walker OGS DL (born 28 June 1948) is a retired Anglican bishop. He was a canon and prebendary of Chichester Cathedral.
Walker attended Ball’s Glorious Ascension as a teenager and he was the one who named POWELL, ABSE and WHITELAW as satanists.
Dame Alun Roberts @ciabaudo
Dominic Walker was one of Ball’s biggest supporters and he named POWELL, ABSE and WHITELAW as abusers.
Enoch Powell accused of satanic sex abuse:
The Right Rev Butler was given the politicians’ names by Dominic Walker, former Bishop of Monmouth, who heard the allegations when he was a vicar counselling in the 1980s.
Mr Walker told senior clerics that Abse was named by three abuse survivors whom he counselled when he was a vicar in Brighton in the 1980s.
He also passed on the names of two former Conservative cabinet ministers, who have not yet been publicly linked to the scandal. Mr Walker was questioned by the Right Rev Butler after the discovery of a book from 1991 in which he described counselling sessions with adult survivors.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3017207/Enoch-Powell-accused-satanic-sex-abuse-Bishop-Durham-gave-Met-detectives.html
Dominic Walker, the former Bishop of Monmouth, has told senior clerics that Abse was named by three alleged adult survivors of abuse whom he counselled when he was vicar of Brighton in the 1980s.
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/leo-abse-being-investigated-police-8897463
BALLS AND MORE BALLS
When bishops start taking spiritual matters seriously, revival must surely be just around the corner! While Graham Dow (Carlisle), recently liberated from the confines of Rose Castle, emerged to find the cause of Foot and Mouth in a large cursing stone ball, the Bishop of Oxford and all his workers have been far from idle in sniffing out Old Nick.
Oxford football club got in ‘Bomber’ Harries to exorcise the place from a gypsy curse. Those of a certain age will know that Harries has the country’s best-known expert on these matters in his team, the Bishop of Reading, Edward Walker. ‘Dominic’, as he is known since his days in the Bishops Ball’s hand-knitted Community of the Glorious Ascension, told us all about his psychic speciality in a glorious Technicolor spread in… wait for it… SAGA magazine!
True soccer psychics will know that Oxford United is really haunted by the ghost of its former owner – triple agent and part-time fraud, Robert Maxwell. They never recovered from his time in charge.
trushare.com/79DEC01/DE0130DA.htm
The former Bishop of Reading, Edward Walker
Dominic Edward William Murray Walker OGS DL (born 28 June 1948) is a retired Anglican bishop.[1] He was the Bishop of Reading, an area bishop, from 1997 to 2002 and Bishop of Monmouth from 2003 to 2013.
Walker was the second child to a Welsh mother and English father. He was brought up on Dartmoor. [2] He was educated at Plymouth College[3] King’s College London, Heythrop College in London and the University of Wales.
Ordained ministry
Walker was ordained priest in 1972.[4] He began his ministry with a curacy at St Faith’s Southwark[5] after which he was domestic chaplain to the Bishop of Southwark,[6] rector of Newington St Mary, Team Rector of St Peter, St Nicholas & the Chapel Royal Brighton, Rural Dean of Brighton and a canon and prebendary of Chichester Cathedral.
Walker never married and became a member of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd. He served as father superior from 1990 to 1996.[4]
Walker was appointed Bishop of Reading, an area bishop in the Diocese of Oxford, in 1997.[4] He then became a diocesan bishop as the Bishop of Monmouth in the Church in Wales in 2003, succeeding Rowan Williams who had become the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England.
Walker’s last episcopal seat was at Newport Cathedral. At the end of 2012, it was announced that he intended to retire, which he did on 30 June 2013.[7] In retirement he is an honorary assistant bishop in the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon.[4]
Paranormal and exorcisms
Walker is an expert on the paranormal and has published many articles on the topic. He is a trained exorcist[12] and has said that during his 35 years of ordained ministry he has performed “countless acts of deliverance along with six exorcisms”.[12]
In an August 2015 article, which concentrated on the death of Morgan Freeman’s step-granddaughter, Walker rejected the use of violence when performing an exorcism.[13] He argued that an exorcism is the command of the mouth.[clarification needed]
Present
In 2015 the British tabloid press published articles saying that Walker had reported Leo Abse, George Thomas and Enoch Powell to the police as suspected paedophiles.[14] He said that “A number of survivors independently gave the name of a particular MP being involved … I don’t believe there was any collusion in their stories.”[15] Walker went on to tell senior clerics that Abse was named by three abuse survivors whom he had counselled when a vicar in Brighton in the 1980s.
Upon retirement, Walker became a “humble monk”.[16] He has since settled in Monmouth and continues to deliver conference papers and lectures. He lectured in July 2015 at the University of Warwick.[17]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Walker_%28bishop%29
Page 26, 10th November 1990
Home news
Satanic abuse ‘possible’
The belief of social workers that children in Nottingham who were sexually abused were also forced to take part in ritual practices connected with Satanism has now been supported by the director of the city’s social services department. In a report issued last week, Mr David White said that “on the basis of the children’s testimony it would be unwise not to accept the possibility that there were ritualistic elements to this case”. Nottingham Police strongly reject the suggestion that ritual practices played any part in the Broxtowe child abuse case, in which ten adults were jailed in February 1989 for offences of incest, indecent assault and cruelty against 23 children in the extended family; a view which Mr White originally shared.
The case became controversial when some of the children, who had been made wards of court after being sexually abused, started to describe experiences of a bizarre nature of which foster parents and social workers had no previous knowledge. They talked, among other things, of being burnt by sticks, of animals sacrificed and of drinking the blood, of witchcraft parties and even of other children being killed. A report commissioned by Mr White and the chief constable of Nottinghamshire, which appeared in December 1989, concluded that there was no evidence of Satanic abuse. It criticised the work of social workers concerned in the case who, it suggested, had unwittingly encouraged children to believe in and allege bizarre abuse.
The new report, which was expected to be approved on Wednesday by Nottinghamshire social services committee, follows intense media interest in the case and the disruption of working relationships between the police and social workers in the city. It praises the work of the specialist group of social workers concerned, and says that “the disclosures made by the children are unlikely to have been created in their minds by the social workers or foster parents”. Having read the diaries of the children involved, Mr White now supports the social workers’ view that even if the children had not suffered each incident physically they were made to believe that they had.
Mr White argues that the case is of national significance in that it challenges the conventional wisdom about how children should be listened to and how matters can be dealt with which are beyond existing knowledge. Mr White’s recommendations include the setting up of a joint police and social service body to review practices and procedures in the field of child protection; and the establishment by the Department of Health of a nationally co-ordinated research programme to monitor the problem and offer guidance.
Social workers in Manchester, who also had been criticised for encouraging children to make up stories of ritual abuse, were defended recently by the Anglican Bishop of Manchester, Stanley BoothClibborn (The Tablet, 6 October). Allegations of ritual abuse have also been made in Rochdale. Canon Dominic Walker, co-chairman of the Christian Deliverance Study Group, which trains Anglican and some Catholic exorcists, told The Tablet that the Churches are concerned and are holding meetings with social workers, police and psychiatrists. “People are fairly convinced that something is going on“, he said, “and that it is not just an invention of fundamentalism. What is not clear is whether it is a new development of Satanism or whether the people involved are paedophiles who are adding Satanic ritual to their practices.”
The secretary to the Committee for Social Welfare of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Mgr Michael Connelly, noted however that no evidence had been produced of ritual practices associated with child abuse. Only one diocese has informed him of such a case.
Source: archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/10th-november-1990/26/home-news
Christian Exorcism Group led by PAUL STURGESS
http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/clegend/ContemporaryLegendVol.041994.pdf
Sturgess, the secretary of the churches’ study group, said Satanist are usually kept loyal by a mixture of fear and blackmail stemming from the devotee’s initiation rites.
Ninety per cent of the cases we get are psychological,” sid Canon Dominic Walker, the vicar of the seaside resort of Brighton and the head of the study group.
http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/clegend/ContemporaryLegendVol.041994.pdf
Sturgess, the secretary of the churches’ study group, said Satanist are usually kept loyal by a mixture of fear and blackmail stemming from the devotee’s initiation rites.
Ninety per cent of the cases we get are psychological,” sid Canon Dominic Walker, the vicar of the seaside resort of Brighton and the head of the study group.
The Report of the Bishop of Exeter’s Commission on Exorcism, published in 1972 — a Commission which included two Jesuits and a Benedictine monk
Report chaired by the Rt. Rev. John Perry, Bishop of Chelmsford.
Anglican John Richards, secretary of the Bishop of Exeter’s Study Group on Exorcism,
https://books.google.com/books?id=nYerc1uX9QkC&pg=PA168&dq=exeter+report+1972+exorcism&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFi9yykrrYAhUnl1QKHbHDBvMQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=exeter%20report%201972%20exorcism&f=false
Exorcism: The Findings of a Commission Convened by the Bishop of Exeter
Apr 20, 1972
by Robert Petitpierre
dom robert petitpierre
It was Dom Robert who exorcised the Astor mansion where the lovely Christine Keeler and friends entertained the rich and famous at the sex and black magic parties. He told me afterwards that these were the most sinister spirits he had ever encountered, and it was a harrowing ordeal to send them back to their own dimension. Dom. Robert felt that the entities he encountered at the Astor mansion were the same spirits later summoned to appear at the Bilderberg meetings.
Dom Robert was even secretly invited to perform an exorcism at the Kremlin at the end of the Cold War, and he claimed that a heavy, morose and brooding atmosphere hung over the building where orders were given to murder millions of Christians. Many souls had to be released from the thrall of the material realm before a lighter atmosp