Inquiry says Ampleforth and Downside schools put own reputations before protection of children

The true scale of sexual abuse at two of the UK’s leading Catholic independent schools over a period of 40 years is likely to be far higher than the 10 people convicted or cautioned in relation to sexual offences, a report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has concluded.

Ampleforth and Downside are schools attached to abbeys of the English Benedictine Congregation, and are regarded as leading Catholic independent schools.

Ampleforth in North Yorkshire and Downside in Somerset “prioritised the monks and their own reputations over the protection of children … in order to avoid scandal”, said the report, which was published by IICSA on Thursday after hearings last year.

It said: “Appalling sexual abuse [was] inflicted over decades on children as young as seven at Ampleforth school and 11 at Downside school.”

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The inquiry heard how boys were made to strip naked and were beaten. Some were forced to give and receive oral sex, both privately and in front of other pupils. Alleged abuse included digital penetration of the anus and children being compelled to perform sex acts on each other.

Physical abuse had sadistic and sexual overtones, said the report, with one survivor describing his abuser at Ampleforth as “an out-and-out sadist”.

“Many perpetrators did not hide their sexual interests from the children … The blatant openness of these activities demonstrates there was a culture of acceptance of abusive behaviour,” the report said.

Ten people, mostly monks, connected to the two schools have been convicted or cautioned in relation to offences involving sexual activity with a large number of children, or pornography.

“At Ampleforth and Downside, a number of allegations were never referred to the police but were handled internally,” said the report. “On occasion abbots saw fit to set up their own procedures … despite the fact they lacked expertise in child protection and risk assessment.”

Abbots at both schools would confine suspected perpetrators to the abbey or transfer them elsewhere.

Records had been destroyed by both schools, said the report. One former headmaster of Downside “made several trips with a wheelbarrow with files to the edge of the estate and made a bonfire of them”.

The report recommended a strict separation between the governance of the two abbeys and the schools. In April, the Charities Commission stripped the charitable bodies that run Ampleforth of their safeguarding oversight and appointed an interim manager.

IICSA will hold a further public hearing into another Benedictine abbey and school, Ealing and St Benedict’s, early next year.

Acknowledging that some steps had been taken, neither school had formally established a comprehensive redress system and no public apology had been made.