By Catherine Pepinster
Cistercian monks on a Welsh island failed to act when one of their community abused children, enabling him to carry out his crimes “in plain sight”, a review has concluded.
For four decades, Father Thaddeus Kotik assaulted dozens of boys and girls on Caldey Island, off the Pembrokeshire coast, but despite allegations being made against him, it was years before the abuse was ever reported to the police. Instead, Kotik kept targeting children who lived on the island and visitors who would come on day trips with their schools and families.
The review, commissioned by Fr Jan Rossey, the new abbot of Caldey, and written by Jan Pickles, a former assistant police and crime commissioner for South Wales, highlights the cases of 20 people abused by Kotik when children. The Caldey Island Survivors Campaign estimates that least 50 children were harmed by Kotik, who joined the Cistercian monastery in 1947 and died in 1992.
It was only in 2014, the Pickles review says, that the monks first alerted the police to the claims of abuse after six victims sued the community in the civil courts. But no action was taken by Dyfed police.
The Pickles review adds: “There appears to have been a failure of leadership at the highest level within the [Cistercian] Order and Abbey. Serious matters of repeated and frequent allegations of child sexual abuse by [Kotik] were not reported to the statutory authorities as the law of that time required.”
The review also refers to several other sex offenders who were allowed to stay on the island. It describes a “lack of curiosity” and “lack of diligence” on the part of the community and says that there was weak leadership, no evidence of governance and poor record-keeping, while the adversarial approach taken towards survivors of abuse was hostile and cruel.
Fr Rossey, who became acting abbot in January and was then elected in April, said: “It is clear opportunities were missed to stop the abuse of children. It is particularly heartbreaking to hear children spoke up to adults and no action was taken.
“Children and their families were failed when they should have been supported and listened to. The abuses should have been reported to the statutory authorities.
“On behalf of the monastic community, I sincerely apologise to all those who have been hurt and have suffered because of the abuse of Thaddeus Kotik and past failures in not protecting children and their families. It is particularly odious when abuse is committed and hidden by people who are in positions of trust because of their monastic or priestly vocation.”
The Pickles review includes a series of 12 recommendations to improve safeguarding on Caldey, including survivor voices being at the heart of the governance, an independent safeguarding professional, external safeguarding oversight, a code of conduct, and a duty of candour, obliging people on the island to speak out about abuse. But they are not legally enforceable.
The Caldey Island Survivors Campaign said yesterday that it welcomed the Pickles Review detailing what had happened and that it now had an assurance from Abbot Rossey that the community was committed to implementing the recommendations of the review in full.
Caldey Island, in Carmarthen Bay, lies 2.3 miles from the port of Tenby and has been inhabited by monks since the sixth century. In 1906 the island was bought by Anglican Benedictines, who built a monastery and abbey, but in 1928 they were succeeded by Trappists from Belgium, who farm the island and make perfumes and toiletries from herbs they grow.
