Inquisition 21
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A country by country report on the progress of the sex abuse Inquisition
Act of infamy – the Nora Wall story
On July 23 1999, Nora Wall, a nun, was sentenced to life imprisonment for 'gang rape'. During the seven-day trial, the court heard evidence from 21 year old Regina Walsh, a former resident in a home under Nora Wall's supervision, that when she was 10 she was raped in her bed in the home by a former male resident, while the nun held her down by her legs and ankles. A second ex-resident corroborated this by saying she saw it happen through the doorway.
Since first being charged with the rape in April 1997, Nora Wall had made 32 court appearances. After her conviction on July 23, she was committed to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. Handing out the life sentence, Judge Paul Carney made it clear that he believed the charges against her, making her the first woman in Ireland to be convicted of rape and the first person to be sentenced to life imprisonment for that crime. She was 51.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre hailed the severity of his sentence, as ‘a landmark decision’. Significantly they also pointed out that the state had responsibility for the home and noted the compensation potential for other ex-inmates, who might now make further disclosures.
Two events of incredible good fortune, or perhaps divine intervention, saved her. The first was the information that the alleged victim had already made an allegation of being raped in England. The second was the uncovering of a series of procedural blunders by the prosecution. Four days after she was committed to prison, her conviction for rape was quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal on the direction of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The ex-inmate, who had been convicted with her, was also cleared.
This shocking travesty was made all the worse by the incompetence and blind 'pro-victim' mindset of the police and judiciary. The ex-inmate supposed to have carried out the penetration, a homeless outcast, clearly possessed less than normal intelligence, and had obviously been led by the police. The accusation that this nun was involved in a 'gang rape' was outrageous. The media ran with stories of all the other places she had worked in - orphanages in Romania and hostels for homeless men, implying that she had probably done similar things elsewhere. Afterwards, asked how she felt the Irish police had treated her during her ordeal, she said: "I think they could have been nicer to me." It was quite an understatement.
Her family said they would not rest until the full truth emerged, and demanded a full and thorough investigation into what they described as one of the greatest travesties of justice in the history of the State. In the days following her release, there was only one letter in The Irish Times supporting her.
Now perhaps we can re-live that moment before sentencing when Judge Paul Carney listened to a poem written by the ‘victim’, Regina Walsh.
Let us again share with him those last words of the poem:
“I know one day life will have its improvements,
but the memories and heartache
will haunt me forever.”
Before Nora Wall’s release, others had joined in this great shame.
The saddest of these was her own Mercy Order, who quickly washed their hands of her after she and the ex-inmate were charged, issuing a statement which read "We are all devastated by the revolting crimes which resulted in these verdicts. Our hearts go out to this young woman who, as a child, was placed in our care. Her courage in coming forward was heroic. We beg anyone who was abused whilst in our care to go to the gardaí (police)." The young woman their hearts were going out to was the false accuser, not their own innocent nun. Our absolutist system had seduced them into identifying with the accuser and betraying their own sister.
Owen Keenan, chief executive of the Irish Barnardos child care agency, jumping on the bandwagon, said that it was never safe to assume that this kind of abuse had been eliminated from the care system. Those charged with monitoring the system had to be very vigilant and 'have to be prepared to consider the most awful things'.
Such as infamy perhaps.
The implications
As in most of the other international miscarriages of justice, the full reasons for the acquittal were not immediately given, and may not even yet have been fully admitted. The first excuse put out by the state was that she was freed on a technicality, thus leaving the impression that she might still be guilty and that there could be a retrial. Nora Wall’s brother and family stood firmly by her. Her brother said, “From day one we knew she was innocent. We want the truth first, then we can clear her name, not on a technicality. We want the world to know she’s innocent without a shred of doubt.”
It now appears that they will get that opportunity, as an action against the state for a miscarriage of justice is going forward. Perhaps the full truth will finally emerge.
The implications are plain and brutal. Since the Nora Wall travesty the state has advertised for victims of residential abuse to come forward, make ‘disclosures’ and apply for compensation.
The response has been huge. Police, prosecutors, judge and jury in the Nora Wall trial believed Regina Walsh’s bizarre accusations, and in the corroborative evidence of her supporting friend, because it was politically and ideologically correct to do so. Their mindset was that child abuse is rampant, so someone must pay for it and the victims must be compensated. UK barrister Barbara Hewson has just called it ‘therapeutic jurisprudence’, an expression of the absolutism spreading its net around us, that saw the false witness of the now notorious discredited UK expert witness pediatrician, Professor Roy Meadow, removing children from their homes and putting parents in prison. It appears that 5000 cases where courts broke up families on his advice will now need re-examining.
The doctrine of child abuse has empowered activist groups, in particular organizations such as the UK’s NSPCC and ‘the bureaucratic needs of social services agencies’. Hewson goes on: “Reforms introduced in the name of child protection now involve ‘sweeping attacks on traditional Anglo-American legal rights and protections’.” These include the right to due process, to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, to be tried in public, to confront one's accusers, amongst others.
Under the influence of ‘moral panics’, judges and juries now employ a form of justice which has ‘certain analogies with a Soviet-style conception of justice, which emphasises outcomes over processes, and which requires the judge to carry out social policy, rather than act as an independent arbiter’.
Nora Wall’s trial and imprisonment were acts of infamy. But what have we learned?
The latest news on the story is HERE.
Country by country
Clint Betterridge - stop this extradition! It's over.
The Peter Ellis story
The Shieldfield travesty
The Saskatoon story
The McMartin and other US stories
Act of infamy – the Nora Wall story
Bart Lauwaert tells his own story
Australia’s criminal involvement in Cambodia
Graham Cleghorn writes from Cambodian prisons
The setting up of Rudolf Knuchel
The Pitcairn sex trial – the cast and the story
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