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MONK'S ABUSE
I was abused by monk on an island age 6… it was a sick cult but mum said not to report it so I was silent for decades
Father Thaddeus Kotik died in 1992 without facing any criminal charges
A BRAVE victim has opened up for the first time about alleged sexual abuse carried out by an evil monk when she was six-years-old.
Father Thaddeus Kotik died in 1992 without facing any criminal charges into claims he abused children on the holy island of Caldey, three miles off the coast of Tenby, Pembrokeshire, in Wales.
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However, six victims were paid compensation after a civil case found the Cistercian priest, from Poland, had sexually abused them between 1972 and 1987.
One victim - who did not wish to be named - told The Sun she visited the island, with its monastery and its abbey, with her family regularly as a child and was abused by Kotik between the ages of six or seven and 12.
“I do feel very lucky, because there’s people who are abused by the chap next door and there’s nowhere for them to go.
“It’s because he was in authority and publicly involved with children, there’s been a redress for us. But for many people there’s nothing.”
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CIVIL CASE PAYOUT
The victim received a payout of £19,000 in 2016, having come forward in 2014.
Kotik arrived on the island in 1947 after fighting in the Free Polish army during WW2.
He was ordained in 1956.
The victim described how she was advised against taking action by her mum and some former islanders who didn’t want her to “blacken the good name of Caldey”.
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She made the trip to the island over school holidays and was preyed on almost every day by Kotik - and claims she saw him also abuse others, including babies.
She said he would insist on meeting her and other children in the monastery garden at 6am, before they would be abused inside the vestry.
I do feel very lucky, because there’s people who are abused by the chap next door and there’s nowhere for them to go. It’s because he was in authority and publicly involved with children, there’s been a redress for us. But for many people there’s nothing
Victim
The victim described how the priest would wear Y-fronts back to front “to pretend he didn’t know how it all worked”.
“We just thought this is an adult who was interested in us.”
She continued: “What I noticed about Father Thaddeus, he always abused [the children of] vulnerable families.”
She described coach loads of kids from care often visiting the island for days at a time, who he would prey on.
Referring to the other monks and staff, she said: “The whole island was like a cult, it was a feudal hierarchy. You had them at the top and then everybody else underneath.”
The victim is adamant she never saw any other staff abusing anyone sexually.
“The other monks were absolutely lovely,” she explained. “I think they knew he was dodgy because they only put him in charge of menial things.
“He worked in the dairy and the vegetable garden. He was a priest, so he wasn’t stupid but he was never given any duties that required any responsibility.
“The other monks said he was a bit of a joker, a bit of a child. They didn’t take him that seriously, but they knew there was something dodgy about him.”
MUM'S WARNING
She claims in 1990 she told her mum - who died several years ago - about the abuse but was warned not to report it or Kotik would be segregated from the other monks on the island.
“Father Thaddeus would abuse us three or four times a day,” she recalled. “His hands were very rough, and he always stank of BO. We would get infections because his hands were so dirty.”
She said Kotik made a playground in the island village and also installed ropes that led down to the beach from the monastery - though no other monks ever went down there.
“I don’t know how he justified being on the beach,” she said.
“He abused us in the sand dunes, it was very opportunistic. It never lasted very long and then we’d be playing happily, or when I looked back we were playing manically.
“We knew something wrong had happened but we didn’t understand it.
“We weren’t happy… I think it was because he was giving us more attention - the wrong sort of attention - it was confusing… you know when parents have an argument and then they go off and the children all run around and get excited because it’s new and different.
"It was that sort of thing, we were playing in this chaotic way.
"It became a bit of a joke that we would imitate his Polish accent and say ‘oh, I see those breasts’ and we’d all go to peels of laughter.”
The victim said there was one particular incident that upset her the most.
He abused us in the sand dunes, it was very opportunistic. It never lasted very long and then we’d be playing happily, or when I looked back we were playing manically
Victim
A young girl a couple of years older than her had come to the island unaccompanied one day and Kotik was leading the children back from the beach.
As they climbed over a wall, he “put his hand right up her dress”.
She said: “Her head was twitching as if to say ‘goodness me, what was that? What on earth?’
“She would’ve been about 10, and I was so upset because her reaction was normal, and it was shocking, and I’ve never forgotten this image of this girl, something we’d been putting up with. I’ve never seen her since and I always felt so sad,” she added through tears.
"It’s a form of bullying. It’s sexual aggression against children… if you take away the sexual element, paedophilia is some form of resentment towards other children because they seem to have innocence and something they didn’t have ever.”
She described how Kotik was “so compulsive” and would invite kids to a makeshift office he had near the dairy. His myna bird would chatter and he’d offer them biscuits before abusing them.
She said the Lincoln biscuits had “lumps all over them”. “I remember thinking they were the tears in my eyes and how sad they were. Thinking of somebody’s eyes.
“I would think that as a child and it was all because it was all so confusing. Here was this person who loved us and was keen to see us, unlike our parents.”
The victim finally stopped going to the island regularly at the age of 16. Kotik had lost interest in her once she hit puberty several years earlier.
ONGOING TRAUMA
But the trauma has remained with her. She was later raped by someone linked to the Catholic church when she was 15.
“I felt I didn’t have any rights over my body, I didn’t feel I could say 'no, I don’t want to do this',” she said.
“What I tend to do now is just avoid people because I was never brought up to have the self confidence to say no.
“What I’ve realised is I’d rather be busy and lonely than in a relationship.
“When a relationship gets remotely sexual I’m right there and it’s too loaded and too many conflicting feelings.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel I have the right to say no and I don’t even know what I want or feel because it’s all so loaded.
“So I find it’s just easier to avoid it and keep busy.”
She continued: “I did wear a thick blanket coat for years as a teenager.
“People would look at your eyes and then down at your breasts and then at your eyes again. I felt they were all Father Thaddeus when they did that.
“I wore this coat and I couldn’t be persuaded to take it off, even in summer when I was sweating. I just avoided people and got very good at the piano.
“It’s trauma and it affects you but I’ve come to terms with it. I’ve realised it has scarred me. My life is really great, I’m not depressed, I’m healthy.”
The victim visited the island sporadically as a teenager and after she had her own children.
The victim said of hearing he’d died in 1992: “I was really really hopping mad because he never faced trial.
“They’ve moved his grave to stop him being abused. That’s what they’ve done since the case came out.
“I was livid, and I felt betrayed by my mother because she told me not to take this forward.
"The police were never involved. It’s all hierarchy," she added.
“It’s very healing to be able to speak about it, even though it’s very painful."
Historical allegations were reported to Operation Hydrant, a nationwide police investigation into historic child abuse in the wake of the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal, however at the time, nothing happened.
But allegations of sexual abuse and coercion against women on the island are still occurring.
Have you been affected by this story? Are you a Caldey Island abuse victim? Contact [email protected]
In a letter from an island resident seen by The Sun, it is alleged that a “grooming” culture persists and that offenders are “protected”.
In recent weeks, the island has appointed safeguarding officer Maria Battle, former chair of the Howell Dda University Health Board in Wales.
She is a director of the Caldey island Estate Company Ltd which has led anti-abuse campaigners to question her independence.
Since her appointment a page has appeared on the island's website saying Caldey operates under the Catholic Safeguarding Standard Agency.
Last month, she announced that the Abbey has appointed Independent Safeguarding Consultant and former Assistant Police & Crime Commissioner for South Wales, Jan Pickles OBE to lead a 'thorough review' into historical claims of child abuse.
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According to Battle, Mrs Pickles' review will be entirely independent to the CICS.
Fr Jan Rossey, who is currently in charge at the monastery, told The Sun he did not wish to comment while the safeguarding review is ongoing.
HOW TO REPORT HISTORICAL SEX ABUSE
was produced by Operation Hydrant - a coordination hub
established in June 2014 to deliver the national policing response,
oversight, and coordination of non-recent child sexual abuse
investigations.
It specifically looks at cases concerning persons of public prominence, or in relation to those offences which took place within institutional settings.
You can report to the police at any time.
It can be done in a number of ways – going to a police station, dialling 101, reporting online via a police website, or even through a third party, such as a friend or relative.
When you first make contact with the police, they will take an initial report, a ‘first account’.
The force will then make contact with you to take more detailed information.
An impartial investigation will then be launched based on what you have told officers.
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