Former Christian brother and teacher jailed for historic sexual abuse

This article contains references to sexual abuse involving minors. Reader discretion is advised.

By Sonya McLean

A former Christian brother and teacher has been jailed for four years for the continual sexual abuse of eight boys he was teaching in first class in primary school in the 1970s.

The court heard that Jack Manning (88) would call each of the boys up to the top of the class and make them read a book that was sitting on his desk. He would then bring the boy in close and sexually abuse them by touching their bottom, penis and genitals both inside and outside of their clothing. He would call up the next boy when that boy had returned to his seat.

Manning who currently lives in a nursing home on Dunsink Lane, in Blanchardstown, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Court to 14 charges of indecent assault at CBS, Westland Row, Dublin 2, on dates in 1973 and 1974.

The court heard that there were 74 charges in total and these pleas were accepted on the basis that they represented sample charges.

The men, who were classmates, have indicated they wish to retain their anonymity but are happy for Manning to be named in reporting of the case.

The maximum penalty for the offence is two years but a judge has discretion to impose consecutive sentences.

In July 2021 Manning was jailed for three years in relation to the indecent assault of four young boys at the same school who were of a similar age to the victims in this current case. He had pleaded guilty pleaded guilty to nine counts of indecently assaulting his pupils on dates between 1972 and 1973.

Judge Martin Nolan said Manning had “taken advantage of his position as a teacher to abuse all eight injured parties on numerous occasions, at least 100 times collectively, if not more and continued abusing them and made school a terrible place for them.”

Judge Nolan said the victim impact statements that were either read into the record by Detective Garda Tara Power, read by the men themselves in court or handed into the court to be read privately by the judge were “believable and realistic” and indicated that Manning’s behaviour had “a huge impact on their lives”.

“They were entitled to be protected in school and they were not protected. There was no place for these children to go to and nobody within the school supervising him so it continued for a long period of time,” Judge Nolan added.

He acknowledged that Manning pleaded guilty and has given an instruction, through his legal team, that he is remorseful – “and I must accept that”, the judge said.

Judge Nolan further accepted that Manning is “too old and incapacitated”  now and as such “is no longer a danger to children”.

“He obviously deserves to go to prison,” but the judge said he needed to consider if Manning should be sent to prison by reason of his age and particular infirmities.

He said he believed it “would be unjust not to imprison him”.

“He had power of these eight individual children and he abused that power in a most outrageous manner.”

“He deserves a prison term even at this point in his life and even taking into account his infirmities,” Judge Nolan said before he imposed two consecutive terms of two years in prison.

“His behaviour was totally outrageous. He had no regard whatsoever for these children and he was only interested in his own perverse behaviour,” Judge Nolan said before he addressed each of the victims who came to court and thanked them for coming.

He also thanked Det Gda Power for her work that led to the prosecution.

Det Gda Power told Gráinne O’Neill BL prosecuting that the eighth victim was actually the first of the men who contacted the gardaí in relation to Manning but he had misremembered his abuser’s name.

He told gardaí that Manning would call him to the top of the class and make him read a book. He said Manning would have him stand very close to him and make the other children read their books in front of them – so their heads would be down and they would not be able to see what was happening.

Manning would then molest him. He said he would try and read his book as quickly as possible so he could get back to the safety of the class, adding that if you tried to move away Manning would slap you across the head.

Det Gda Power agreed that Manning was arrested in March 2012 and interviewed in relation to this complainant but he denied the allegations and instead made “self-serving statements”. He said the allegations shocked him.

Ms O’Neill said each of the men were sexually abused in a similar manner and that Manning used his desk to shield his behaviour from the rest of the class.

One of the men told gardaí that he recalled having to pull up his underwear and school trousers after Manning molested him before he returned to his own desk in the class.

One of the men said he believed he was abused three times and he was not called up to the desk again because on one occasion when Manning was molesting him the child urinated himself.

Each of the men indicated that many boys were called to Manning’s desk on a daily basis.

Some of the men described Manning as smoking while he molested them, others recalled a stale, dirty smell off Manning and another spoke of how Manning’s whiskers brushed off his own face.

The garda investigation was recommended after two of the men had spoken to the charity One in Four.

Manning was arrested again in May 2023 but denied having molested anyone.

John Moher BL defending said his client instructs him to apologise for his behaviour.

He said he is currently a resident in a nursing home and asked the court to consider that a return to custody at this point in his life would be a greater hardship on him.

He told the court that Manning joined the Christian Brothers when he was 14 years old and left in 1977 to get married. Manning continued to work as a lay teacher after that.

Mr Moher acknowledged the “courageous” victim impact statements of the men before the court but submitted to Judge Nolan that his client’s pleas of guilty spared the men having to give evidence during a trial.

Det Gda Power read a number of victim impact statements into the record, while two of the men chose to read their own. Another victim impact statement was handed into the court for Judge Nolan to read himself.

Det Gda Power read the first victim impact statement in which the man said he doesn’t recall exactly when Manning first started to abuse him but he said it occurred on a regular basis.

He said he was terrified to go to school and spoke of feeling “anxious, powerless and vulnerable”.

He said his parents insisted he attend school which meant that he had to deal with what he described as the “vile and horrific” actions of Manning.

He said he didn’t think anyone would ever believe him and described later mitching school and getting in trouble both in school and with his parents as a consequence.

He said he never told his parents that he was too afraid to go to school.

The man said it wasn’t until he read of the other case before the courts that he got the courage to report the abuse.

He said the abuse affected his life at the time and continues to do so. He left school at the age of 15 without a proper education and finds himself being fanatic about his own children’s safety. He has “a compulsion to be in control”.

He has tried counselling but found it didn’t work and he said recalls the abuse on “an almost daily basis”.

“My dear mother passed without knowing,” the man said adding that she often asked him what had happened to him as a child or what she had done wrong as his mother.

The next victim impact statement the detective read said the man was “terrified” in Manning’s class and described his “heart bursting and thumping in his chest”.

He said he cannot remember anything he was taught in Manning’s class and described the man as “weaponizing” the trust he had been given as the boy’s teacher. He said the abuse stayed in his “heart and mind for decades”.

He described Manning as “an opportunist” who abused the innocence of himself and his classmates in “an environment that should have nurtured it”.

He described trying to reconcile the man he may have been had Manning not abused him referring to how his school life suffered as a result of the abuse.

He said Manning’s “depraved selfish cruelty” altered the course of his life.

The first man to read his own victim impact statement said that he had “buried” the abuse deep inside himself for the last 50 years.

He said he was “never the same again” after that first day Manning called him up to read and molested him.

He said he thought it was his fault that it had happened and now he cannot understand how Manning managed to get away with the abuse for so long.

He said his only regret was that he did not get to tell his parents because he was too afraid.

The second man to read his victim impact statement spoke of the fear, emotional confusion, anger and shame the abuse caused him.

He said as he grew older he wondered why he did not tell Manning to stop or why he never told his parents but he now realises that he was a child at the time and was terrified to say anything.

He said as he got older he thought if he met Manning he would confront him and one day when he was 20 years old he did see Manning, but he said he was frozen in fear.

The man said he was still afraid of Manning at that time and he is ashamed that he let him away with it.

This man also spoke of his guilt in not reporting it beforehand adding “it haunted me for not doing so”.

He said he didn’t do so until he saw the reports of the previous court hearing and spoke of how he would be forever grateful to Det Gda Power for helping to prosecute the “so called man of God and teacher for sexually abusing children”.