One of the victims of Father Michael James Callaghan, a former housemaster at Ampleforth College who was recently found guilty of sexually abusing boys under his care, has spoken out in detail about the sexual abuse he suffered at the boarding school known as the Catholic Eton.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the victim describes how being at the prestigious school – Ampleforth’s yearly fees are £46,74 – felt like “we were in a paedophiles” cafeteria” where “the monks picked us off”.
Michael James Callaghan, 71, who was known to pupils as Father James, was a monk of the English Benedictine congregation who live at Ampleforth Abbey, which is co-located with the college. He was recently found guilty of 12 charges of indecent assault against the victim, named as Thomas in the Telegraph article, and a further charge against another boy in 2013.
Sentencing the monk to seven years in prison, Judge Richard Clews described Callaghan as “cynical and manipulative in the extreme”.
The Telegraph reports that Callaghan had been a teacher before joining the monastery and then was a language tutor at Ampleforth College for a few years before being appointed as housemaster of St Wilfrid’s, in charge of caring for the approximately 60 boys who lived there. He became housemaster the same year that the victim enrolled at the school, aged 13.
Thomas was sent to board at the school because his family were often overseas due to his father’s career. His parents, described by the Telegraph as devout Catholics, were drawn to the elite public school in large part because of the emphasis it placed on the religious education of its students, which was centred on the community of Benedictine monks at the abbey who lived and worked within the school.
Thomas tells the Telegraph that he was appalled by the revelation that the school likely knew that Callaghan had previously sought treatment due to struggling to control his sexual desires for adolescent boys.
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