Colm Bracken, David Smyth and Paul O'Toole gave their reactions to Joe Duffy on Thursday’s Liveline to the Report on Historical Sexual Abuse in Scouting, released today by Scouting Ireland. All three men, Colm, David and Paul were sexually abused as children by the convicted sex abuser and former scout leader, David O'Brien, of Benburb Street in Dublin.

Colm, Paul and David were all highly critical of elements of today's report, and of what they see as the lack of criminal consequences to some of the behaviour described within it. The report is sub-titled 'A Learning Review' and no named individuals are accused of any crimes. Anyone who contributed to the report did so voluntarily.

When asked what the report meant to him, Colm Bracken told Joe that he felt a mixture of emotions and one of them was anger:

"It's one step forward, in a way, but in another way I'm fuming as well."

The report refers to adults within the broad scouting movement who were not abusers, but who failed to protect children from sexual offenders within their organisations. Instead of protecting children, Colm says, they protected their abusers:

"People knew. Other leaders had to know this was going on and they basically, the abuse was going on and they protected these people. To me they are as bad as the abusers."

Colm Bracken was also abused by a second scout leader, James Leddy, of Sheephill Avenue, Blanchardstown, who was convicted of indecent assault. Colm says the impact on his mental and physical health is grave. Despite successful convictions against both abusers, Colm remains deeply affected by the fact, referred to in the report, that unnamed people may have facilitated the abuse:

"These people who've protected these abusers, I don't know how they sleep at night, because I don't sleep at night. And I still don't sleep at night. I've got some sort of justice on the O'Brien and Leddy thing, but I still don't sleep at night, it still haunts me. And that affects everyone around me."

David Smyth spoke to Liveline from his home in the US. David says he reported his abuse to Scouting Ireland back in 2002. Because he was living outside of Ireland, David was unable to go directly to a local Garda station. He found the response of the scouting organisation deeply unsatisfactory. David says his abuser David O'Brien is not in jail because of the actions of Scouting Ireland, but because O'Brien didn't deny the abuse. David Smyth remains unhappy with the response to his accusations:

"The onus should not be on the victim. I alerted them and they did nothing about it for almost 20 years. And the only reason that it's coming up now is because, you know, through chance, we managed to get O'Brien to confess to what he did."

Joe said that the men were all "totally, completely, absolutely vindicated by this report today". He then turned to get the reaction of Paul O'Toole, who was angry:

"My blood boiled. It started to come up with kind of this rage. It's just, word after word of, to me, it's insult, it's nonsense, it's toothless, it's a degradation of ourselves again. It's almost, I'm not going to say it's re-abusing us, but in a way that's what's happening."

Paul O'Toole says he would like a full criminal investigation of alleged collusion and alleged protection of known abusers that may have happened over the years in scouting organisations. Paul also expressed his personal dissatisfaction with the way parts of the report are written:

"I'd just draw your attention to one word in the second sentence here, to 'acknowledge the mistakes that have been made'. I read that word 'mistake' and I'm thinking, this is not a mistake.  This is criminality of the worst possible kind, to the most innocent children in this country. And if you think it's a mistake … A mistake is when you burn toast. When you rape a child, you can't equate that and put the word 'mistake' in the same sentence."

You can listen back to Joe Duffy's full Liveline interview with Colm Bracken, Paul O'Toole and David Smyth here.

If you are personally impacted by any of the issues raised above, you can find helpline numbers and contact details for support organisations at rte.ie/helplines.

The full text of the Historical Abuse in Scouting: A Learning Review by Ian Elliott is available to read here.

Ruth Kennedy