Tag Archives: vulnerable

11 October 2011

17. “Deliver Us from Evil”

By Geoff Smith

At this most traumatic time if my life The Murphy Report was published in Ireland.  So I was surrounded by TV programmes and newspaper coverage of this age old problem of paedophilia.  We all know the reasons why this is allowed to continue.  The church puts up its shutters and weathers the storm of public hostility.  The Church has had many centuries to work out their defence.

What they really show is their utter contempt for Christianity and the weakest, most vulnerable members of our Society.  I am still deeply shocked.  It was, of course, only a matter of time for the next time bomb to explode, The Cloyne Report to emerge from its State imposed coffin.

This was also the time that, one night, I looked on TV to see a film,” Deliver us from Evil.”  The film was  Directed by Amy Burg.  I have to admit I’ve watched this film on at least 4 occasions, each time by myself as Jill refuses to watch it.  The subject is appalling, but it is the subject that has affected me all my life.  Yet I can watch it. I can admit to you that I always cry.  I am always affected by victims and their families.

I even wrote a letter to Bob, Maria and Anne Jyono.  I emailed the letter to Jeff Anderson to forward it for me, as I had no way of getting the address.  He told me he would forward it for me, but as I have never received a reply, maybe they didn’t get it.

But I must say I am very disappointed.  For many, many decades Ireland exported paedophile priests throughout the world.  But now Ireland imports convicted paedophiles who, having served their sentences, are coming home to Ireland to re-offend.  What this film did for me was to make me truly aware that I am not alone.  Like many other victims, we all share the same fears.  I have been advised by my Doctor, my family, the police and a Judge to get counseling.  But as I have never been offered any I will go without.  I seem to feel that to get counseling I am admitting that he has beaten me.  No, I take the attitude that I am stronger than the after effects Robinson has left me with.

I would, hand on heart, advise anyone in my situation to watch Amy Burg’s film and to read Colm O Gorman’s book, “Beyond Belief.”  This I have read 4 or 5 times.  The man is an inspiration to me, his life, his strength, how he coped with such an appalling childhood.  It is my belief that this man should be Ireland’s next President.  That is the position I would put him in.  I hope one day to meet the man.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Exposure

27 September 2011

13. He Walked Right Back into My Life

By Geoff Smith

It was Saturday August 8th,  2009.  I arrived home from work and J was cooking the tea in the kitchen.  I went into my lounge, sat down and, just as I had done hundreds of times before, put Sky news on the TV.  It was a Saturday night the same as any other Saturday night; probably have curry and a glass of Port.  As the news came on, I pressed the red button and up came the news stories of the day.  My eye caught the story about the “priest extradited from LA.”

So many times in my life I have done the same thing, to find out that some old priest, has been prosecuted for abusing children.  But I noticed this was not the usual story, for I recognized the name of the priest, Richard John James Robinson.  Then it hit me, this was THE priest who abused me.  I don’t really remember, but I think I called out to J to come quickly, to read about the man that abused me when I was 11 years old.  I sat in horror as J came running in.  I had witnessed the man who abused me, his story, walking right into my home.  What happened to me 49 years ago was here, now in colour in my home.

I phoned K to get the phone number of the West Midlands Police, at Lloyd House, Birmingham.  I dialled only for some computer to tell me they were shut.  So I again phoned K to get me Walsall Police Station’s number.  This she did and I phoned them to report my abuse.  I was told that there were no Officers about and that they would phone me on Monday morning.  I phoned my middle brother B, telling him to get onto Sky TV and press the red button.  I put the phone down.

This night was the start of months and months of sleepless nights, of nightmares and being totally distraught.  I was awake all night.  At 5am, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I got up and went to my golf club to play.  I have always been a good golfer, always playing once or twice a week.  I managed to play 2 holes, taking about 12 shots on each hole.  I can now say that I could not concentrate on the ball.  So I gave up and went home.

I had been home half an hour when the phone rang.  I picked it up.  It was Detective Sgt HM.   He asked me if I recognized Robinson.  I told him that I would, as Robinson was a former pro boxer, beat up forehead broken nose, cauliflower ears.  Then HM asked me if I had been an altar boy.  No I explained, I went to his butcher’s shop in Station Road, Aldridge, to collect meat for my mother.

Over the course of the next few days I went on the Internet to see if I could find anything about Robinson and there it all was.  I found the news reports because for the first time I had Robinson’s full name.  For 49 years I had never heard his real name.  We all knew him as Jimmy Robinson.  Later on my brothers and I called him Pope John.  Robinson was the first Catholic me and my brothers had ever met, as we all went to a Church of England school.  Over these days, I walked around like a zombie.  I could not concentrate.  I could not do anything.  All I thought about was Robinson.  He was in my head.  Only this time Jimmy Robinson was running around in the open, smashing up all of my life.  I am now at a point that I can see what I was like.  I feel sorry for J.  She, like me, did not ask for this.  But we got it.

It was arranged that I go to the UK to give my statement.  I packed my bags, leaving J behind.  I set off with all the feelings of anger, rage, guilt, shame, and exhaustion.

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9 September 2011

9. Leaving School

By Geoff Smith

After leaving school I was thrown into a world I didn’t know.  A world that probably didn’t care what had happened to an 11 year old schoolboy.  I left school at a time that today seems far away.  I had many jobs after leaving school, as employment was easy to come by.  In those days you could have a new job every day of the week, such was the norm.

I flitted from job to job.  You name it, I’ve probably done it. One of my jobs was as a van driver.  I drove all over the country, delivering bone china mugs.  The hours were long but I enjoyed the excitement of being my own boss, calculating my route.  Learning so many things as I went.  I spent many years doing these various jobs, finally getting a job as a postman with Royal Mail.  I was at the Post for 18 years.  It was a good job and I was both punctual (4am start) and a valued member of a team.  I found this on occasions very difficult.

For all these years I was haunted by my past and the encounters with Robinson.  Jimmy Robinson never really went very far away.  He was always close at hand to give me the self doubt, the feelings of revulsion, pain, shame, guilt, and above all anger.

On one particular day, I was in my van, waiting at a set of traffic lights.  Parked in front of me was a car and in the back seat was a lad, 12 or 13 years old.  He was facing the rear of the car, looking at me through the window.  As is my nature, I put my thumb up to him to say hello and he smiled at me.  Then out of the blue I was overcome by fear.  Fear that the lad would tell his dad, the driver, that there was a man behind him saying hello.  I was in a cold sweat.  I was afraid that my friendly thumb up may have been seen as something quite different.  I drove away and never would I wave to kids again.

I have, looking back, been scared of kids, nervous.  I was always feeling ill at ease, and it’s very hard to explain to someone who has not been abused.  For the same reason, I have always been very nervous of being touched.  I feel it is quite alien.  I cannot stand anyone who is touchy feely.

You see all my life I have read newspaper reports of priests being prosecuted for being paedophiles.  In nearly all cases they state in court that they were abused in their childhood.  I believe this is an excuse, not the reason they did it.  After all, we are all taught to know right from wrong.  I do believe that all men are capable of rape.  But 99.99999999% of men, do not rape, because they know right from wrong.  The people abusing children in my early years, just like the men today on the internet grooming children, know it’s wrong.  They know it is illegal.  But that doesn’t stop them.

I have spent a lifetime in Robinson’s shadow.

I decided at an early age he wasn’t going to ruin my life.  After all, he left my life in 1961.  But yes I do have to suffer the after-effects.  I am still suffering.

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31 August 2011

6. Lonsdale

By Geoff Smith

Then one day, Robinson turned up at my house after school. My mother was cooking the tea. He walked straight in, saying hello to my mother, and presented me with a brown paper bag. He told my mom and I he had brought me a present, as he was leaving to go back to college. I opened the bag, and took out a pair of professional boxing shorts, with the word LONSDALE sewed into the elastic waist.

Even today this word makes me feel sick.

I cannot remember if those shorts were red or blue, but I remember they were stained with his blood. Blood which had dripped down onto them, whilst fighting. The blood was black. To this day I remember, black. He then said to us goodbye Mrs Smith, goodbye Geoffrey.

Jimmy Robinson turned and walked out of my life. He walked down the entry, got on his bike and away he went.

Within one minute, in front of my mother, I threw the shorts into the dustbin. When I say threw, I mean at speed with such force. My mother looked at me, but nothing was said, only silence.

A couple of weeks later, I got a letter from him, at a college, I think it was Osterley, in Kent. This also went in the bin. After this, my mother and my father never mentioned his name again, which suited me.

I have just mentioned my father not saying anything. I have had 51 years to think over this. But I don’t think my dad ever met Robinson. Maybe that was part of Robinson’s plan, who knows.

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26 August 2011

5. Paedophile

By Geoff Smith

Robinson used to take me to his mother’s house probably twice a week. Every week for I would say, three months. It was always the same routine, him laying on me and thrusting, me wanking him off, the kissing, the drowning inside my chest. I switched off. He never tried anal sex. But what he did to me was, as the police told me 51 years later, rape.

I switched off mentally, but emotionally no. The worst thing that he did to me was the kissing, the tongue down my throat. It was and still is pure terror. That and the fact that I was short of my next breath. Yes I was drowning. Of course, looking back, not only was I in a very dangerous situation, I firmly believe today, here and now, the next step for him, the paedophile Jimmy Robinson, would be murder. That is the next step. We all know the cases of child murder. It seems always to go from the act of paedophilia to murder. They want to cover their tracks.

Over the course of the next three months, I would be coming out of school, in Tynings Lane and Robinson would be waiting for me. It got to the point where I would come out of Quicksand Lane. I would make my way back to home avoiding being seen or followed. But Jimmy Robinson would always wait for me. And if I wasn’t there, he would come to my home to collect me. Often when I came out of school he would be at my home, with my mother, having cake and tea. Laying in wait for me to arrive, so he could take me to his “mother’s house.” This went on for months.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in 1961

16 August 2011

2. Triumph Bonneville

By Geoff Smith

Whilst I was standing looking at the bike a man came out of the shop, dressed in a white butcher’s coat, covered in blood.  He asked me if I would like to have a go on the bike.  I said I would.  Even now, so many years later, I remember I was so excited.  I went home and told my mother about the motor bike.  I asked if I could go for a ride and she said yes.

A few days later this man, Jimmy Robinson, came to my home on his bike, and introduced himself to mother.  I remember him having a cup of tea and explaining to my mother that he was a trainee priest, working his summer holidays in the butchers shop. We were also told that he had been a professional boxer, before going to training college.

Jimmy Robinson was about 23 years old.  He had the looks of a boxer:  very short cropped hair, he had swollen eyebrows, broken nose, and swollen ears.  He looked just like Henry Cooper, but was slightly smaller.  I use Henry as an example.  We all know Henry Cooper was a pure gentleman, unlike the man I was about to get to know.  Robinson had the walk of a fighter; the way he held his arms, his hands.  His posture was very threatening.  As far as my mother was concerned, he was a very respectable young man.

I think we children were sent to the Methodist chapel in Aldridge because our aunty Mabel was the head of the Girl Guides in Aldridge, and they met at that chapel.  Mabel’s husband, our Uncle Jack, was in the Aldridge Band.  He played the big drum, carrying it on straps on his belly. Those thoughts bring back my innocence, and such happy memories.

I remember when he had drunk his tea, Robinson said, “Come on Geoff.”  He told my mother we would be gone for a ½ hour ride.  We walked down the entry, between our house and next doors, out to the road to the bike.  Robinson got on, and told me to hang on, my arms around his waist.  No crash helmets then.  We shot off up the road.  I kept putting my head out around his body to see where we were going, not as I knew many areas other than my local area.

It is now 51 years later.  I realize that me being on the back of his bike, holding on for  grim death, my arms around his waist, was not the thing to be doing.  But I was 11, innocent, very vulnerable, and yes, somewhat scared.

We drove for 6 or 7 minutes, and suddenly stopped outside what I now know was a semi detached house in Leigh’s Road, Shelfield .  When the bike stopped, he switched it off, and we got off.  Robinson told me this was his mother’s house.  We walked up the path.  He unlocked the door and pushed me in.  At this point I had no way of knowing what was going to happen, I stood there waiting.

Jimmy Robinson told me to go upstairs.

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