A monk was able to abuse children for four decades on an island off the Welsh coast despite operating in “plain sight” and despite his victims’ repeated complaints, an independent review has concluded.
Father Thaddeus Kotik groomed, raped and sexually assaulted boys and girls on Caldey Island, which is home to a community of Cistercian monks and a popular destination for day trippers.
The Guardian revealed in 2017 that Kotik, who arrived on the island in the late 1940s, targeted visitors and residents but was not prosecuted before his death in 1992. It also revealed that other sexual predators had lived on the island.
During the independent review, 20 victims of child sexual abuse were identified. Caldey Island Survivors Campaign told the review it had been approached by 55 victims.
The report, which will be published on Tuesday morning but has been seen by the Guardian, says: “There appears to have been a failure of leadership at the highest level within the order and abbey.
“Serious matters of repeated and frequent allegations of child sexual abuse by TK [Thaddeus Kotik] were not reported to the statutory authorities as the law required.”
These were “missed opportunities”, the report says, adding: “This apparent reticence to challenge TK directly to his face enabled him to offend over four decades in plain sight of some of the island community.
“TK spent significant time with children on his own, with families in their homes, grooming both adults and children with gifts and attention.”
The review, carried out by Jan Pickles, a former assistant police and crime commissioner for south Wales, says victims who disclosed being abused on the island had been met with “denial, suspicion and a pervasive assumption that they were lying … this strategy has led the abbey’s approach to be seen by those both directly and indirectly affected as hostile and cruel.”
Pickles highlighted ongoing concerns and she makes a series of recommendations including:
To protect all parties, contact between the monastic community and the visiting public be formalised and informal contact should cease – including selfies.
The current safeguarding arrangements should be strengthened by the addition of a survivor or survivors of child sexual abuse to sit on the board of the island.
The appointment of an independent visiting designated safeguarding professional.
In addition, it says there was a “lack of clarity expressed by the monastic community” at a training session in March 2024 regarding contact with the public, which “suggests a need for a clear ‘no touch’ policy”.
The report says: “Any accidental physical contact must be declared by the individual concerned and recorded within the day it occurred. This record should be reviewed … and any patterns identified and acted on.”
Kevin O’Connell, founder of the Caldey Island Survivors Campaign, welcomed the review but said it did not go far enough as its recommendations were not legally binding. The campaign wants a public inquiry into the abuse.
The review looked at allegations of sexual and physical abuse of children from the late 1960s to 1992. Some victims reported the allegations at the time to the police, the abbey or priests in their home parishes.
Kotik arrived on the island in the late 1940s and his remains are buried there. The review says: “Victim testimonies … suggest TK to have been a serial and prolific abuser of children, often in ‘plain sight’ of others. The victims describe being taken by him to beaches, woods, gardens.
“Some describe being sexually abused several times a day … TK’s interest in children was not hidden from view, and it appears to have been tolerated by adults on the island.”
Allegations of child sexual abuse by Kotik were brought to the attention of the then abbot in the 1980s by a family.
The report says: “These serious allegations were managed within the abbey and the police were not informed. The agreed sanction by the abbot to protect children living and visiting the Island was that TK should remain within the monastery precinct.
“Neither the police nor children’s services were informed. It was within the abbot’s power to have requested or even required TK to leave the abbey, and that if he had failed to comply to look to remove him from the Cistercian order.”
An adult witness saw Kotik sexually abusing a girl. He wrote to the abbot: “This can’t go on” but received no reply. A headteacher raised the girl’s ordeal but the abbot asked the head not to report the matter to the police citing Kotik’s age, health and the impact it would have on him.
One victim said as a child he had told his parish priest in the confessional of his abuse by Kotik. The priest warned him he would be sent to hell if he told anyone else.
Allegations surfaced that Kotik acted as a contact for other perpetrators. Four men either convicted or suspected of sexual offences stayed for significant periods on Caldey.
The review says: “Lack of inquiry left the abbey open to unknown risks, which on a tourist island that necessarily welcomes others appears to the reviewer to be reckless.”
When it announced the review in April, Caldey Abbey said it was under new leadership and was committed to transparency, openness and healing. It said it was commissioning the review with the intention to “build a safe envrionment for everyone”.
