The Irish family of deceased missionary Bro. Gerard Dillon has described RTEs Prime Time programme ‘A Mission to Prey’ as ‘utterly despicable’ and a breach of natural justice, and have asked that their brother’s name be cleared or proof be shown to back the single allegation.
‘Mission to Prey’ carried an accusation from a South African man, Mr Tyrone Selman, that he was abused by Bro. Dillon.
The Dillon family claims that RTE¨ was ‘casually indifferent’ to them by not contacting them or the Christian Brothers in South Africa and have ignored their correspondence on this matter.
…The Irish Catholic has discovered from other sources that the Prime Time programme did not contact the Christian Brothers in South Africa where Bro. Dillon was a missionary for 60 years and therefore did not seek to see the personnel file on Bro. Dillon or speak to those in charge.
The Irish province of Christian Brothers was only contacted the weekend before the programme and expressed concern to Prime Time that the Dillon family had not been contacted.
Prime Time did try and contact a former South African brother living in Ireland but were not successful.
The Irish Catholic has also discovered that RTE¨ has claimed to have two other allegations to back up the Dillon allegation but has not disclosed these sources…
Subsequent to the airing of the programme, the provincial of the Christian Brothers in South Africa did make email contact with the alleged victim of abuse who asked for no further contact but did stand over his allegation.
However, the files in South Africa and Ireland contain no evidence at all of any hint or allegation of wrong-doing by Bro. Dillon.
His family accuses RTE¨ of abusing power, just like the Church did in some cases, and says that just because Bro. Dillon is dead, doesn’t mean he is not entitled to have his long life of loving service vindicated along with his reputation.
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