Ah Joanne, you're quite correct in all your questions - it is indeed a very complex and troubling state of affairs, and the repercussions are huge. There can be over-reactions, but one can well understand them.

My husband is a school cleaner, and he has to be extremely careful when cleaning the vast secondary school where he works. He always locks the toilet blocks from the inside when he's in there cleaning, so that no pupils can enter. He never ever speaks to pupils except a short nod of the head in the corridors. He gets the female Team Leader to come and re-open a classroom if a pupil has forgotten something. It's sad, but entirely appropriate nowadays.

My sister has got in touch, and says my cousin's boys were not boarders at St Benedict's, and as day-pupils would 'probably' not have been molested. The suicide of the youngest has never been explained, and remains a mystery to this day.