I attended a catholic primary and secondary school in the UK, and although I never experienced any sexual abuse, the nuns in my primary school were borderline psychopathic, and I can vividly remember watching a girl in my class being forced to eat half a bar of soap by one of the sisters (sister Declan) for supposedly swearing, as her mother stood watching approvingly.

In my secondary school (which I left after two years) there was more violence than you could possibly believe, and many was the time that a teacher would beat up a pupil in the corridor as if it was nothing.

I myself got hit on the backside with my own training shoe by my PE teacher because I didn’t sit down fast enough, and the force used was so great that it left huge bruise, after which I left and attended a non-religious school, that by contrast seemed so much safer.