Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ONE OF PAEDOPHILE surgeon Michael Shine’s earliest victims has revealed for the first time how he was abused over 60 years ago.
Tom Ayres, 75, is speaking publicly about being sexually assaulted by the then highly respected consultant just months after he started his position at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in 1964.
Tom insists there were numerous opportunities for authorities to stop the sexual abuse, but instead Shine went on to abuse hundreds of other boys at the Co Louth hospital.
Tom’s allegations, motivated solely by the need for accountability, are believed to be among the earliest known acts of abuse by Shine, who was in his early 30s when he preyed on the then fourteen-year-old.
Tom, a former executive with Siemens GEC Global Alliance, grew up on Peter Street in Drogheda.
He said that he is now waiving his anonymity because he wants accountability from “the system that allowed this to happen”.
Tom told The Journal: “It was the mundanity of it. It was the acceptance of it. It was like it was not unusual. That’s what got me.”
He said that he was brought to see Shine with a suspected broken nose after playing football. But during this consultation, Shine did not examine his nose.
Instead, he brazenly assaulted the schoolboy while the door to the room was left open.
“He just pulled up a chair, sat down and I immediately expected him to start feeling my nose to see if it was broken… if it could be fixed or straightened.
“But straight away he put his hands down my trousers and he said ‘I’m just checking for damage’.
“He continued to fondle me for five to ten minutes and obviously he didn’t get the reaction that he expected or wanted.
“He just abruptly said ‘okay, come back tomorrow, same time.’”
When asked if Shine made any attempt to examine his injury, Tom said: “At no point whatsoever, and he couldn’t but glaringly see I had black eyes, as you would have with a broken nose. My nose was still clogged with blood from the day before.”
On reflection, Tom feels that the assault was “part of an initiation ceremony” and that Shine expected that he would return the next day, like he had instructed him to.
Afterwards, Tom walked back to school, which was just 200 yards away from the hospital, and said nothing to his family or friends.
“I was ashamed. You couldn’t tell anyone. Irish society at the time – people were so subservient to people in authority, especially those with letters after their name.”
Shine began working as a senior registrar in 1964, quickly rising to consultant in 1968. He remained at the hospital until 1995.
Victims allege that the Medical Missionaries of Mary were aware of the abuse and allowed it to continue for decades.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin told the Dáil this week that he will meet with victims and representatives of the support organisation Dignity4Patients.
The group is calling for a Commission of Investigation to probe claims that authorities knew about the abuse and allowed it to continue for decades.
Hundreds of men claim that they were abused by the former surgeon, now in his nineties, over decades, but in 2025, he is a free man after serving just three years in prison.
In spite of almost 350 victims coming forward, only nine of these men have had successful prosecutions in the criminal courts.
In November 2017, guilty verdicts for Shine on three counts of assaulting two teenage patients on dates between 1974 and 1976 were handed down by a jury. However, he was granted bail pending an appeal against the conviction.
Shine was eventually jailed for four years in 2019 following a separate case for abusing seven boys in his care over a period of three decades and was released in February 2022.
Reflecting on his life as a teenager before and after the sexual assault happened, Tom recalls how he was “very young looking for my age”. Though fourteen at the time, “I could have passed for a ten or twelve year old, easily”.
“Innocent would be the very word, all I was interested in was school and football. I was good at school. I was very good at football, and I lived for both.”
Tom left Louth in 1968 and went to UCD to study commerce, economics, maths and accountancy.
He would go on to have a successful career in the telecommunications sector. In his role as an executive with Siemens GEC Global Alliance, he travelled the world.
His beloved wife Maggie died in January 2023.
Tom insists that he can “ascribe all, not part of it, but all” of his business success to her.
Now long retired, he lives in Cardiff, Wales.
*****
Support is available. Dignity4Patients is a patient support, information and advocacy organisation for people who have experienced sexual abuse, you can call 041 – 9843730, text 0861654111 or email support@dignity4patients.org from Monday to Thursday, 10am – 4pm. Out of hours, call 1800 778 888.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say