Former Catholic priest who suffered sexual abuse during training awarded over £450k in damages

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2022] CSOH 46
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Court of Session Outer House
• Judge:
  Lord Clark

The pursuer, referred to as D, raised the action against the Bishop’s Conference of Scotland, the trustees of the Catholic National Endowment Trust which ran a residential school for boys intending to become priests in the 1970s. The defenders admitted liability but contested the issues of causation and quantum.

The case was heard by Lord Clark. Mackay QC and Lloyd, advocate, appeared for the pursuer and the Dean of Faculty and Masters, advocate, for the defenders.

Effects of abuse

As a teenager the pursuer was a seminarian at a residential school operated for the benefit of students of the Roman Catholic priesthood. Between the ages of 14 and 16 he was subject to sexual abuse by Father X, who was the pursuer’s Spiritual Director, who would fondle his genitalia, often while under the influence of alcohol. Father X was later convicted of offences unrelated to the pursuer in 1996.

After leaving the college, the pursuer attended a seminary in Rome and was consequently ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. He continued to work as a parish priest for a number of years until he took a leave of absence in order to receive psychotherapy, for which the diocese paid. He later made an application to the Pope for laicisation, in which he stated that he had found it increasingly difficult to exercise his ministry due to the effects of the abuse he was subjected to.

In respect of loss, the pursuer has received various forms of income while working as a priest, including various stipend and stole fees as well as a number of benefits in kind including all food and drink and household bills. The defenders admitted that sexual abuse occurred and that they were liable for any loss, injury, or damage caused by the abuse. However, they disputed whether the pursuer’s departure from the priesthood had been caused by the abuse and the quantification of the resulting loss.

Counsel for the pursuer submitted that there was a “tidal wave” of evidence supporting the change in his personality following the abuse, which had been unchallenged by the defender. Taking into account the loss of career as a priest, the appropriate figure for solatium would be £100,000 or £60,000 if the court held against the pursuer on the loss of the priesthood. On consequential loss, it was suggested that the benefits enjoyed by the pursuer had amounted to approximately £790,000.

Stayed and festered

In his decision, Lord Clark said of the pursuer’s evidence: “The evidence of the pursuer was given in a genuine and honest manner and for the most part I have no issue with his testimony. In answering a number of the questions put to him he took an overly lengthy and verbose approach, but the core and relevant points from his evidence were credible, reliable and convincing.”

Addressing causation, he said: “On the accepted expert evidence, supported by compelling factual evidence, the sexual abuse had a profound and adverse impact on the pursuer’s mental health and his life. In addition to panic disorder, he suffered flashbacks, personality change and loss of trust. There was a marked and adverse impact on his functioning, imposing significant limitations on his life.”

Turning to whether this caused him to leave the priesthood, Lord Clark said: “I am satisfied that the ‘but for’ test is met. In particular, experiencing the awful sexual abuse to which he was subjected as a teenager could never be eradicated from the pursuer’s mind. Instead, it plainly stayed there (albeit at times he sought to lock it away) and festered.”

He continued: “One can readily understand that a point was reached where it became inevitable that the post must be given up. It is impossible for me to conclude that reasons other than the abuse and its impact caused his laicisation, or that the pursuer would have laicised anyway even if the abuse had not occurred.”

Lord Clark said of quantum of damages for consequential loss: “On the evidence, there is support for the benefits in kind in the priesthood giving rise to consequential loss of some significance, on the broad basis that they result in a higher figure than the pursuer’s post-laicisation income and that they are by no means wholly set-off by that income and the financial benefits of not being in the priesthood. As I understand it, the past and future loss of the pursuer extends for a period of over 43 years. A reasonably significant amount is due.”

He concluded: “This trauma has tormented [the pursuer] for many years. His personality, his ability to function and indeed his life were impaired by it. He did what he could to block from his mind the memories and effects of the abuse, but there came a point in time when he could no longer do so. As a perhaps obvious consequence, remaining in his role as a priest became burdened with intolerable difficulties. The loss he sustained and continues to suffer can never adequately be addressed merely by an award of damages.”

Lord Clark therefore quantified damages as £55,000 for solatium and £400,000 for consequential loss arising from the pursuer leaving his post as a priest.