£200,000 settlement for former Clifton College pupil

Bolt Burdon Kemp recently secured a £200,000 settlement on behalf of our client who was sexually abused by a teacher at Clifton College.

Our client Mr X was a pupil at Clifton College Preparatory School and Clifton College Upper School in the late 1980s. Whilst at the Preparatory School, our client’s teacher ‘groomed’ him by singling him out for special treatment and praise and would make our client sit on his knee during school lessons.

When our client graduated to the Clifton College Upper School, the teacher would invite him to his house and from there, he repeatedly sexually abused our client over a period of four years. When our client left Clifton College to attend another school, the teacher maintained his contact with him and continued to abuse him.

It was not until many years later that our client was able to confront his past abusive experiences and in 2007, he reported the abuse to the police which resulted in the teacher being convicted of numerous sexual offences.

Our client then instructed Bolt Burdon Kemp to pursue a compensation claim on his behalf. We successfully pursued the claim by arguing that Clifton College was responsible for the abuse as it had been committed by one of their teachers. Clifton College tried to argue that they were not responsible for the abuse as most of it occurred after our client had left their school, however we were successful and recovered £200,000 for our client.

Suing mum for failing to protect child from abuse by dad

From the age of 8 to 13 Ms X was abused by her foster father. She was able to consider taking legal action when she was 32 but by then the statutory limit (6 years) for bringing a claim against the foster father was time barred. In one of the first cases of its kind, we sued the foster mother for failing to protect her from the abuse and successfully argued that the 3 year time limit should be extended. Ms X recovered £25,000.00.

Army cadets succeed in £900,000 child abuse claim

Bolt Burdon Kemp secures record compensation of over £900,000.

Bolt Burdon Kemp acted for four clients who were abused when they were members of the Army Cadets in Harborne, Birmingham when they were youngsters. The abuse was perpetrated by two of the Captains/ instructors of the cadet force and it became apparent when investigating the case that sexual abuse of the most severe kind was going on behind the closed doors of the army hut, the rifle range and at camp. Not only that but the abuse within the Cadets was openly acknowledged within a permissive atmosphere, and appeared to be accepted as the norm. The Ministry of Defence employed the instructors so they became legally responsible for their actions.

In September 2007, one of the instructors Peter Cooper was convicted of buggery and indecent assault in relation to one of the claimants at Stafford Crown Court. He was a serving police officer with the West Midlands Constabulary at the time of his arrest. Within the compensation claim we were able to successfully argue that the limitation period of three years should be dis-applied, because a fair trial was still possible, even though three of the Claimants had not secured convictions, and one of the abusers had died.

All the clients had been severely affected by their ordeal, from the time of the abuse to the present day, and the abuse had taken its toll – all had suffered psychiatric problems and most had problems with work, their home life and relationships. We were able to secure a full admission of liability from the Ministry of Defence, who agreed to settle the cases to avoid court in February 2011. The negotiations resulted in the biggest compensation pay-out for a child abuse case that Bolt Burdon Kemp has dealt with. Whilst no amount of money can ever fully compensate the claimants, the financial settlement is a great result for the individuals and their families, who will hopefully be able to achieve some closure on the abuse.

The Ministry of Defence provided a written apology to our clients acknowledging the mistakes made and the deep regret that it feels for allowing the abuse to happen.

Bolt Burdon Kemp success in claim against the Scout Association

Mr P was a member of the 1st Ormskirk Scout Group between approximately 1982 and 1986, when he was aged between 10 and 14. During the course of his membership he was sexually abused by the group’s scout master.

Like many victims of childhood sexual abuse, it was not until years later that Mr P realised that his abusive experiences had had a profound effect on him. He initially contacted the Scout Association directly in 2009 and requested that they assist him in obtaining counselling in respect of the difficulties he was experiencing. The Scout Association declined to assist Mr P and in an effort to access the psychiatric treatment he required, he instructed Bolt Burdon Kemp to act on his behalf.

We argued that the Scout Association were vicariously liable for the acts of their scout master in the face of their Defence that they could not be liable for him as he was a volunteer and not an employee.

The claim was further complicated by the fact that the scout master had committed suicide prior to standing trial. Because he hadn’t been convicted in the criminal courts, the Defendant denied that the abuse had taken place at all. We made a successful application for disclosure of documents held by the police force that had conducted the criminal investigation which revealed that the scout master had confessed to his crimes before he died. Only then did the Defendant admit that the abuse had occurred.

We successfully negotiated a settlement for Mr P in the sum of £45,000.

Challenging the time limits for bringing claims - Leading judgment in the House of Lords

We represented two men who had been abused as children by their form teacher in a London school in the 1980s. It was only after they had grown up, and were in their late 20's that they independently started to come to terms with what happened to them, and the effect that the abuse was still having on their lives. They had co-operated with the police in bringing their abuser to justice through the criminal courts, but when it came to a compensation claim they were technically 'out of time'. We sued the abuser's employers, who maintained throughout that the claims were time barred. We took their case as a test case first to trial at the Mayors & City County Court in October 2005 where our clients lost, but were given permission to appeal. Their case was heard in the Court of Appeal in April 2006 - our clients lost but the judges were sympathetic and allowed a further appeal to the House of Lords, which gave judgment in January 2008. Both our clients won, the Law Lords accepting that the old law was wrong, and overturned a previous House of Lords decision (a very rare event!). The case, X & Y v London Borough of Wandsworth was one of a group of cases (known as A v Hoare and other appeals) which has changed the law and effectively allows child abuse victims the same rights as other personal injury claimants to apply to the court to waive the time limits in cases where otherwise a fair trial would still be possible. Our clients won damages of £57,000 and £70,000 respectively, as well as payment of their legal costs from the London Borough which had opposed them all the way.

Child ‘sold’ to paedophile ring gets judgment against his abusers

We represented the Claimant in the reported case of BJM v Eyre & others, now one of the leading cases on the assessment of damages in child abuse cases.

Our client aged 12 was befriended Nathan Eyre, the First Defendant, and groomed for sex. Eyre worked as a male prostitute and also hired out a number of boys as ‘clients’ for the purposes of sexual activity. He brought a series of adult men to his flat for the purpose of using the Claimant for their sexual gratification and in turn Eyre received payment for the Claimant’s services. He then ‘sold’ our client to another paedophile, Raymond Hawthorne for £500, so that Hawthorne could profit from our client in a similar way, ‘hiring’ him out to his contacts. Our client endured the most serious kind of sexual assault and was given drugs and alcohol to mask the pain and make him more compliant with the demands put upon him. Having been abducted by Hawthorne over a period of 7 days, our client was recovered by the police, who prosecuted a number of individuals successfully including Eyre and Hawthorne. Our client then brought a claim for compensation against them and was awarded over £200,000 in damages by Dame Justice Smith, hearing the case at Leeds High Court in November 2010. In particular, she awarded sums for aggravated damages against our client’s abusers as well as loss of earnings on a calculated approach, on the basis that our client had lost the opportunity to work as a chef after he had left school.

Criminal injuries compensation for shaken baby

Miss E sustained catastrophic brain injury when she was two months old, as a result of a violent shaking by her father who subsequently pleaded guilty to the offence of assault causing grievous bodily harm. As a result of her injuries Miss E suffered cerebral palsy affecting all four of her limbs, with fits and seizures controlled by medication. She would have significant developmental delays and extensive health and care needs, unable to sit up or roll over and with poor vision. We achieved the maximum award of £250,000.00 for the injuries themselves within 2 years of applying to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority for compensation. In addition we successfully persuaded the CICA to pay the costs of setting up and administering the trust fund, when normally those costs would be deducted from the award.

First 'failure to retain in care' case to succeed at trial (and again on appeal)

Back in December 2007, we made legal history by taking the first child abuse compensation case of its kind to trial at the High Court. We represented Jake Pierce in his claim against the London Borough of Doncaster. Jake was born in 1976 to a family which was already known to the local Social Services department. Because of grave concerns by social services, he was removed into foster care at an early age, and stayed in care for 15 months until, with a change of personnel at the council, he was allowed back home with his parents. He went on to be horribly abused until he was 14, when he ran away from home to escape his brutal home life. It was alleged that social services failed to properly monitor him having returned him home. The case was strongly contested and went to trial in the High Court in London. Mr Justice Eady accepted our case that Jake had been abused and that - knowing what they knew - no reasonable local authority would have placed him back with his parents. Jake was awarded £25,000 for the physical injuries caused by the abuse he suffered at home. Doncaster appealed and the Court of Appeal gave its judgment in December 2008 – the law lords accepted the trial judge’s ruling that Doncaster had indeed been negligent and had exposed our client to abuse and neglect when a child by his parents.

Foster parents sell house to meet compensation payment

We acted for two brothers who alleged they had been physically and emotionally abused by their foster parents when living in London and Norfolk. Before trial, the foster parents agreed to settle the claims but without an admission of liability. Due to late payment of the agreed sums, we had to obtain court orders against the foster parents who eventually had to sell one of their houses to meet the damages and costs owed.

Grandfather to sell house to pay for abuse compensation

Bolt Burdon Kemp 's client had been regularly sexually abused by her grandfather between the ages of eight and fourteen. As she got older she begun to realise that the abuse was wrong and managed to find the strength to tell her parents and then the police. Her grandfather was prosecuted and sent to prison for what the sentencing judge called "one of the worst cases of sexual offending I have ever had to deal with, constituting, as it does, a gross abuse of trust". During the period of abuse, our client was suffering from a brain tumour for which she was receiving treatment at the local hospital. One of the exacerbating factors of her grandfather's offending is that he abused her whilst she was in hospital, and gave her alcohol to make her more compliant with his demands, causing her headaches and possibly unnecessary treatment when the headaches were assumed to be caused by her tumour.

We sued the grandfather in prison. Although he initially admitted full responsibility, he then tried to partially withdraw that admission, only accepting that he had committed the specimen offences he had been convicted of, and claiming that many of the sexual acts were instigated by our client , particularly upsetting for her. There was however a keen desire on both sides to settle the claim and after negotiations a successful outcome was achieved. As a result, we are obtaining a charging order over the grandfather's property which will need to be sold to pay the damages agreed.

Hackney should have removed child from abusive home

We acted for Ms R who successfully claimed damages against London Borough of Hackney, who settled her claim for £57,500 plus costs. Our client was the oldest of 3 siblings who were subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of their mother and step father. We argued that Social Services should have taken action to remove the children into care at an earlier stage. Our client in fact had to take her own court proceedings when aged 16 to get her younger brother and sister out of the abusive environment in which they all lived, which had been contested by the Council. In addition to the compensation, our client received an apology in person from the Director of Children’s Services at the Council.

Landmark judgment on 'close connection' to employment

When is an employer responsible for the actions of its child abusing employee? We took a precedent- setting case to the Court of Appeal on this issue in 2006. The law states that in order for an employer to be liable in compensation for the actions of a paedophile that they employed, there has to be a ‘close connection’ to their employment: That can be in terms of what they do in their job (if they are employed to look after kids, and abuse that trust, then their employer is liable) and also in terms of where the abuse occurs. Our client was sexually assaulted by his school teacher who had taken him off the school premises to abuse him out of school hours. The Defendants argued that this was not closely connected to the teacher’s employment. The Court of Appeal however accepted that the teacher looked after pupils, and that he used his time with our client at school to groom him for the abuse, and arrange their after school meetings. The Local Authority lost the point, and our client was allowed to pursue his claim for damages against them.

Leicester City Council pay out £400,000

Bolt Burdon Kemp represented five out of seven children (now adults) who were abused by a DJ at the Granby Halls roller skating rink in Leicester between 1978 and 1999. Leicester City Council paid £400,000 in compensation and legal costs and orders settling the action were signed off by the High Court in London in July 2008. Barry Spencer worked at Granby Halls from the 1960’s until it shut in 1998. He was jailed for 15 years in January 2006 after admitting 69 sexual assaults on 15 girls and one boy. Since then, some of his victims had been fighting for compensation from the Council that employed him. Leicester denied liability from the word go, and whilst settlement was obtained without a formal admission of liability, the Council’s insurers would not have paid the money without a strong case to answer. Publicity for the plight of Spencer’s victims in the Leicester Mercury newspaper was crucial to tracing witnesses and a Freedom of Information Act request for relevant documents, as well as time spent going through the Leicester Council archives was time well spent in building the case against Spencer’s employers.

Local authority denies abuse – but pays out before trial

In I -v- D, we acted for a client who had been sexually abused whilst placed in the care of her local authority many years ago. The man who abused her was the manager of the children's home, and he had since died. Our client was extremely affected by the abuse and could not come to terms with what had happened to her for some years. We alleged that the local authority was responsible for her while she had been in care, and had failed to protect her. At all stages, solicitors for the local authority argued that our client had issued proceedings "out of time" and therefore could not recover damages. They also denied that their client was responsible. By doggedly pursuing several court applications for relevant documents we found out that the council had had suspicions about the manager for many years and even before our client was placed in his care. The defendant's final offer of £50,000 was accepted just before trial, and we also negotiated an unreserved apology from the council to our client.

Six Figure Settlement for Victim of Paedophile Teacher

Bolt Burdon Kemp have successfully recovered damages amounting to £115,000 for Miss D. During her teenage years, Miss D was groomed and sexually abused by a teacher at her Yorkshire secondary school.

As a result of the abuse, Miss D suffered psychiatric injuries and was only able to come to terms with what had happened to her much later in life, when in her fifties. Bolt Burdon Kemp’s reputation as leading child abuse lawyers prompted Miss D to ask us to act on her behalf.

It was admitted that Miss D had been abused, however from the outset, the Defendant’s solicitors put forward the technical argument that Miss D’s claim would fail as it was time barred and they also denied that the abuse she suffered had caused her psychiatric injuries. However, recognising the strength of Miss D’s case, we managed to negotiate a settlement at a meeting with the school’s legal team, and thereafter with the teacher himself.

Victory in case against the Catholic Church

Bolt Burdon Kemp successfully acted in a case against the Catholic Church for a man who was allegedly abused as a child by Catholic priests at a seminary in the North of England in the 1970's.

The case - Thompson v Archbishop of Liverpool - was complicated because the priests' that the abuse happened in the way he described. We were fortunate that on obtaining copies of the transcripts of the police interviews with the suspects, one gave a ‘no comment’ interview, which would have looked extremely odd for the Defence.actions had been investigated by the police but they had not faced criminal charges. This meant that to prove the abuse, our client would have had to take the witness stand in the civil trial, and it would have been his word against the priests'. This also impacted on limitation or the time limits within which our client should have taken proceedings. Without a criminal conviction, it would have been more difficult for Mr Thompson to have convinced the court that a fair trial was still possible, out of time. The Archbishop fought the case primarily fought this by appealing a decision of a procedural judge,not to allow a separate hearing first on whether our client was out of time to bring his claim not to allow a separate hearing first on whether our client was out of time to bring his claim, before any other evidence was heard. The Archbishop lost the appeal in the High Court, and his attempt to involve the Court of Appeal was rejected by two Lord Justices. When the Archbishop's chances of overturning the decision ran out, his solicitors commenced negotiations to settle the claim, which ultimately our client accepted.

The settlement of the case was a great victory for our client, who had the courage to come forward and tell his story despite suffering serious psychological problems caused by the abuse he allegedly suffered. For the Archbishop to have agreed to pay compensation would suggest that he accepted there was substance in our client's allegations. Mr Thompson hopes to use his damages to open a cafe in Australia where he now lives and we wish him and his family all the very best for the future in this new venture.

Other notable successes........

.... where we are not restricted from "naming and shaming" the defendants are set out below:-

• The London Borough of Greenwich formally admitted liability for their neglect of a client who was sexually and physically abused by one of their employees. They paid out £65,000 in damages plus costs a month before trial.
• We represented several clients who joined the St Leonard 's Cottage Homes Group Litigation against the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, winning £200,000 in compensation.
• The London Borough of Hillingdon paid out £35,000 to a client whom we represented under a "no win, no fee" agreement; so our fees were paid by the Borough too.
• The London Borough of Lambeth had to pay damages of £65,000 to a client who was abused in one of their children's homes by his swimming instructor.