Victory in case against the Catholic Church
October 05, 2009
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' 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 my client to have convinced the court that a fair trial was still possible, out of time. The Archbishop had fought this by appealing a decision of a procedural judge last year, not to allow the Defendants to have a hearing on the time limit first, 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 was agreed today.
Jonathan Wheeler, Mr Thompson's solicitor, said "the settlement of the case was a great victory for my client, who had the courage to come forward and tell his story despite suffering serious psychological problems caused by the abuse he allegedly suffered. Whilst the courts cannot order an apology, for the Archbishop to have agreed to pay compensation would suggest that he accepted there was substance in my client's allegations. My client can now put this all behind him and get on with his life. He hopes to use his damages to open a cafe in Australia where he now lives. I wish him and his family all the very best for the future in this new venture".