THE HIGH Court has stopped a legal action by a man against the Presentation Brothers over alleged sexual and physical abuse in a fee-paying boarding school some 40 years ago.
The man had claimed, when aged about 10 or 11, he was physically and sexually abused by a number of Presentation Brothers and lay teachers in the school and beaten on several occasions, including with a billiard cue.
He claimed he was given inadequate food and was constantly hungry resulting in his eating raw potatoes when working in the fields. He alleged those experiences had blighted his life.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne granted the Brothers an order halting the action against them on grounds that an inordinate and inexcusable delay in prosecuting the case created a real risk of an unfair trial.
The man had also sued the Minister for Education and the State, alleging vicarious liability for the alleged abuse but his lawyers earlier accepted those claims could not succeed because of the recent Supreme Court decision in the case of Co Cork woman Louise O’Keeffe.
In the O’Keeffe case, a test case for some 200 other actions, the Supreme Court ruled the State had no vicarious liability for abuse of Ms O’Keeffe by then Dunderrow national school principal Leo Hickey.
In those circumstances, the dismissal of the man’s case against the Brothers halts his entire proceedings.
The man had alleged he attended an industrial school between 1968 and 1970 and was abused there by Brothers and lay teachers. His side later accepted the claims of physical abuse were brought outside the legal time limits.
The judge accepted evidence an industrial school had existed at the location in question but closed in 1959, when the man was aged three. It became a fee-paying boarding school and its records showed the man was a pupil there for six months in 1969/1970. He left after the death of his mother.
There was ample evidence the man, as a result of the alleged abuse, was suffering from a disability which meant it was not possible for him to bring his action until 2001, the judge found. The case was served on the defendants in 2003, the Brothers’ defence was delivered in 2004 and the State’s defence in 2006.
The man’s side in 2007 served a notice of intention to proceed with the case.
The judge accepted the case was complex but said she must have regard to the difficulties of defending a case ranging back over 40 years.
She had no hesitation in finding inordinate and inexcusable delay from 2001 in prosecuting the case against the Brothers.
It was very difficult to see how the Brothers could reasonably be expected to defend the case given the lack of specificity of the claims; the man’s inability to identify two of those persons whom he alleged abused him; the fact there were no witnesses available to the Brothers and the lack of details of locations or times or dates on which the alleged abuse took place.
The man’s own recollection of crucial issues was also clearly impaired as a result of the passage of time.
The balance of justice required she halt the trial as all those circumstances created a real risk of an unfair trial.
