Sunday 18 March 2012

£50,000 settlement

A former pupil has reached a settlement with Ealing Abbey concerning abuses committed against him by Father David Pearce. The victim, whose identity is protected by court order, is one of the five whom Pearce admitted abusing when he pleaded guilty to 10 indecent assaults and 1 sexual assault in August 2009. The former pupil will receive £50,000 in compensation.

The website of Bolt Burdon Kemp has more details. The story has also been covered in The Times (behind paywall).

In my view it doesn't reflect well on Ealing Abbey that this former pupil has had to wait two and half years for compensation since Pearce pleaded guilty to the offences against him.

I've heard that there are still a considerable number of claims against Ealing Abbey still outstanding concerning sex abuses committed by Pearce and others.

5 comments:

  1. On page 15 of his report, Lord Carlile stated that two former pupils had made allegations against Father Anthony Gee (the former headmaster of St Benedict's) and were pursuing civil actions against him.

    As a contemporary of the two complainants, I would be interested to whether these cases were successful.

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  2. I have no information on that point.

    The cases are almost certainly still being negotiated and I suspect will be for some time yet. There is unlikely to be any kind of public disclosure of the state of negotiations until they are complete.

    The school will undoubtedly not announce any settlement, so we will only hear about it if the complainants' solicitors obtain permission from the complainants themselves to make an announcement. We have no means of knowing whether and if so when this will happen.

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  3. Where are the sunny Abbeyvistas' to tell us this was a payout for nod's and winks? They usually arrive in two's, or is it a single with an alter ego?

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  4. I think that everyone who has posted on this blog is really missing the central issue about Pearce's last known child abuse
    The only two questions that really need asking are:
    "Who knew that Pearce was back in the Monastery" and
    "Who knew that a young boy from the school was working in the Monastery kitchens"
    The answer to the fisrt question has got to be all the monks and the entire senior management of the school
    The answer to the second question has got to be, as the very least:
    The Abbott - Father Martin - Pearce's "friend"
    The Headmaster - Chris Cleugh - he is supposed to be in charge, although many doubt it
    The Bursar - Catherine de Cintra - she must have paid the boy
    The Estates Site Manager - Howard Keep - he must have organised it
    All those who knew must also have known that the boy was potentially vulnerable and might be preyed upon by a known child abuser - otherwise they should not be involved in education and the custody of children in the first place
    The real scandal is that no-one has actually accepted any responsibility for the appalling lapses in judgement and child care that allowed a young boy's life to be ruined. The Carlisle report is just a cover-up on a massive scale, which focuses on a liberal's private political agenda of separating the school from the Monastery
    In any normal society those responsible would have tendered their resignations or been asked to leave months ago - but it would appear that concepts of responsibility and shame do not apply in catholic morality - one would have to cynically say "as usual"

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  5. Employee who sneaked off for an hour = Lost his job

    Employee who lost his temper = Lost his job

    Employee who came in intoxicated = lost her job

    Employees who presided over allowing a child to work in a known dangerous environment and was subsequently assaulted = Didn't lose their job

    You can't beat the Benedictine ethos.

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