Former Jesuit Schoolboy Who Claims He Was Abused Wins Right to Pursue ?5m Damages, Telegraph, May 5, 2009

Former Jesuit Schoolboy Who Claims He Was Abused Wins Right to Pursue £5M Damages

Telegraph
May 5, 2009

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5277912/Former-Jesuit-schoolboy-who-claims-he-was-abused-wins-right-to-pursue-5m-damages.html

Patrick Raggett wins the right to pursue £5M damages action

Former City lawyer Patrick Raggett, who says he made a mess of his life because he was sexually abused at a Jesuit-run school, has won the right to pursue a ?5 million damages action.

Patrick Raggett claimed that he was subjected to years of "insidious" abuse by Father Michael Spencer, a teacher at Preston Catholic College in Lancashire, who died in 2000 aged 76.

Mr Raggett, 50, of west London, told London's High Court that, while he was naked, the priest measured him "to chart his growth", filmed him performing exercises, photographed him and touched him inappropriately.

He says that he did not connect his experiences at school with years of under-achievement at work, a failed marriage and binge- drinking until he had therapy after an April 2005 breakdown.

The governors of the college, which closed in 1978, deny liability and say that, even if the abuse occurred, the case could not proceed as it was brought years outside the legal time limit.

But Mrs Justice Swift ruled that the case could go ahead to a full trial of the issues.

She said she accepted Mr Raggett's evidence that Father Spencer had on a large number of occasions subjected him to episodes of sexual assault and other forms of abuse, and that he was sometimes abused several times a week over a period of about four years until he was in his fifth year at the college.

So far as the question of whether the case was time-barred, she found that Mr Raggett must have had the requisite knowledge, within the meaning of the Limitation Act, from the time the acts of abuse were committed of the nature and extent of them and the effects upon him.

However, in the particular circumstances of the case, she was satisfied that Mr Raggett had established that it would be equitable to allow the action to proceed and that it would be possible for a fair trial of the issues, both of liability and causation, to be conducted.