AUSTRALIA
The Australian
NICOLAS PERPITCH THE AUSTRALIAN MAY 02, 2014
THE Christian Brothers had their “knee at the throat’’ of abuse victims during compensation negotiations and used their dominant legal position to initially demand that the men pay the church’s costs, without any payment for the horrors they had experienced.
Slater & Gordon senior solicitor Hayden Stephens also told the royal commission into child abuse in Perth yesterday that the “minuscule” payments the men eventually received as part of a 1990s class action negotiated by the law firm did not fairly reflect their suffering.
Mr Stephens was highly critical of the structure of a $3.5 million “reconciliation” trust, which he said was largely designed by the Christian Brothers and distributed money on a drip feed to victims, who were forced to go “cap in hand” to seek help.
“It lacked respect and integrity for the victims in many ways,” the lawyer said.
The men received as little as $2000 and had to sign a deed of release agreeing not to pursue further claims against the Catholic Church or the Christian Brothers.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.