IRELAND
Irish Times
Three victims of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth are entitled to a full hearing of their claim for damages in the High Court despite previous rulings that they were bound by settlements of cases taken by them in Northern Ireland, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The three — a man and his sister and their cousin — were sexually abused as children by the since deceased Smyth between 1969 and 1988.
In the late 1990s, they settled actions in the Belfast High Court for £25,000 each for the man and the cousin and £16,000 for the sister.
They say in 2012, they learned from newspapers that as far back as 1975 the Catholic Church authorities had been informed of Smyth’s abuse by another boy who had also named the man in this case as having been away on holiday with Smyth where abuse occurred.
As a result, they brought new proceedings in the Republic here claiming, among other things, that they had suffered a recurrence of trauma as a result of the publication of that information.
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.