BELFAST (UNITED KINGDOM)
The Irish News [Belfast, Northern Ireland]
December 14, 2021
A Belfast man who says he was sexually abused at a children’s home run by a religious order is set to receive £75,000 in damages.
The payout represents settlement of the 66-year-old’s civil action against De La Salle Provincialate.
No admission of liability was made in the resolution confirmed at the High Court in Belfast.
The man who took the case cannot be named for legal reasons.
He claimed that Christian Brothers molested him at Rubane House in Kircubbin, Co Down in the late 1960s.
Proceedings centred on the alleged physical, sexual and emotional abuse he suffered after moving into the facilities at the age of 11.
Rubane House was among the homes examined by the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry chaired by the late Sir Anthony Hart.
An estimated 200 of its 1,050 former residents have made allegations of serious sexual or physical abuse.
A trial into the man’s claim was due to begin at the High Court but the case was settled in the sum of £75,000, according to his representatives.
Margaret McGuckin, who runs the lobby group Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA), said: “All we ever wanted was someone to say sorry. He cried alone, afraid to tell anyone and feared he would be believed. Today he has been believed and obtained recognition for so many others.”