AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY March 7, 2014
A WOMAN taking ground-breaking legal action against the Catholic Church after a 14-year sexual relationship with a priest hopes it opens the doors for other women struggling after secret relationships with clergy.
Jennifer Herrick, 60, was 19, sexually naive and had a severe physical disability when Father Tom Knowles, then 27, suddenly grabbed her in her parents’ home and kissed her after a church event. She was 22 when he initiated sex.
He ended the relationship in 1989 when she was 35 and he was 42, allegedly telling her ‘‘I’m surprised you hung on as long as you did’’, she said in a statement of claim filed in the NSW Supreme Court last July.
Ms Herrick, of the Central Coast, lodged the breach of trust claim after her complaint to the priest’s order, the Blessed Sacrament Fathers, in 2011 resulted in Father Knowles being stood down for 16 months and a Church probe that confirmed the long-standing sexual relationship.
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