UNITED KINGDOM
Greenock Telegraph
Published: 13 Nov 2014
A TORMENTED Greenock man told today how he was sexually abused by paedophile priests from the age of 11 — then handed a ‘paltry’ £8,000 payout half-a-century later.
Gerry McLaughlin, now aged 61, has spoken out about the abuse he says he endured at the hands of priests.
Gerry McLaughlin, now 61, waived his right to anonymity to speak to the Telegraph about his disgust at the settlement — which came with no admission of the suffering he says he had to endure.
He was taken from his family home in West Stewart Street by a holy order called the Verona Fathers to a seminary school in Yorkshire where he planned to study for the priesthood himself.
Another four boys — three from Greenock and one from Port Glasgow — were among the intake from the local area to the order’s St Peter’s Mirfield institution 50 years ago.
But Gerry told how the abuse by two churchmen — Fr John Pinkman and Fr Domenico Valmaggia — began within days of his arrival there.
Gerry — who now lives in Ireland — told how Valmaggia locked him in the school’s infirmary and tried to ‘cure’ him of a groin injury by rubbing his private parts.
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