AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times
David Ellery
Hundreds of individual child sex abuse victims with claims totalling tens of millions of dollars may be free to sue the Catholic Church thanks to the abolition of statute of limitations provisions in the ACT, NSW and Victoria a Canberra lawyer has said.
Jason Parkinson of Porters lawyers said even though most of the 1700 victims who had been paid about $43 million [2013 figures] under the Catholic Church’s “Towards Healing” program had signed deeds of release waiving their right to sue in the future these were now open to challenge.
The Canberra-based lawyer, who has represented dozens of victims over the past two decades, said in some cases individuals with claims potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars had been “brushed off” with as little as $4000.
He said the church had overreached by offering such paltry sums and deeds of release signed as a part of such settlements would likely be dismissed by “a reasonable judge”.
Francis Sullivan, the chief executive of the Catholic Truth, Justice and Healing Council, conceded some of the payments made under Towards Healing in the 1990s had been “meagre and low” but believes the best hope for justice for many victims and survivors would be through the yet to be established independent national redress scheme.
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