The High Court in London (Photo: PA)
A court has ruled that the Catholic Church can be held legally liable for the crimes of abusive clergy.
The ruling by the High Court in London for the first time defined in British law the relationship of a priest to his bishop as that of an employee to an employer, instead of seeing the priest as effectively self-employed.
This means that a bishop and a diocese can be punished for the crimes of a priest. Survivors’ groups hope that it will also mean that many people who claim to have been abused by clergy will be able to claim compensation more easily.
The court granted the trustees of the Diocese of Portsmouth extra time to appeal the decision.
The case involves a 47-year-old mother of three, referred to only by the initials JGE, who claims she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Fr Wilfred Baldwin as a seven-year-old girl in The Firs children’s home in Waterlooville, in southern England, in the early 1970s.
She claims that she also was attacked in the dressing room of a church on the day she made her first Communion.
Besides the Diocese of Portsmouth, she is also seeking damages from the English province of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, which ran the home, because she said the nuns witnessed the abuse but did not intervene.
The court was not asked to judge the truth of the allegations but was specifically asked, as a preliminary hearing on the case, to rule on the question of whether the “relationship between a Catholic priest and his bishop is akin to an employment relationship”.
Justice Alistair MacDuff said that although the priest had no formal contract of employment there were “crucial features” that made a bishop vicariously liable for his actions.
He said the Church gave Fr Baldwin the “premises, the pulpit and the clerical robes” and that he was given full authority and free rein in the community to “act as a representative of the church.”
“Whether or not the relationship may be regarded as ‘akin to employment,’ the principal features of the relationship dictate that the defendants should be held responsible for the actions which they initiated by the appointment and all that went with it,” said the judge.
JGE first made her complaint in 2006 when police officers investigating complaints against Fr Baldwin contacted her to ask if she had been abused by him. Inquiries concluded the same year with the death of the priest, at the age of 75.
JGE is now seeking compensation for pain, injury, humiliation and hurt feelings, saying that she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, a borderline personality disorder, and that she has attempted suicide as a result of the abuse.
The court ruling was welcomed by the victims’ support group, Ministers and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors.
But in a statement the group also expressed frustration on behalf of “hundreds if not thousands of victims” who were seeking damages but would have to await the “outcome of the appeal now to be brought by lawyers employed by the Catholic Church seeking to have this latest ruling overturned”.
The group claimed that while the Church spent millions of pounds attempting to avoid liability “the victims receive no support, and their suffering continues as they are re-traumatized by having to go through such adversarial and hostile legal processes to achieve justice”.
The Portsmouth Diocese said in a statement that it was “committed to creating a safe environment for all” and that it “works hard to ensure the welfare of children and vulnerable individuals.”
“The judgment of Mr Justice MacDuff involves complex and fundamental legal issues which remain the subject of legal proceedings,” it added. “In the circumstances, the Diocese of Portsmouth does not consider it appropriate to make any further comment about the case at this time.”
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
On a point of accuracy – the High Court does not make British law as claimed, it only makes English law. There are two legal systems in the UK.
Still, this ruling will encourage bishops to focus more closely on the implications of abuse; they are legally involved whether they like it or not. They will no longer be able “to avoid liability”. It will certainly be very good for the Church in the long run. No-one can defend these awful people who damage children and the church.
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This is an absolutely revoilting ruling, for several reasons — the main one being though that it suggests that one individual should be charged with guilt for the crimes of a separate individual — which flies directly in the face of the most basic principles of Law itself !!!
Or alternatively : Are we now to see Barclays Bank Directors charged with sexual crimes committed by Barclays Bank employees ??
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“Or alternatively : Are we now to see Barclays Bank Directors charged with sexual crimes committed by Barclays Bank employees ??”
The thing is, Jabba, when Jerimiah Snodgrass, age 27, who works for Barclay’s Bank – is charged with a sexual crime, it will be as Jerimiah Snodgrass, age 27, of 4 Chingford Villas, Surbiton etc, not as Jerimiah Snodgrass of Barclay’s Bank.
Or, so Toad thinks.
But what do you think?
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“This is an absolutely revoilting ruling, for several reasons — the main one being though that it suggests that one individual should be charged with guilt for the crimes of a separate individual…”
Froths Jabba – who, by this token, clearly thinks it is disgraceful for example, that The Blessed Rupert Murdoch should be held in any way responsible for the misdeeds of his employees.
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Rupert Murdoch should be held responsible for the misdeeds of Rupert Murdoch, and any misdeeds carried out under his instructions.
But why should Jeremiah Snodgrass of Barclays Bank not incur any blame upon his employer, contrary to the legal nature of this ruling concerning the Church ?
Are Catholic bishops somehow required to accept levels of personal association with the crimes of their priesthood that would seem to be thoroughly unacceptable elsewhere ?
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