Priest Abuse Pupil Sues for £5m, Metro, March 23, 2009

'Priest Abuse' Pupil Sues for £5m

Metro
March 23, 2009

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?Priest_abuse_pupil_ sues_for_%A35m&in_article_id=592435&in_page_id=34

A former City lawyer today launched a £5million lawsuit against a Jesuit-run college where he was allegedly abused by a priest.

Patrick Raggett was subjected to years of "insidious" abuse by a teacher at Preston Catholic College in Lancashire, his counsel Robert Seabrook today told the High Court in London.

Mr Raggett, who has waived anonymity, blames his treatment for years of under-achievement at work, a failed marriage and binge-drinking.

His lawsuit alleges he was sexually abused for years by Father Michael Spencer, a teacher who died at the age of 76 in 2001.

Mr Raggett says he knew he had "made a mess" of his life but did not realise the devastating effect of his school experiences until he had a breakdown in April 2005.

"My employment record is so far away from what it should have been - that causes me a huge amount of anguish," he said.

"To know what one could have been and not be anything remotely approaching that is very painful," he said.

The five-day hearing will decide whether the claim was brought outside the legal time limit and whether Mr Raggett is entitled to any compensation from the College's governors, who deny liability.

Mr Raggett, 50, said he had a golden childhood and had done exceptionally well at school before he went, in 1969, to the College which "the Jesuits ruled with a rod of iron".

His legal team said Father Spencer, who taught French and coached football until the school's closure in 1978, used his obsession with the sport and photography to fulfil his perverted tendencies.

Mr Seabrook said: "Under the cloak of priestly godliness and respectability, he was an intrusive and brazenly abusive man who was widely recognised as being a very unsatisfactory person for having responsibility for teaching children."

Mr Raggett was one of three boys who he would measure while they were naked, film with his cine-camera and photograph to "chart their growth", Mr Seabrook added.

At solo training sessions, Father Spencer would get him to perform exercises naked to check his suppleness and sometimes "playfully" touch his penis.

The priest would also insist on rubbing "Deep Heat" on the boy's groin injury - several times ignored while seen doing so by another priest.

Father Spencer also began to invite himself for lunch with Mr Raggett's family and took him to see George Best play for Manchester United, squeezing his thigh if a goal was scored.

Mr Seabrook said that Mr Raggett's schoolmates were well aware of Father Spencer's behaviour, as he would insist on the football team not wearing underwear and would join them in the showers, occasionally washing their private parts.