Daily Mail
May 5, 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1177549/Former-lawyer-wins-right-sue-Jesuit-school-5-million-sex-abuse-33-years-ago.html
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| Damages claim: Patrick Raggett outside the High Court today |
A former City lawyer who says he made a mess of his life because he was sexually abused at a Jesuit-run school has won the right to pursue his ?5 million damages action.
Patrick Raggett claimed that he was subjected to years of 'insidious' abuse by Father Michael Spencer, a teacher at Preston Catholic College in Lancashire, who died in 2000 aged 76.
Mr Raggett, 50, of west London, told London's High Court that, while he was naked, the priest measured him 'to chart his growth', filmed him performing exercises, photographed him and touched him inappropriately.
He says that he did not connect his experiences at school with years of under-achievement at work, a failed marriage and binge- drinking until he had therapy after an April 2005 breakdown.
The governors of the college, which closed in 1978, deny liability and say that, even if the abuse occurred, the case could not proceed as it was brought years outside the legal time limit.
But Mrs Justice Swift ruled that the case could go ahead to a full trial of the issues.
She said she accepted Mr Raggett's evidence that Father Spencer had on a large number of occasions subjected him to episodes of sexual assault and other forms of abuse, and that he was sometimes abused several times a week over a period of about four years until he was in his fifth year at the college.
Mr Raggett said after the hearing: 'I am very pleased at the outcome of the trial and would like to thank my family, my legal team and everyone else who supported me throughout, especially my courageous fellow witnesses.
'I am also indebted to the other men who came forward with statements about their own ordeals when they read about the case.'
Mr Raggett, who now runs his own business consultancy in Fulham, west London, added: 'The most important aspect of this trial is that the people who allowed this to happen - and who were quite happy to see it swept under the carpet - have been held responsible at last.
'For all the warm words from the Jesuit Order about co-operating in this case, the reality is they fought it tooth and nail without regard for my feelings.
'There is a large gap between what they preach and the way they give no quarter, even when, as here, both experts agreed sexual abuse had occurred.'
He said: 'This is not a case where I have simply sought revenge after a long time. Full awareness of the damaging effects of the sustained sexual abuse only surfaced in April 2005.
'I want to urge others who are being or who were similarly mistreated to come forward. The Jesuit Order, the Catholic Church generally, is still not accepting legal and moral responsibility for the dark virus of abuse in the way it should.'
Mr Raggett said he would now be preparing, with his legal team, for the next stage of the case.
During the hearing the judge ordered the defendant to pay ?200,000 on account of the claimant's costs, which are estimated to be around ?470,000.
Mr Raggett's counsel, Robert Seabrook QC, said that Father Spencer, who taught French and coached football until the school's closure, used his obsession with sport and photography to augment his deviant tendencies.
Mr Raggett's schoolfriends were well aware of Father Spencer's propensities, as he would insist on the football team not wearing underwear and would join them in the showers, occasionally washing their private parts.
Mr Seabrook said psychiatrists considered that Mr Raggett, who attended the school between 1969 and 1976, exhibited many symptoms typically seen in survivors of child abuse - the effects of which, although profound, were not at first obvious.
In his final year at school, Mr Raggett began to gamble, getting into debt, and went on to under-perform at university.
He had difficulty in forming intimate relationships, drank excessively and took drugs socially.
He qualified as a solicitor, but jobs with a number of well-known City firms, including one as a salaried partner in Birmingham and one in Hong Kong, always ended with dismissal or rejection for some rash or unreliable conduct.
His breakdown, in April 2005, occurred after he got into a theological discussion with a priest and the 'dam burst' as he suddenly could not stop sobbing.
Counsel said: 'At no time before that date did he attribute his disabilities to Father Michael Spencer's really outrageous and disreputable behaviour and there is no reason why he should - this was not a violent or painful rape or assault; there was no overt aggressiveness on the part of the priest.'
Mr Raggett was close to tears as he gave evidence about Father Spencer's abuse.
'It was just some terrible burden. It was this impossible problem that I just didn't know how to deal with.
'That's why I would lie in bed at night endlessly thinking there has got to be some solution to it.
'It was the burden of it and the terror that it would come out. The prospect of disclosure was, of the two evils, the worst because, in a weird way, once you are naked, you are in a different world.'
Mr Raggett said he was glad when the priest became a family friend as it reduced the risk of disclosure.
'As a man of 50 now, one thinks differently, but at the time it just filled my world, the problem, and the prospect of public humiliation was just beyond imagining.'
Mr Raggett said that after he left school in 1976, Father Spencer would send him birthday cards and write to his mother regularly.
He did not see him again until he got married when he tracked him down to the Orkneys and asked him to officiate.
He told the court that he did so because Father Spencer was the priest he knew the best and was a 'hugely entertaining guy'.
In her ruling, the judge said she had no doubt that Mr Raggett was the victim of a 'sustained course of sexual abuse and assaults' by Father Spencer, which started when he was 11.
She found his evidence about the abuse 'entirely compelling'.
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