CBC News
June 15, 2009
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/06/15/abuse-lawyer-award-615.html
A Newfoundland lawyer who fought for sexual abuse victims was honoured in St. John's Saturday.
Greg Stack represented more than 80 people who were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests in Newfoundland and Labrador.
He was recognized for "courage in advocacy" by the Atlantic Trial Lawyers Association.
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| Lawyer Greg Stack has been honoured for fighting for people who were sexual abused by Catholic priests in Newfoundland and Labrador. |
"Greg Stack's clients may have been betrayed by the church, but they have been well and truly represented by Greg Stack," said lawyer Ches Crosbie, who presented the award.
Dozens of Stack's clients were victims of Kevin Bennett, a former priest in southwestern Newfoundland.
They sued Bennett and the Catholic Church for abuses dating back to the early 1960s.
The church's lawyers argued that the Catholic Church itself could not be sued. But Stack proved them wrong.
"I've been practising law for the past 30 years, 20 years has been taken up with this crusade, to use a medieval church term," Stack said.
Bennett was convicted in 1990 of hundreds of sexual assaults. He was released from prison after serving four years of a nearly 20-year sentence.
Stack won a $14-million settlement for Bennett's victims.
In 2005, after the lawsuit was settled, the St. George's diocese where Bennett was a priest, issued a public apology to his victims.
Stack said victims and their families are still trying to cope with what Bennett did to them.
"What keeps one going, of course, are the victims' own stories," said Stack.
Bennett was one of a series of Roman Catholic priests — and lay Christian Brothers at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's — who were convicted in the 1980s and 1990s of sexual assault.
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