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	Catholic Church Abuse Cases at St William's in Market Weighton Go to Court of Appeal By Jennifer Bell The Press October 27, 2010 http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/8477377.School____abuse____damages_fight/ A CATHOLIC child welfare society which may face a damages claim over alleged abuse at an East Yorkshire school has failed to offload some of the liability of an £8 million compensation claim. The Court of Appeal dismissed a challenge by the Catholic Child Welfare Society (CCWS) of Middlesbrough Diocese in a case where 150 former pupils are suing for sexual and physical abuse by teachers and other staff at St William's in Market Weighton, which closed in 1992. Middlesbrough Diocese, which may face the multi-million pound compensation claim, said at a hearing in July the De La Salle Brotherhood, a Catholic organisation which provided teachers for the school, should take some responsibility. A judge had ruled last year the brotherhood had no legal responsibility for the alleged abuse. Lord Justice Pill, one of three appeal judges who heard the case, said in his ruling: "Management of the school was expressly the responsibility of the management board and I see no basis, in the circumstances of this case, for the imposition on the institute of vicarious liability jointly with the board." Jeremy Stuart-Smith QC, representing the diocese and its Catholic Child Welfare Society, had said at the hearing that many or most of the alleged acts of abuse were said to have been committed by members of the brotherhood working at the school. The CCWS and its predecessor body, which ran the school, accepted in the Court of Appeal that it would be liable for such abuse as may be proved. The case centres on the alleged systematic abuse of boys aged between ten and 16 from 1960 to 1992. The school had taken in boys referred from local authorities, mainly from Yorkshire and North East England. The former head teacher, Brother James Carragher, was jailed in 1993 for committing sex offences against boys, and jailed for a further 14 years in 2004 after being convicted of further abuses.
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