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Catholic Church fails to overturn $1.9m payout to victim of paedophile priest
The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne has been dealt a blow in the Court of Appeal, which refused the church’s bid to overturn a $1.9 million damages payout to a victim of paedophile priest Desmond Gannon.
The former altar boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is the first and only victim of clerical abuse to take their case against the archdiocese to trial and receive damages.
Desmond Gannon outside court in 1997.Credit: Mark Wilson
However, the archdiocese’s legal team had argued the general damages awarded by Supreme Court judge Andrew Keogh in July last year were “manifestly excessive” and sought to have them reduced.
The archdiocese claimed in court that some of the victim’s injuries were caused by an unstable upbringing, his parents’ separation and a culture of drinking among his peers, while also attacking the credibility of his evidence as “untruthful, lacking reliability and exaggerated”.
The decision by the Court of Appeal to deny leave for appeal will intensify financial pressure on the Melbourne archdiocese after the sudden closure of the church’s private insurer this week and a wave of fresh claims from victims.
The victim told The Age he was disgusted by the legal tactics of the archdiocese and urged other victims to pursue them in court.
“You’d expect Archbishop [Peter] Comensoli to have had a bit of compassion given his late cousin, another Catholic priest, has been convicted and jailed for abusing kids. But of course not, the church did not show me a scrap of sympathy, just called me a liar and said I didn’t tell the truth in court,” he said.
Rightside Legal partner Michael Magazanik said his client had again been vindicated by the decision and that the church was a “sore and graceless loser”.
“Nobody should believe it when the church talks about wanting to do the right thing for survivors of sexual abuse, its laughable,” Magazanik said.
“In the 1960s, the church knew Des Gannon was a paedophile, but did nothing, just shifted him from parish to parish. Yet of course, when our client brought his claim, the church denied everything, trying to avoid making any payment,” he said.
The Court of Appeal judges found the victim continued to suffer from the impact of the abuse.
“The abuse occurred at a time when the respondent was young, extremely vulnerable and dependent on those around him for care and support,” Justices David Beach, Richard Niall and Stephen Kaye said.
With interest, he will now receive more than $2.2 million from the archdiocese.
Gannon sexually assaulted the victim on three occasions between 1968 and 1970. The first attack occurred when he was 11 years old and a student at a Catholic school in regional Victoria.
He resigned from the church in 1993 under the guise of “health issues”, but was convicted in 1995 of nine counts of sexual abuse of four boys aged between 11 and 12. He was convicted again over separate abuse charges in 1997, 2000, 2003 and 2009.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse revealed that 22 of Gannon’s victims had received an average payment of $33,000 under the archdiocese’s compensation scheme the Melbourne Response.
But many victims have recently launched fresh legal action against the church, which has contributed to a recent decision by Catholic Church Insurance (CCI) to wind up its business after it was unable to secure additional capital.
“The CCI Board and management deeply regret that it has been necessary to make this decision and would like to assure all staff, policyholders and suppliers that it has sufficient assets to meet its commitments as they currently stand,” chair Joan Fitzpatrick said on May 30.
A spokeswoman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne said it acknowledged and respected the Court of Appeal’s decision.
“We will move quickly to comply with the court’s orders and hope that this will allow (the victim) to achieve some level of peace,” the spokeswoman said.
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