The High Court awarded €500,000 in damages to a man who was sexually abused as a child by a close neighbour, finding that the abuse had caused profound and lasting psychological harm.
In a judgment delivered on 1 July 2015, Mr Justice Bernard Barton said the abuse began when the plaintiff was nine and continued for at least three years, until he was about 12 or nearly 13. The defendant had pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges concerning the plaintiff and other children, the judgment said. The civil court was not given details of those charges.
The plaintiff did not tell his family at the time. He later told his wife, and eventually his father. The judgment described continuing nightmares, post-traumatic stress disorder and strained family relationships. The judge accepted medical evidence from Dr Horgan and Dr Collins that the effects were profound and life-impacting, and considered it likely the plaintiff would remain psychologically scarred.
The court also heard that the plaintiff feared visiting his father because the defendant was a close neighbour. The defendant was then in prison, serving a sentence. The judgment said the plaintiff’s concern was that he or his children might encounter the defendant after his release. It recorded that on an earlier occasion the defendant, who worked as a nurse and drove an ambulance, had invited the plaintiff’s children into the ambulance.
The case was a civil assessment of damages. The judge considered the limits on general damages awards and concluded that the commonly discussed cap did not apply where there was no substantial claim for special damages. He said the award had to be fair and just in light of the persistent abuse, the plaintiff’s age, the circumstances and the continuing consequences.
The judge assessed damages at €500,000. The source judgment states that amount; it does not set out any further order in the supplied text.