The High Court has recognised grooming linked to child sexual abuse as a basis for extending tort law, and assessed damages of €200,000 for a man abused by a trusted adult when he was a child.
In a judgment delivered on 21 May 2015, Mr Justice Michael White found that the plaintiff was entitled to succeed in his civil action and to aggravated damages. The proceedings sought damages for personal injuries and related losses, as well as a declaration that the relationship involved a “continuum of oppression”. The judgment does not state a separate declaration was made.
The plaintiff told the court that the defendant began sexually abusing him when he was about 11 and continued until he was 16 or 17. He said the defendant, a teacher who led a brass band in Arklow, had become a trusted figure in his life. The abuse included genital inspections and masturbation. The plaintiff also said the defendant falsely represented that medical advice required him to provide sperm samples after an operation.
The judge said he was concerned that the defendant, who represented himself, had not severely tested the plaintiff’s evidence in cross-examination. He nevertheless found the plaintiff credible and satisfied that his mental trauma resulted directly from the abuse and the serious breach of trust. The defendant did not call evidence but made submissions.
The judgment records that the abuse stopped around 1980, while the civil proceedings began in April 2011. The judge held that psychological injury substantially impairing the plaintiff’s ability to decide to bring an action meant the limitation statute did not prevent his damages claim.
The plaintiff had also urged the court to recognise grooming as a new tort or develop existing tort law. Drawing on expert evidence and earlier authority describing abuse over time as a continuum, the judge concluded that tort law should extend to the established pattern in which a child is befriended, trust is gained and used to perpetrate abuse. He described grooming as including preparation of the child, significant adults and the environment, with the aims of gaining access, securing compliance and maintaining secrecy.
The judgment says the plaintiff disclosed the abuse to his wife in November 2006 and made a formal complaint to gardaí in July 2009. It also records that the defendant was serving a prison sentence after pleading guilty to a number of counts of sexual abuse of the plaintiff. The civil judgment assessed damages at €200,000.