The High Court awarded a plaintiff €105,000 in general damages and €25,000 in aggravated damages after finding that the defendant had sexually assaulted him repeatedly between about the ages of seven and ten.
In a judgment delivered on 16 February 2016, Mr Justice Barr said the plaintiff’s account of abuse in the defendant’s car and living room was truthful. The court found that the assaults occurred over a number of years and that the defendant had been in a position of trust towards the plaintiff. The court dismissed the defendant’s counterclaim, which was not pursued at trial.
The plaintiff alleged that the defendant touched his genitals during delivery trips and at the defendant’s home in Kilkenny, and sometimes made him touch the defendant’s penis. The defendant denied the abuse and claimed the plaintiff had been coached by his father to make false allegations in order to obtain money. Those were the defendant’s submissions; the court rejected his denial and found that he had lied in giving evidence.
The judgment records that the plaintiff first disclosed the allegations in August 2004, when he was ten. The defendant was later convicted in the District Court, and that conviction was affirmed on appeal in the Circuit Court. He had served a prison sentence. The civil case was brought in 2011; the High Court’s decision concerned the plaintiff’s civil claim for damages, not a new criminal conviction or sentence.
The court said there was no medical evidence establishing a definable psychiatric injury, and no diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. A social worker’s report described a screening test that indicated the plaintiff might need further treatment. The judge accepted evidence that the plaintiff had required counselling over a prolonged period, which was continuing, and had lost contact with his half-sisters.
In setting general damages, the judge considered the assaults’ nature, frequency, duration and the plaintiff’s age, alongside the absence of rape, oral sex or a diagnosed physical or psychiatric injury. The court also awarded aggravated damages because the defendant had alleged that the plaintiff knowingly repeated lies, coached by his father, to extract money. It declined to award punitive damages, noting the defendant had already been dealt with in the criminal courts. No special damages were awarded.