The Roman Catholic Church has agreed to pay £330,000 in compensation to a former altar boy who was sexually abused by a priest, it emerged today.
Lawyers acting for Simon Grey said the out-of-court settlement being paid to the 38-year-old was believed to be the highest amount in connection with an individual abuse case involving a UK priest.
The settlement was reached just days before the father-of-three was to due to sue the Archdiocese of Birmingham in the High Court for failing to act on claims that assistant parish priest Christopher Clonan posed a danger to children.
Mr Grey, who was brought up in Coundon, Coventry, was abused while attending the city’s Christ The King Church, where Fr Clonan worked for 20 years.
Mr Grey, who had been seeking £1 million, said: “I am glad it is all over, obviously, but in some ways I am feeling a little deflated.
“I would have liked to have my case heard in open court, but pursuing that principle could have cost me money and my sanity.”
Mr Grey, who now lives in Leicester, added: “I suffered serious abuse and that was what this was about: my abuse and others’ abuse. I just wonder whether the church has taken that in.”
Mr Grey’s solicitor, John Housden, said the Birmingham Archdiocese had accepted liability for breaching its duty of care to Mr Grey between 1975 and 1981 – after it was made aware of sex abuse allegations.
“A senior priest had been notified of the abuse. He either did nothing or he may have advised the church authorities, and if he did, they did nothing,” Mr Housden said.
The lawyer, of Wokingham-based Clifton Ingram solicitors, said the firm was acting for four further clients in respect of Fr Clonan and three other men in relation to allegations against another priest previously employed in the West Midlands.
At least one of those men, now in his early 30s and who has suffered severe psychiatric illness, is likely to claim as much as Mr Grey in compensation.
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Birmingham, said: “We are pleased that a settlement has now been reached. We do not wish to add anything else at the present time.”
During the three-year legal saga, representatives of the Archdiocese are understood to have challenged the degree to which the abuse caused psychiatric and social problems Mr Grey experienced in adult life.
Fr Clonan fled abroad when the sex abuse accusations publicly surfaced in 1992 and was reported to have died of natural causes in Australia in 1998.