Church faces liability ruling by court in priest sex abuse case

A judge in London is to determine what was described yesterday as “an issue of wide general importance in respect of claims against the Catholic Church”.

Although the point to be decided has arisen in a damages action over alleged sex abuse by a priest, any decision will affect other types of claims made against the Church.

Mr Justice MacDuff was told by Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel QC, who represents the woman at the centre of the sex abuse claim, the issue to be determined was whether the Church “can ever be vicariously liable in any situation for any tort at all”.

It was, she said, “a very wide issue indeed”.

Lawyers for the alleged victim say it is the first time a court has been asked to rule on whether the “relationship between a Catholic priest and his bishop is akin to an employment relationship”.

It is being dealt with as a preliminary issue in the damages action brought by the 47-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons. She claims she was sexually assaulted as a child by the late Father Wilfred Baldwin, a priest of the Portsmouth Diocese, at a children’s home in Hampshire run by an order of nuns.

Ms Gumbel told the judge the preliminary issue was “essentially whether Fr Baldwin should be treated as having been in the position of an employee” of the trustees of the Portsmouth Roman Catholic Diocesan Trust.

“The preliminary issue is intended to determine an issue of wide general importance in respect of claims against the Catholic Church,” she said.

“That is whether any priest carrying out his work as a Roman Catholic priest is in a position akin to an employee for the purposes of imposing vicarious liability on the relevant diocesan trustees or bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese.”

If the answer was yes, then the next issue would be whether the priest was carrying out the actions complained of in circumstances which were “closely connected” with his role and/or work as a priest.

If the answer was no, she said, there would be “no circumstances where the Roman Catholic Church is liable for the actions of one of its priests whether deliberate or careless and however closely connected those actions were to the role of priest”.

Ms Gumbel told the judge this would “place the Catholic Church in a unique position as far as avoiding responsibility for the acts or omissions of any priest working within the church organisation in whatever role”.

The woman’s solicitor, Tracey Emmott, said in a statement the Church claimed the relationship “between the bishop of the diocese and the parish priest in question does not amount to anything akin to a relationship of employment and therefore there cannot be any ‘vicarious’ responsibility for the priest’s acts”.

“That is to say, whatever sexual abuse their priests might commit, it is not their responsibility.

“They are absolved of blame,” she said.

The consequence of the Church winning the preliminary issue “is that they will be able to avoid compensating all victims of sexual abuse by priests, whether in the past or the future”.

She added: “No other organisation has such immunity”.

The solicitor said it was known that several other people who claim abuse at the hands of Fr Baldwin, who died in 2006, are also likely to bring civil claims against the Church depending on the outcome of the proceedings before Mr Justice MacDuff.

The hearing continues.