The Roman Catholic Church has been accused of "prolonging the agony" of 163 alleged abuse victims by attempting to block the biggest compensation claim of its kind the country has seen.The claim, which could total up to £4m, focuses on the systematic, largely sexual abuse of deprived and damaged children at a former children's home in East Yorkshire spanning a 30-year period up to 1992, when it closed.
But the two Catholic organisations held principally responsible for running the St Williams Community Home in Market Weighton have so far refused to accept liability and the specialist solicitor running the claim believes the Church, which has been the focus of a series of abuse scandals in the United States and Ireland, is merely paying lip service to institutional expressions of sorrow.
David Greenwood, who began the case in 2004, said: "Over the years I've heard a lot of pronouncements from the Catholic Church expressing sorrow but they are really empty words in this case. They are doing nothing constructive to help these individuals.
"I'm confident we will have a high degree of success for these claimants. But the sad thing is the defendants are trying to find ways of getting out of compensating them so it's going to prolong the agony until probably next year although I'm doing everything I can to bring that date forward."
The High Court claim is essentially against the Diocese of Middlesbrough, which had overall responsibility for the home, and the De La Salle Brothers, a Catholic order of lay teachers, which managed the home on a day-to-day basis between the early 1960s and 1992.
A number of individuals are also named as representatives of the organisations sued, which could mean Bishop of Middlesbrough Terence Drainey being called to give evidence on behalf of the diocese if the case goes to trial.
The claim is the country's biggest child abuse case centring on a single location and the biggest against the Catholic Church in this country.
Mr Greenwood, a child abuse specialist with Jordans solicitors in Wakefield, claimed a court order had to be obtained to force the diocese to hand over documentation and the defendants were further delaying the process by "squabbling" over who was responsible.
But a spokesman for the diocese, which covers North and East Yorkshire, rejected the solicitor's claims and said the Church was doing everything it could to help the legal process.
Father Derek Turnham said: "The diocese has co-operated fully with the process and we have taken the view the correct way of proceeding is through the court so that everybody is treated in the most fair way possible.
"When faced with 163 claims we can't just accept liability; each of these claims needs to be tested in law. The courts will decide what liability we have."
However, he did not rule out settling the claim if that was the direction of the court process.
He added: "It does concern the diocese – ever since the first
revelations that appalling behaviour had taken place. But we believe we are doing the best we can in the way we've responded to everything to move things forward as fast as possible."
A spokesman for the De La Salle Brothers said: "The Brothers have yet to receive all the documentation connected with the case. They will consider the claims and make a response in accordance with the legal process.
"We have cooperated with the police and the statutory authorities since the investigation into St Williams started. Now that the claims are before the court, the matter is sub judice so it would be inappropriate to make any further comment to the Press."
The home, which received emotionally and behaviourally-disturbed boys referred from local authorities, was closed when the scale of the abuse first became apparent. About 2,000 children and 500 staff had been through its doors.
The former principal of the home, Brother James Carragher, is serving 14 years in prison after being convicted in 2004 of systematically abusing boys at the home between 1968 and 1992. He had already been given a seven-year term in 1993 for other offences of serious sexual abuse at the home.
The judge sentencing him at the second trial said it had been "as bad a case of gross breach of trust as one can imagine".
Det Supt Richard Kerman, the experienced officer who led the inquiry, described Carragher as the "most evil man he had ever met".
The claimants, who were aged between 10 and 16 when they lived at the home, are now based all over the country, although the majority live in Yorkshire and the North-East. A significant proportion are in prison.
Some of the individual claims involve serious sexual abuse up to rape and could run to over £100,000. Lower end claims revolve around the excessive punishment regime which amounted to physical abuse. About 70 per cent of the claims involve sexual abuse.
The court papers reveal a raft of alleged failures of care and abuse of trust at the home.
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