A former trainee priest claims he was sexually abused by a senior cleric while at college.The man, now in his 50s is one of four alleged victims of Catholic churchmen to have come forward in the wake of the Cardinal Keith O’Brien scandal.
O’Brien faces accusations of sexual misconduct from six priests and former priests.
He is not the subject of the claims by the four new victims who, we can reveal, have contacted lawyers in the last week.
They include a man and woman who say they were was abused by parish priests as children and a man who claims he was abused by monks in a home in the 1970s.
The most recent accusation concerns a man who claims he was sexually and physically abused while training at St Vincent’s seminary in Langbank, Renfrewshire, in the 1970s.
He says his abusers were a senior priest and a man who became a bishop but who has since died.
The man, now a businessman in his 50s, said: “I did report what happened to the Church in the 1980s. I asked them to keep the details in their records. I come from a very devout family and at the time I did not wish to cause them any distress by revealing what had happened to me. However, in light of what has happened in recent weeks within the Catholic Church in Scotland, I now wonder whether those I reported were ever dealt with or not. I can say that they went on to hold respected positions, one as a Bishop. He is now deceased. I’ve always wanted to know whether there were any complaints from others who attended St Vincent’s, and find it hard to believe I was the only one."
“After what happened, I consider myself to be very lucky to have gone on to have a very successful and happy life. I would like to think now that the Church would now be very much more sympathetic with abuse victims and that checks and balances are now in place to ensure this cannot happen in the future.”
Cardinal O’Brien, 75, who is not the subject of any of the four complaints, resigned after admitting sexual misconduct following six complaints made against him.
The former priest now intends taking legal action against the church.
His lawyer, Cameron Fyfe, said: “Since the revelations involving Cardinal O’Brien, new cases have come forward because they feel they can no longer stay silent over what happened. They feel there is now safety in numbers. One man in his 40 claims he was abused by a priest at a chapel house in Dundee between 1969 and 1970. Another man from the Glasgow area, now in 40s and staying in England, says he was abused while he was resident at a school run by monks in Scotland when he was 12 years old. He is in the process of making an official police complaint."
“A woman from Edinburgh has claimed she was abused as a child by her parish priest in the 1980s. They are only coming forward now because they believe the time is right for the Church to drop its usual adversarial stance to abuse allegations, and accept these crimes happened in the past. They would like to see the Church recognising the damage done to victims.”
Yesterday, a Catholic Church spokesman said: “Errors in the handling of historic cases have informed current safeguarding standards. There is always room for improvement, but many lessons have been learned. The Church can only renew its apologies to those whose complaints were not taken seriously or handled properly and encourage anyone who believes they have a complaint to refer it to the police for investigation.”