Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

The law­suit against the Catholic Church, St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home, and the State will face its first hur­dle to­day as the mat­ter goes be­fore Jus­tice Car­ol Gob­in to de­ter­mine whether the mat­ter is too old to pur­sue.

The law­suit was filed on Oc­to­ber 8. In it, five men are su­ing St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home (al­so re­ferred to as the Bel­mont Or­phan­age), the Ro­man Catholic Arch­dio­cese in Port-of-Spain, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, and a for­mer em­ploy­ee at the chil­dren’s home who was lat­er charged with bug­gery, at­tempt­ed bug­gery, and se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy.

The fil­ing of the law­suit comes af­ter the men is­sued pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters in 2022, seek­ing at the time some $2.5 mil­lion for six al­leged vic­tims. In re­sponse to the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, at­tor­ney Gre­go­ry Delzin, now a se­nior coun­sel, said the law­suit was filed out­side the le­gal lim­it as al­lowed un­der the Lim­i­ta­tion of Cer­tain Ac­tions Act.

Ac­cord­ing to the Act, a claim must be made with­in four years of the al­leged of­fence. The law­suit said the of­fences are al­leged to have oc­curred be­tween 1986 and 2005.

It is this cru­cial point that Gob­in must de­cide be­fore the mat­ter can pro­ceed.

At­tor­neys Christlyn Moore, Joshua Ham­let, and Adan­na Joseph-Wal­lace are rep­re­sent­ing the men. Their aim is to con­vince Gob­in to ac­cept their po­si­tion that an ex­cep­tion to the lim­i­ta­tion is need­ed be­fore the law­suit is ad­ju­di­cat­ed, in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 9 of the Act.

In their law­suit against the Ro­man Catholic Church, the men claimed that “a se­nior rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the church al­so car­ried out abu­sive acts against the claimants.”

It added that the church is “vic­ar­i­ous­ly li­able for the tor­tious ac­tions and/or omis­sions of the chil­dren’s home.”

“The claimants al­lege that at all ma­te­r­i­al times, the in­ci­dences of phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse per­pe­trat­ed against them oc­curred while they were in cus­tody and un­der the care of the first de­fen­dant. Each of the claimants gave state­ments to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, which de­tail the abuse they suf­fered,” the law­suit stat­ed.

The at­tor­neys ar­gued that the AG’s of­fice is named in the law­suit as it had con­trol over the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, which was a State en­ti­ty be­tween 1991 and 1998, which hired the fifth de­fen­dant to work at the chil­dren’s home be­tween 1991 and 1996, where he is al­leged to have as­sault­ed the then chil­dren.

In their claim against the for­mer em­ploy­ee, the men al­leged that the for­mer Ju­ve­nile Home Su­per­vi­sor I abused them up to his de­par­ture in 1996.

The in­ci­dents at the chil­dren’s home were first high­light­ed in a 1997 re­port com­mis­sioned by the State, which was kept out of the pub­lic spot­light un­til a 2021 re­port touch­ing on the same is­sue was ful­ly re­leased. The first re­port was con­duct­ed by for­mer pol­i­cy ad­vi­sor and diplo­mat Robert Sab­ga, while the sec­ond was done by for­mer Ap­peal Court Judge Ju­dith Jones.

In a me­dia re­lease last week, the Arch­dio­cese of Port-of-Spain said it was not go­ing to com­ment on a law­suit brought against it. The arch­dio­cese said that while it ac­knowl­edged the me­dia re­ports con­cern­ing St Do­minic’s Home, be­cause the mat­ter is sub ju­dice, it was not go­ing to com­ment.

The law­suit is the first of its kind, and if al­lowed to pro­ceed, it can set a prece­dent for sim­i­lar cas­es to be pur­sued.