Man who claimed he was subjected to grooming campaign by paedophile priest to receive £30,000 damages

The pay-out forms part of a settlement reached in an action brought over alleged historic abuse inflicted by the late Fr Malachy Finnegan.

The 65-year-old plaintiff sued the Diocese of Dromore and the Board of Governors at St Colman’s College in Newry.

With a trial due to get underway at the High Court today, senior counsel for the plaintiff announced terms of the resolution reached.

Monye Anyadike-Danes KC told Mr Justice McAlinden her client to be paid £30,000 in damages, plus legal costs under the terms of the settlement.

No admission of liability was made by the defendants.

Proceedings related to alleged abuse while the man, who is not being identified, was a pupil at St Colman’s during the 1970s.

A central part of the claim involved unwanted and persistent hugging by Finnegan which disorientated the victim.

The form of sexual grooming isolated him among his school peer group and led to a climate of constant bullying, it was alleged.

Finnegan taught and worked at St Colman's College from 1967 to 1987, spending the last decade as the school's president.The priest, who died on 2002, was accused of a long campaign of child sexual abuse but never prosecuted or questioned by police about claims made against him.In 2018 it emerged that the Diocese of Dromore had settled a previous claim made by one of his alleged victims.At that stage the Board of Governors at St Colman's condemned the physical, sexual and emotional abuse inflicted by Finnegan while he worked there.His image was also removed from the school's photographs.

Following the latest settlement, the plaintiff’s legal representative described the case as one of the first of its kind.

Owen Winters, of KRW Law’s Historic Abuse Redress Department, said: “It adds to the growing narrative on the full extent of Finnegan’s predatory activities.

“His bouts of violence and excess faux affection were all part of a perverse, sophisticated grooming

process. Excessive hugging was a recurring feature of that.”

Mr Winters added: “While the defendants denied liability, our client wants to thank the Diocese for taking a pragmatic approach to what was always a difficult case.”