Abuse victim’s case under way at European Court

The State must accept responsibility for children who were sexually abused in schools managed and run by the Catholic Church, the European Court of Human Rights was told.

However, the State denies it had such responsibility in the case taken by Louise O’Keeffe, who was 8 when she was abused by Leo Hickey, the then principle of Dunderrow National School. Her case agues that the State failed to structure the primary education in such a way as to protect her, and pupils should be eligible for compensation as those in residential institutions were.

“It’s a child’s right to have the State protect them from who in law have a coercive power over that child,” her lawyer David Holland told the court in Strasbourg.