Scouts body to pay out $1.4m

THE US Boy Scouts organisation has been ordered to pay $1.4 million (€1m) to a man who claimed he was sexually abused by a leader as a child.

There could be more financial damage to come, with jurors set to go back to court next week to decide whether the Scouts must pay up to another $25m in punitive damages.

A jury in Oregon ruled the group had failed to protect the youngster, Kerry Lewis. Its decision was based partly on the introduction as evidence of more than 1,000 so-called “perversion files” secretly kept by the Boy Scouts of America at the group’s national headquarters from 1965 to mid-1984.

The Scouts plan to appeal and argue that the files are outdated and do not reflect current prevention efforts or even past policy.