Survivor of abuse set to sue council and church

An abuse survivor is suing a Catholic Church sect and a local authority after he was assaulted by a monk at a residential school.

Michael Murphy, known as Brother Benedict or Brother Ben, abused children in the 1970s and 1980s when he worked at St Joseph’s School in Tranent, East Lothian.

He was jailed for seven years in April 2016 at the High Court in Edinburgh after being found guilty of physically and sexually abusing eight boys.

The physical abuse he carried out included habitual and sustained physical punishment, as well as the administration of electric shocks, the Crown Office said at the end of the case.

The anonymous survivor, now aged in his 50s, is suing East Lothian Council and De La Salle Brothers. He is seeking damages estimated at a six-figure sum for the pain caused by the former schoolmaster.

The man said Brother Benedict “ruined not just my childhood, but my adult life”.

He added: “He abused his position while working alongside the council and the Church to fulfil his own sick desires.

“I hope now to be able to find the means to help me rebuild my life.”

Murphy, from Liss in Hampshire, also had a previous conviction for ten earlier assaults on boys when he worked at St Ninian’s School in Gartmore, near Stirling, between 1960 and 1969, which resulted in a 12-month jail sentence.

He has been placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.