A man who was sexually abused as a schoolboy while visiting an orphanage, told the High Court yesterday he felt different, rejected, humiliated and an "outcast" after the incident.
Mr Patrick McCarthy SC, for the plaintiff, has told the court his client had taken High Court proceedings for damages because he could not get redress through the Laffoy Commission as he was a visitor to St Joseph's Orphanage, Kilkenny on one occasion in the mid-1970s when the incident occurred, and not an inmate.
About a month after the incident was reported to the Gardaí, which was within weeks of the incident occurring, the man allegedly responsible lost his job and has since died.
In evidence yesterday, the plaintiff said he had felt different and humiliated ever since the incident happened.
He said he had attached no significance to the event until he attended a psychologist in Spain who told him that one small event like that could result in problems.
It was as a result of that analysis that he had returned to Ireland and went directly to solicitors in 1996 and began legal proceedings in 1997. As a result of the complaint he had made shortly after the abuse incident, he felt the students at his secondary school had rejected him.
He believed he was rejected by them because of telling what happened to him.
He added there was a stigma and a taboo at what had come out. All through his secondary school years he felt a loner and isolated because of what had occurred. There was a belief that if you were touched by a homosexual at the time you would become a homosexual, he said.
He could not remember if he told his wife about the incident before their marriage in 1990.
Mr Enriquende Valenzuella, a psychologist, said the plaintiff suffered from an emotional disorder which went back to the time of his adolescence and continued.
This was a complex personality disorder. He had chronic anxiety, a feeling of hopelessness and despair, and a strong negative vision of the future. He also had difficulty in sleeping and could be vulnerable to further episodes of depression.
The case continues today before Mr Justice O'Higgins.