Prisoner who claimed State failed him as a child gets €50,000

Now 30-year-old man claimed he was physically and sexually abused in foster care

Approving a €50,000  settlement for a prisoner, Mr Justice Kevin Cross told the man he would have to keep on his medication on his release from prison and wished him well for the future.
Approving a €50,000 settlement for a prisoner, Mr Justice Kevin Cross told the man he would have to keep on his medication on his release from prison and wished him well for the future.

A prisoner who claimed he was failed by the State as a child when put in foster care has settled his High Court action for €50,000.

The now 30-year old man was placed in State care at age four and claimed he was physically and sexually abused while in foster care and never properly treated for his ADHD condition.

He is in solitary confinement and was in the past jailed for violent attacks.

The High Court heard on Friday the case had settled without an admission of liability.

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Mr Justice Kevin Cross approved the settlement of €50,000 towards the man's future care and directed the prisoner, who heard the ruling via video link, not be identified in any way.

In opening the case earlier this week, Hugh O’Keeffe SC, for the prisoner, said the man was first taken in to care when he was four years old due to the neglect of his mother and it was their case there has been an “abject failure of the State” in his case.

He said the man’s life had been a “litany of very sorry circumstances” and, since the age of 17 years had spent most of the time incarcerated for anger related crimes.

Counsel said no adequate plan was put in place to treat the man’s ADHD when he was a child.

The man has since been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and is getting treatment for that, counsel said.

He said the prisoner’s main worry is that he has nobody and nowhere to go when he is released.

Video link

The prisoner by video link said the settlement figure was acceptable and he had been out of trouble for one and a half years since he started the medication to control his condition.

He sued the Ministers for Justice and Health, the Attorney General, the HSE and the Irish Prison Service for alleged negligence and breach of duty and claimed he was sexually abused while in foster care as a child.

He claimed he was in the care of a foster family for 10 years during which time he alleged he was assaulted, battered, falsely imprisoned and abused.

He further claimed, when he left aged 14, he was not provided with a safe environment in which to live and was allegedly given drugs and raped.

Since aged 17, the man has spent most of his time in prison and has been incarcerated at various prisons where it is claimed his various conditions were not diagnosed or treated as they should have been.

It was further claimed there was failure to implement any or any suitable or adequate code of ethics or rules of good practice for foster parents and failure to take any or any adequate steps by means of screening, enquiry or character assessment before appointing the boy’s foster family.

The State denied all the claims and pleaded some or all of the injuries alleged were caused by the man’s own acts by behaving aggressively and violently and engaging in criminal activity.

Approving the settlement, Mr Justice Kevin Cross told the man he is going to have to keep on his medication on his release from prison and wished him well for the future.