THE MORMON Church in Ireland is being sued for damages by a young woman over allegedly trying to cover up her alleged sexual abuse by one of its elders. It is alleged the abuse occurred when the woman was a minor.
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, has also brought High Court proceedings against her alleged abuser, who served as a missionary in Ireland for the Irish Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints Ltd.
She claims she has suffered loss and damage as a result of alleged sexual abuse, assault and false imprisonment by the man.
She is suing the Mormon Church for alleged fraudulent concealment and for allegedly allowing the man have unsupervised contact with her, exposing her to risk of injury and allegedly allowing her to be exploited.
She claims the church disregarded its own guidelines and advice that female elders were at all times to accompany young female members and had also failed to take any adequate steps to investigate her claims.
The man, who allegedly repeatedly sexually abused the woman when she was a minor, has since left Ireland.
While the church has entered an appearance in the proceedings, it was unable, due to data protection laws, to provide the girl’s lawyers with the man’s address in the United States, the court heard.
However, the woman’s lawyers have ascertained his home address in the US through using private investigators and have obtained an order from the High Court to serve him with the proceedings at that US address.
In her claim, the young woman who is Irish and converted to Mormonism in her teens, alleges the abuse began in about March 2007 when the man took charge of her religious instruction.
She claims the abuse took place at various locations outside Dublin where the man was serving as a missionary. She claims that the man began with inappropriate touching before advancing to more serious forms of abuse including oral sex.
She also claims the man had forcibly restrained and sexually abused her on one occasion while another church elder acted as sentry and alerted the man that other church members were approaching.
When she asked her alleged abuser to stop, he had replied, while it was a “sin” for others to act in such a way, it was not for him as he “was worthy and had been chosen by God”. He also tried to convince her everything he did “manifested through the holy spirit”, she claims.
Despite feeling upset and confused by what was happening, the man told her dreadful things would happen to her if she told anyone what was happening, she claims.
When she had told senior church members about what happened, they told her not to reveal it to her non-Mormon parents or gardaí, she claims. The man moved to another part of Ireland, before eventually going to the US.
The woman, who left the church in 2008, claims the alleged abuse had a terrible effect on her life. Her health, wellbeing and relationships with others had suffered and she suffered self-harm, sleep deprivation and an eating disorder as a result of what happened to her, she claims.