A man who was sexually abused as a teenager by a Sydney cinema owner has been awarded more than $1.3 million in damages.
The 50-year-old sued Philip William Doyle for injuries he said he sustained from being sexually assaulted by the owner of the Kogarah Mecca Cinema in the late 1980s.
In the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Justice David Davies awarded the man $1,353,850 which included amounts for past and future economic loss, and for stress, anxiety and hurt feelings.
Owner of the Kogarah Mecca Cinema, Philip William Doyle, has been sued $1,353,850 by a man he assaulted in the 1980s
‘Quite apart from the psychiatric injury which the plaintiff developed at a later time, the plaintiff undoubtedly suffered shame and hurt, and feelings of disgust about himself whilst he was a teenager,’ he said.
‘Those feelings clearly continued into his adulthood because of the difficulty he had in disclosing the sexual assaults both to family members and in the context of group counselling.’
Doyle, now 79, was jailed in 2012 after being convicted of sex offences against the then teenager, a person under the age of 16.
He didn’t give evidence at the civil hearing.
Justice Davies accepted the plaintiff’s evidence in relation to four sexual assaults, including one which occurred after Doyle persuaded the boy to pose for photos wearing a pair of very tight Speedos.
He told the teenager he had connections to the modelling world and said, ‘You would make a good model, you have nice skin’.
‘I consider that the plaintiff was an honest witness who gave his evidence in a matter-of-fact way without emotion or embellishment.,’ he said.
‘Indeed, the lack of any emotion tended to provide support for the depressive disorder diagnosed by the psychiatrists’
The judge also was ‘entirely satisfied’ the sexual assaults caused or substantially contributed to his psychiatric diagnosis.
Justice Davies accepted the plaintiff’s evidence in relation to four sexual assaults while he was underage, including one which occurred after Doyle persuaded the boy to pose for photos wearing a pair of very tight Speedos
The man said he started to become a different person after the incidents, feeling dirty and disgusted with himself, while his level of confidence in himself and his identity began to crumble.
‘He would retreat from social situations, and he became a loner, feeling he had nothing good to offer anyone as a friend or person.’
He said he developed addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, and pornography in his late teens, and would become obsessive about keeping control of his life and privacy.
He feared being exposed as ‘the dirty, disgusting, pathetic boy that he felt he had become’, losing all sense of direction and ambition.
‘He felt these incidents set a pattern for his life and had a negative impact on all his relationships with family and friends, as well as his career.’
His ex-wife and his daughter referred to him as being uninterested, unemotional and disconnected from life.
They said he struggled with expressing his emotions and had difficulty dealing with personal conflict.
‘The evidence demonstrates that the plaintiff has been badly affected as a result of these assaults from the age of 15 to the present,’ the judge said.
‘Subject to the success of any treatment he undergoes, he is likely to experience the effects of them for the remainder of his life.
‘All that can reasonably be expected is some improvement.
‘He has suffered a life-long injury, principally from the wrongdoing of the defendant.’
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk