A 59-year-old man who was sexually assaulted once by church officials while living in a Catholic boarding school in Limburg is taking legal action against the church for years of physical abuse.

In an interview with the Volkskrant, the man says he was kicked and punched as a teenager over a period of several years. ‘I was literally beaten into hospital five times,’ the man said. ‘But the church does not comment on this sort of abuse.’

The case will be heard on March 11. The paper says it is the first time a victim of church physical abuse has gone to court. The man was earlier given €25,000 compensation for the sex attack he endured.

The Catholic church’s own sexual abuse register does not include physical abuse because it is ‘outside its remit’, the paper said.

‘This is another example of the formal way some church authorities deal with victims,’ the man’s lawyer Martin de Witte told the paper. ‘They only do what is strictly necessary.’