Dutch Catholic church to offer more abuse victims compensation

The Dutch Catholic church plans to offer other victims of sexual abuse, whose cases have not been formalised, some form of compensation, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.

The committee investigating the abuse has determined that 250 cases are not proven, mainly because there were no other complaints about the priest concerned.

The new ruling has been prompted by a statement in parliament by the head of the complaints commission two years ago.

Wiel Stevens said at the time he had no doubt that most of the rejected complaints were also true. The rules then did not allow any compensation payments to be made to those victims.

The committee has processed 1,100 claims of abuse out of around 1,900 complaints and over 800 have been declared proven. In total, almost 600 people have received €17.5m in compensation, the Volkskrant says.