Lawyer in the news

Who? Richard Scorer, 35-year-old personal injury partner in 63-partner Manchester-based law firm Pannone & Partners.

Why is he in the news? Represents the victims of Father Michael Hill, a Catholic priest who was sentenced last week to a second five-year term of imprisonment for abuse of children.

The case has got wide publicity because of allegations that Cormac-Murphy O'Connor, now Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales, turned a blind eye to Hill's activities while Bishop of Arundel and Brighton in 1980s and 1990s.

Archbishop O'Connor has admitted to 'mistakes' in his handling of the case.

Background: Degree in history from Edinburgh University, 1985-89, followed by a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania in the US.

He completed the CPE and Law Society finals at Birmingham Polytechnic (now the University of the West of England) 1990-92, and qualified with Pannone & Partners in 1994.

He became partner in 1998.

Route to the case: 'I represented a large number of abuse victims in the north Wales child abuse inquiry from 1996 to 1998, and in 1998, two of Hill's victims approached me having been unable to secure representation elsewhere.

It was publicity surrounding those cases that brought other victims to me.'

Thoughts on the case: 'There is a lot of anger among victims about what they perceive as the Catholic church's failure to take the child abuse issue seriously.

Claims have been brought not primarily for money but out of a determination to make the church wake up to the issue.

Parallels have been drawn with the scandals in the US, but the one big difference is that damages in the US are so much higher and American dioceses may be bankrupted by claims.

Although there is little chance of this happening here, publicity about these cases forced the church to set up the Nolan committee and appoint a non-Catholic to oversee child protection, so the publicity surrounding these cases has brought some positive reforms.'

Dealing with the media: 'I have been dealing with the media on abuse cases for several years now - there is always a lot of interest, particularly in Catholic cases.

However, I have to tread a fine line because the press always want details of a client's personal experience and, even where a client wants to talk to the press, we need to ensure that identifying details are not put into the public domain.'

Victoria MacCallum