THE ex-verger of Lancaster Priory, jailed for sexually assaulting young boys, is the subject of an imminent legal battle for compensation by one of his victims. A 33-year-old man who was abused by Gordon Clark as a pupil at Stonecross school in Ulverston, Cumbria, is planning to sue Lancashire County Council for an ordeal he suffered 17 years ago. The victim, now a manual worker living in the county, claims he has been scarred for life and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown after falling prey to Clark in his teens.

Clark was jailed for four years in 1980 after being convicted of six counts of indecency against boys at Stonecross boarding school which has since been closed down.

Once released back into the community, Clark struck again. In April 1996 after he had been appointed verger at Lancaster Priory and even appeared on the BBC's Songs of Praise he was sentenced to a second spell behind bars. A jury at Preston Crown Court convicted him of three indecent assaults on a boy in the Furness area and he was jailed for five years. Clark, who was in his fifties at the time of the trial, had a house on Lune Street in Lancaster and was married with two grown up children.

Before the trial Clark pleaded guilty to six other sexual offences relating to earlier assaults on children in the 1970s when he was employed as a social worker including one incident relating to Stonecross. In a statement released by the Church of England at the time, a spokesman said they were unaware of Clark's previous convictions when he was appointed verger at Lancaster Priory.

A spokesman for the County Council said it was inappropriate for them to make a comment at the moment.

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