Five men who ac­cused the State of fail­ing to pro­tect them against sex­u­al and phys­i­cal abuse at a chil­dren’s home in Bel­mont decades ago have filed a law­suit su­ing the Ro­man Catholic Church and the State.

In a law­suit filed on Oc­to­ber 8, the men are su­ing the St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home (al­so re­ferred to as the Bel­mont Or­phan­age), the Ro­man Catholic Arch­dio­cese in Port-of-Spain, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, and a for­mer em­ploy­ee at the chil­dren’s home who was lat­er charged with bug­gery, at­tempt­ed bug­gery and se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to one of the five vic­tims, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied be­cause of the na­ture of the of­fences.