CAMPAIGNING abuse victim Kevin Young has won a landmark legal victory, which could pave the way for thousands of others to sue for compensation.

A judge has allowed the 45-year-old York man to press ahead with legal action against the Home Office and the Roman Catholic Church over alleged abuse at two children's homes when he was a youngster, including St Camillus near Tadcaster.

The Government and church had tried to block the claim on the grounds that too much time had passed since the offences were said to have taken place. Under the 1980 Limitation Act, claims need to be lodged within three years of an attack.

But Mr Young successfully argued at Leeds County Court that he had been so badly affected psychologically that he had not fully realised the significance of any injury until much later.

His solicitor, David Greenwood, argued there was provision in the Act to allow people to pursue claims from a "date of knowledge".

Mr Greenwood, of Wakefield firm Jordans, said the indications were that both the Home Office and church intended to appeal against the decision.

Mr Young said his aim in taking on the case was not just about winning damages, but to establish that the Statute of Limitations should not be allowed to prevent victims of child abuse seeking damages later on in their lives.

"It's an unjust law," he said.

"I'm hoping that I can show other victims of abuse that there is a way forward and despite the fact that everything seems against you, you can get to a point where you can begin to see a better world out there."

Mr Young, who works for pressure group Survivors North East, was abused by Neville Husband while he was serving a short sentence at Medomsley Detention Centre in 1977 for burglary and handling stolen goods.

Husband, who became a church minister after quitting the prison service, was jailed for eights years in 2003 after admitting a string of horrific assaults on five teenage boys at the centre in County Durham in the 1970s and 1980s, including Mr Young, who then lodged a compensation claim against the Home Office, who ran the detention centre.

He said the Home Office had now offered an apology but he had not formally accepted it as yet.

He said he had also made a claim against Catholic Care, of the church's Leeds diocese, alleging he had been abused while staying in the 1970s at St Camillus, a children's home at Scarthingwell, near Tadcaster, for which the church had responsibility.

A Home Office spokesman said today a decision had not yet been made on whether to appeal against the decision. "It's too early to say," he said, adding that he was unable to comment on what was ongoing litigation.

A spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Leeds said he was unable to comment at this stage.

'Regime of terror'

A FIVE-YEAR investigation into abuse allegations at St Camillus residential school, dubbed Operation Courier, ended in January this year when a former school master, Anver Sheikh, was convicted on a retrial.

Several members of staff were earlier prosecuted, but acquitted during a series of trials, while home manager James Bernard Littlewood was jailed for 13 years for cruelty and sex offences at the home and another in Lincolnshire - although his sentence was later cut to 11 years.

Mr Young, along with many other complainants, made allegations against the home, although the prosecution took seven other cases to court. Mr Young told the Evening Press earlier this year the home was a brutal place. "It felt like a regime of terror from the moment you walked in," he claimed.

City of York Council apologised to Mr Young last autumn, and awarded him £500 in compensation, over the way he was treated after he complained to the authority about sexually explicit pictures of the late former council leader Rod Hills, which he had found in the street.

The council wrongly passed on his name and address to solicitors acting for Coun Hills, and then took more than two years to deal with a complaint by Mr Young about its actions.

Updated: 09:59 Thursday, November 24, 2005