A FORMER trainee priest has claimed he was sexually abused by a senior cleric while at college.
The man, now in his 50s, is one of four alleged victims of Catholic churchmen to come forward since it was revealed the Vatican was investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against the former head of Scotland's Catholics, Cardinal Keith O'Brien.
Cardinal O'Brien is accused of inappropriate behaviour relating to six priests and former priests.
However, the latest allegations against the Catholic Church do not relate to Cardinal O'Brien.
The four alleged victims have reportedly contacted lawyers within the past week, and include a man and woman who say they were abused by parish priests as children and a man who says he was abused by monks in a home in the 1970s.
The most recent accusation concerns a man who claims he was sexually and physically abused while training at St Vincent's seminary in Langbank, Renfrewshire, in the 1970s. Now a businessman in his 50s, the alleged victim says he was abused by a priest and a man who became a bishop but is now dead.
He said he reported the crimes to the Church in the 1980s, but did not want distress his family by revealing what had happened.
The latest claims come days after The Herald revealed two new individuals had approached the Catholic Church over allegations of abuse by Cardinal O'Brien, including one who said he was groped by the cardinal at Scots College in the Vatican in October 2003, hours after he had been given the red mitre.
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