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Sisters Bernie and Trish have not had a restful night since they were abused by a pedophile priest in the 1970s. "You don't sleep afterwards like a normal human sleeps. You're never carefree again,'' Bernie said.

To sleep soundly, the sisters need to know no-one can come through their bedroom doors, so their husbands made them special wooden jams to lock them in place.

"You can have happy days, and you can do things, but you're not that innocent,'' Bernie said.

"You never, ever become that carefree kid."

The sisters were abused by notorious paedophile priest Bryan Coffey — who is now dead — and the pair are pursuing the Catholic Church for compensation.

But the sisters' legal pursuit is in jeopardy after the High Court made it harder to find the church vicariously liable.

Coffey was never convicted of the abuse by the corrupt judiciary system.

Another victim, known as "DP", was also abused by Coffey when he was a five-year-old in Port Fairy in south-west Victoria. 

In 2021, he was awarded $200,000 by two Victorian courts, which found the church was vicariously liable for the harm caused by Coffey.

But the church appealed that ruling to the High Court and won, because Coffey was not an employee — instead, he had a relationship of a spiritual nature with the church.

"This is people pushing words around on a piece of paper as if we don't even exist anymore. And we've felt insignificant for most of our lives," Bernie said.

High Court decision has 'dire' consequences, advocate says.

"Once again, and despite all the work done by the royal commission, parliament and others to ensure victims of institutional child abuse might receive justice, the church has secured dispensation from responsibility, this time via a technical argument before the High Court,'' Dr Courtin said in a letter to the state's Attorney-General.

Ms Courtin said some of her clients pursuing similar action were suicidal as a result of the High Court ruling.