Half a million could be added to disgraced John Wayne Millwood's record-breaking $5.3m child abuse payout figure

A convicted child sexual abuser could be forced to dip into his priceless colonial artwork collection to pay a record-breaking $5.3 million to his sexual abuse victim. FULL STORY >>

DISGRACED Launceston arts collector John Wayne Millwood could be forced to dip into his priceless colonial artwork collection to pay a record-breaking $5.3 million to his sexual abuse victim.

And that figure is growing, with the Supreme Court of Tasmania now ordering the convicted child sexual abuser also pay his victim’s legal bill - which could add an extra $500,000 to the payout figure.

The victim-survivor, who is now pursuing enforcement action, questioned why Millwood still hadn’t paid the $5,313,500 figure - believed to be the highest child sexual abuse payout on the public record in Australian history.

Millwood, the former Launceston Pathology practice boss, has a valuable colonial art collection with works by the likes of John Glover, Tom Roberts, Frederick Strange and Thomas Bock.

Convicted child sexual abuser John Millwood with a circa 1835 John Glover portrait. Picture: Renee Nowytarger

On Wednesday, Supreme Court of Tasmania Chief Justice Alan Blow noted Millwood caused “great stress” to his victim and made the civil proceedings “prolonged and expensive”.

Chief Justice Blow also noted Millwood had tried to argue the child had consented to the sexual abuse and that his victim was “delusional”.

“The result of the way in which the defendant conducted his defence was that the proceedings were prolonged unnecessarily and inappropriately, and great stress was caused to the plaintiff,” he said.

“It is significant that the plaintiff was psychiatrically vulnerable, that the defendant knew that, and that that was the defendant’s fault.

“In all the circumstances, I think it would be unjust for the plaintiff not to be fully compensated for his costs of pursuing his action.”

The abuse survivor welcomed the costs decision, saying he hoped it would “lay the foundation” in future legal proceedings so other victims in similar situations “might endure less trauma than I have”.

John Millwood with his 1838 John Glover painting Twenty Miles from Rome.

Millwood was sentenced to four years’ jail in December 2016 after he ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person.

The high-profile case revealed he’d molested a young boy under the guise of carrying out medical examinations between 1983 to 1989.

He successfully applied for parole after about two years in custody.

Millwood also spent years stalking, harassing, threatening and “gaslighting” his victim - attempting to take action for defamation relating to the abuse allegations and hiring private detectives to place witnesses under surveillance.

Millwood was instrumental behind the establishment of the John Glover Society in 2002, and in having a $110,000 statue of Glover installed at Evandale during 2003.

Calls were later made for the statue to be removed amid claims it looked more like Millwood than Glover.

Follow @ambervwilson

Originally published as Half a million could be added to disgraced John Wayne Millwood's record-breaking $5.3m child abuse payout figure