‘Dreadful price’: Compensation claim ruling over alleged RAAF sex assault

A junior RAAF woman who was allegedly raped on her airbase has been handed a development in her claim for compensation.

A junior RAAF woman allegedly raped on her airbase will receive compensation after initially being rejected because the assault was after hours and not during her shift.

The Department of Veterans Affairs accepted the woman was suffering PTSD as a result of her ordeal at the hands of another RAAF member and subsequent failings by the service.

But it said under the Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, service members did not have 24-hour coverage on barracks unless they were on a Navy ship or on operations. Her injury did not arise directly from her “on-duty employment” and it was not liable.

Now in a formal ruling the DVA has accepted the claim after intervention on behalf of the woman by RSL Victoria and Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner Gwen Cherne.

The move also came after the RAAF accepted it had mishandled how it dealt with the case for which the woman and her family “had paid a dreadful price with health and wellbeing”.

RAAF Base East Sale personnel conducted a parade to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the formation of the base in 1943 and has served as a training and operational base for more than seven decades. Picture: Defence

The case ends years of wrangling and highlights apparent gaps in DVA laws dealing with compensation claims.

RSL Victoria, which legally took on the case in July last year, described the result as a “more compassionate and commonsense outcome” for what had been a dreadful ordeal for the woman and an immoral wrong-at-law ruling.

The woman was stationed at RAAF Base East Sale in Victoria in the 1990s when she finished her shift and went to the base’s “boozer” to socialise.

She struck up a conversation with a colleague and both agreed to chat more at her accommodation in the women’s quarters to talk privately about his relationship breakdown with another RAAF member.

CH-47F Chinook helicopters were dispatched to RAAF Base East Sale from 5 Aviation Regiment in Townsville in support of firefighting operations as well as humanitarian assistance to remote and isolated communities during there 2020 Victorian bushfire crisis.

The woman initially liked him and they kissed but she did not want sex, particularly since he technically still had a girlfriend, but he allegedly became physical and said “we have come this far so you can’t say no to me”.

She said she was struck by fear and felt he would physically hurt her if she did not submit despite her persistent protests of “no”.

When she later reported the alleged assault to an RAAF chaplain, he challenged why she did not scream and during a meeting with her parents suggested she just needed to “move on” if she valued her career.

A C-130 at RAAF Base East Sale. Picture: Mark Stewart

The matter was reported to senior officers but was not investigated by RAAF police. When the woman was later reposted to RAAF Base Townsville, to her horror, so too had her alleged attacker.

It was not till six years after she was discharged from the Air Force that she reported the matter to civilian police who another three years later arrested and charged the man. He was committed to stand trial but the DPP later dropped the case.

The woman has made a detailed submission to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide noting shortcomings of RAAF culture and chaplaincy service, both of which the RAAF said has since been overhauled.

“I sincerely hope that by coming forward to speak with the royal commission and telling my story that the RAAF will change the way in which it deals with victims of sexual assault and that other young women will not have to endure what I did during my service,” the woman said.