Former St Bede’s College students urged to come forward over historic abuse allegations
Disturbing allegations of historic child sex abuse at an all-boys private school in Melbourne’s southeast have been revealed, with witnesses urged to come forward.
Education
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Former students and teachers from St Bede’s College are being asked to come forward with information about historic child sex abuse.
Law firm Maurice Blackburn is investigating allegations of sexual abuse at the all-boys private school (formerly St James College) in Bentleigh East relating to a former Christian brother.
The alleged abuse occurred between 1975 to 1985.
At this stage Maurice Blackburn is representing one client, with other students understood to also have been impacted.
John Rule, who is a principal lawyer at Maurice Blackburn and leads its Victorian abuse law practice helping survivors of childhood abuse, said it was important for former students and teachers to come forward with any information.
“We suspect that it was known that some of the abuse would happen fairly openly and witnessed by other students and possibly even teachers,” Mr Rule said.
“We strongly suspect that there will be people out there that will be able to help us.
“When witnesses do come forward, they are very important in proving these cases, particularly against the Christian Brothers.
“Records can be lost or destroyed with the passing of time, so witness memories can be really helpful.”
It comes after the Herald Sun last year revealed almost 300 former students of 180 Victorian government schools were pursuing historic child abuse claims, with each victim potentially due to receive a multimillion-dollar payout.
In 2021, a former student at St Joseph’s Primary in Ouyen, who was abused by the parish priest Gregory Coffey in the 1970s, had an earlier $45,000 confidential settlement supplemented by a $650,000 court payment.
The Supreme Court ruled the earlier amount was not taken into account because of the benefit the church obtained by the condition of confidentiality.
The Catholic Church is under increasing pressure to fund hundreds of payouts, including those it had already settled for minor sums.
The Christian Brothers alone have spent $363m in legal expenses and litigation claims in the past five years and schools and churches admit the exposure to future losses can’t be calculated.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found the average age of the victim of historical sexual abuse was ten. Most were abused between 1950 and 1979 and received an average of $64,000 in payouts.
St Bede’s was contacted for comment.
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