Disgraced Launceston arts collector ordered to pay sexual abuse survivor $5.3 million
A Launceston arts collector, who was jailed for molesting a boy in the 1980s, has now been ordered to pay his victim a record-breaking $5.3 million in damages.
Tasmania
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DISGRACED Launceston scientist and arts collector John Wayne Millwood has been ordered to pay a record-breaking $5.3 million to a man he sexually abused as a child during the 1980s.
Millwood, now 75, was released from Risdon Prison in March 2019, having served two years for abusing the child under the guise of carrying out medical examinations between 1983 to 1989.
The victim, now in his late 40s, appeared in the Supreme Court of Tasmania in July, telling Chief Justice Alan Blow how Millwood spent years stalking, harassing, threatening and “gaslighting” him after he confronted the former Launceston pathology practice boss in 1999.
The man was a high-achieving student, but said his future career was weighed down by post traumatic stress disorder and persistent depressive disorder due to Millwood’s abuse.
During the civil trial, the survivor’s lawyer said Millwood compounded his suffering with his “manipulativeness” and by making “outrageous” claims, including that the abuse was done without assault, with the victim’s consent, and that the victim himself had initiated the sexual contact.
The court also heard Millwood had harassed and threatened the man for 20 years, attempting to take action for defamation relating to the abuse allegations, hiring private detectives to place witnesses under surveillance, suggesting the man was “delusional” and making false allegations about his HIV status.
On Wednesday, Chief Justice Blow ruled in favour of the survivor, with a payout amount of $5,313,500 for pain and suffering, past and future medical and therapeutic expenses and loss of past and future earnings.
The survivor was represented by prominent silk Matthew Collins QC, who has acted for Rebel Wilson, Andrew Bolt, and Nine when it was being sued by Joe Hockey.
The survivor described the judgment as a “victory for all child sexual abuse survivors”.
“I saw this as a moral and ethical battle, not just a legal one,” he said.
“No survivor of child sex abuse should ever be subjected to victim-blaming, gaslighting, harassment, misuse of defamation laws, surveillance by private detectives intended to intimidate, and arguments that children can consent to sexual abuse.
“This judgment recognises the life-long impact of child sexual abuse.”
In his judgment, Chief Justice Blow said the sexual abuse had made the man’s life “a misery”.
“…it had devastating consequences for the plaintiff’s mental health,” he said.
“His adult life has been affected by his complex post-traumatic stress disorder and his depression in practically every possible way.”
The previous record for a child sexual abuse damages payout in Tasmania was believed to be $1.4 million – a sum decided in an out-of-court settlement last month to one of the 1980 victims of priest-turned-paedophile teacher Anthony Alan LeClerc.
Prior to that, the record was believed to have stood at $1.2 million, to a man who was brutally sexually abused at notorious boys’ reformatory Wybra Hall in the 1970s.
But the $5.3 million figure is almost certainly the highest, on record, in Australian history.
Angela Sdrinis, a lawyer who acted for LeClerc’s victims, said it was the biggest sum handed down by a court for child sexual abuse - and could set a precedent for future cases.
“I’m really proud of Tasmania, it’s just amazing,” she said.
“It feels to me, Tasmania in so many ways seems to be coming of age.
“It seems to me it’s becoming a really sophisticated, progressive, really great place, and I do see this verdict, everything happening, the Commission of Inquiry (into Tasmanian government responses to child sexual abuse), the settlements - it’s Tasmania’s coming of age.”
Millwood, an art enthusiast, helped establish the John Glover Society and got a $110,000 statue of Glover installed at Evandale during 2003.
Calls were made for the statue to be removed, with claims it looked more like Millwood than Glover.
Millwood was sentenced to four years’ jail in December 2016, with a non-parole period of two years, after he ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person.
The high-profile 2016 case made headlines as Millwood had honorary titles stripped from his name.
At both the hearing in July, and at Wednesday’s court judgment, Millwood was unrepresented and did not make an appearance.
He has been barred by the Parole Board from ever returning to Launceston.
Originally published as Disgraced Launceston arts collector ordered to pay sexual abuse survivor $5.3 million
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