Supreme Court order puts permanent stay on historic Cherbourg sexual abuse allegations

A man who alleges he endured sickening sexual and physical abuse over multiple years as a Ward of the State has learnt his search for justice will be delayed indefinitely as the only people who could corroborate his accusations are dead.

Cherbourg. Picture: Liam Kidston

The Supreme Court has put an indefinite hold on a 65-year-old man’s search for justice after he came forward with allegations of historic sexual and physical abuse while he was a ward of the state.

The Brisbane man was surrendered to the state around his second birthday, in 1960, and sent to live at Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement under the care of the Director of Native Affairs, staying first in the Mothers and Babies Quarters, and later the Girls Dormitory.

He alleged that while in Girls’ Dormitory, it was common for young children to be primarily cared for by older wards, usually Indigenous teen girls.

It was girls who the man alleged sexually abused him nightly, over several years, by passing him around the dorm after ‘lights’ and forcing him to perform oral sex on them.

He further claimed that the abuse started when he was four years old.

The Girls' dormitory building at Cherbourg, 1933. It burnt to the ground in 1998. Picture: State Library of Queensland

The man made an application to sue the state of Queensland for trauma and suffering resulting from this alleged abuse, which the state denied.

He claimed $6.2m in damages for negligence and $250,000 in exemplary damages.

The man also alleged that one of these assaults was witnessed by a dormitory supervisor employed by the state and as punishment he was taken to the rear of the dormitories and sprayed with a high pressure hose until he was crying loudly in pain.

The man alleges he was then locked in a ‘the women’s jail’ at site for several hours in wet clothing.

The third set of allegations related to a camping trip where the boys were taken to a place called ‘the weir’.

The man alleges there were only two adult supervisors in charge of a large number of children, from young children to teens.

The court was told that during this trip three boys, aged in their late teens, took the plaintiff into a tent and raped him.

The man made an application to sue the state claiming it failed in its duty to protect him from older boys and girls living in the dormitories, that it failed to provide him with his own bed, and failed to monitor or supervise the Girls’ Dormitory.

He further claims that the degree of authority the state bestowed to older teen girls established a sufficiently close connection to hold the state vicariously liable for their actions. Documents tendered to the court state the boy left Cherbourg when he was nine-years-old and handed back to his mother but quickly fell into substance abuse and crime.

Two psychiatric reports stated that the man suffered from alcohol and gambling addictions, persistent depressive disorder and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder.

However, the reports’ authors were unable to conclusively link the disorders to the alleged abuse, saying that being taken from his mother as an infant, along with the anti-social conditions he endured upon his return to his family would have contributed to his decline.

In arguing for a stay, the lawyers for the state denied any instances of sexual abuse.

They went on to say that their investigations could not find anyone to corroborate the man’s allegations and that the investigation relied on witnesses who had passed away several years ago.

They include the dormitory supervisor who died in 1982, the dormitory manager who died in 1983 and the key offender in the alleged rape during the camping trip, who died in 2008.

The state argued that any discussion about damages rests on proving that the man was abused, and he would be the only person who could provide evidence.

This was compounded by an absence of documents or records relating to the alleged abuse.

Further to this the state was able to identify only one witness who recalled seeing the man detained in the dormitory jail after the alleged hosing incident.

Justice Lincoln Crowley ordered a permanent stay on the proceeds and for the plaintiff to pay the defendants costs.

“I am satisfied that the continuation of the proceedings would be an abuse of process,” he said.

“It would be unfairly oppressive and prejudicial to the State and would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

“The trial of the proceedings would be a trial in name only.

“The state’s inability to meaningfully respond to the allegations and participate in the trial process, insofar as the crucial foundational allegations are concerned, would render the proceedings a ‘solemn farce’.”