By Caroline Schelle and Noel Towell
A convicted killer is suing his old Melbourne Catholic school, alleging sexual abuse he suffered there as a teenager set him on a path to a life of crime.
The case is part of a wave of hundreds of actions against Victorian schools over historical abuse claims by former students, with one law firm alone investigating more than 470 cases involving some 300 schools.
Hundreds of schools face actions over historical child abuse claims.Credit: James Alcock
The convicted murderer is serving a 21-year prison term but launched legal action seeking compensation from the school, where he alleges the headmaster sexually exploited him in the 1990s.
The school denies the murderer was abused in its care and alleges he was a serial bully who terrorised and assaulted students.
Legal restrictions on publicly identifying complainants in sexual assault cases mean that the school, the headmaster and the convicted murderer cannot be named.
The accused principal, who has consistently denied the allegations, has returned to public ministry at a religious order after what it described as an independent civil investigation, which found the allegations against him were unsubstantiated.
In legal documents before the County Court, the killer alleges he was abused as a 14-year-old at the boys’ school, resulting in post-traumatic stress and personality disorders, alcohol and drug dependence and a spiral into homelessness, violent crime and jail.
He was ordered to serve at least 18 years after pleading guilty to the murder of a stranger on the orders of another man.
Along with two accomplices, the killer, who had previously been jailed for another attack on a stranger, beat the murder victim to death in a premeditated attack and dumped his body near a beach.
Now well into his sentence, the murderer is seeking compensation from the school for loss of earning capacity and past and future medical expenses – but not for any financial loss for his time behind bars.
The school and headmaster deny the allegations and in a legal defence filed to the court, the institution’s lawyers claim the prisoner engaged in a litany of bizarre and disturbing behaviour while he was a student.
This included fighting, smearing bird faeces on other students, creating a list of students he wanted to bully, and saying he wanted to be a Nazi and kill people.
The school’s lawyers suggest the boy was on the path to criminality by his early to mid-teens, regardless of whether he was sexually abused or not.
The school informed police – under mandatory reporting protocols – of the former student’s allegations, but an investigation by detectives from the Box Hill sexual offences and child abuse team has not led to any charges being laid. The civil case against the school is expected to go to trial next year.
Separately, legal cases from former students alleging they were sexually abused at schools are flooding the courts.
One law firm, Arnold Thomas and Becker, is investigating more than 470 claims against about 300 private, public and Catholic schools – or more than 10 per cent of the state’s schools.
Kim Price, head of the firm’s institutional abuse practice, said it received dozens of calls each month.
“Our extensive investigations into schools provided us with critical information about which schools have failed to keep their students safe, and we now also know of the numerous schools which had received complaints of abuse, but did nothing about these complaints or removed the offender from the school,” he said.
Price also warned people to be wary of the government’s redress scheme, after his firm launched a class action for compensation for abuse survivors who were allegedly short-changed by legal firm Knowmore Legal Service.
“Of the people who will make up the class action, we anticipate that around 30 per cent will have been abused at a school.”
Compensation payouts for institutional sexual abuse cases can run into the millions of dollars, with one claimant pursuing damages of nearly $5 million from exclusive Xavier College.
Rightside Legal, which represents the claimant in the Xavier case, says it too has acted for hundreds of abuse survivors, with many more cases pending.
“The legacy of abusive teachers is so vast that the biggest list in the Supreme Court of Victoria is dedicated to the management of survivors’ claims,” Rightside partner Grace Wilson said.
The Victorian government has vowed to establish a statewide independent “truth-telling process” for victim-survivors of sexual abuse at government schools before 2000, in response to recommendations by the Beaumaris Board of Inquiry.
The Education Department has promised a review by an independent monitor of historical child sexual abuse cases that have emerged through civil cases.
“The way in which the department responds to allegations of sexual abuse has changed considerably in recent years, and we encourage all victim-survivors to come forward, so perpetrators can be held to account,” a spokesman said.
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