More than 180 schools in Victoria facing legal action

More than 180 Victorian schools are facing legal action over historical sexual abuse allegations launched by hundreds of former students.

Transcript

00:00 These plaintiffs are seeking multi-million dollar payouts for the trauma that they've

00:05 suffered and the law firm Arnold Thomas and Becker says that it's currently running more

00:11 than 260 civil claims across the state involving almost 300 former students.

00:18 They attended around 180 government schools, 70 of those schools were state schools while

00:24 the others were independent, religious or even specialist schools.

00:29 And they say that the increase in the number of people coming forward was first influenced

00:34 by the revelations that came out from the Royal Commission into institutional responses

00:39 to child sex abuse.

00:41 But in recent years the numbers have increased even further because there are more and more

00:46 plaintiffs that are demanding to stand up for themselves and to be heard.

00:52 And they're saying that what they're hearing from these former students is that some clients

00:57 are alleging that their families notified these schools, however their investigations

01:03 have revealed that in some cases the schools failed to properly investigate the claims

01:09 and in some cases even tried to cover them up.

01:13 They've also said that their investigations have uncovered the fact that there have often

01:17 been multiple victims to a single predator.

01:21 So they're concerned that there are many more potential former students who have been abused

01:26 who are out there and still haven't come forward.

01:30 And they say that they're very pleased to see that the Victorian Government is launching

01:36 an inquiry into historical sex abuse allegations at Victorian schools but there are still systemic

01:42 issues that need to be addressed, like the policies that I mentioned about investigating

01:48 some of those alleged abuses as well as notification.

01:53 And they say that that is an inherent failure that still exists in the system.

01:58 They're also warning plaintiffs to be wary of looking at the Government's redress scheme

02:04 because that only offers an individual payout of $150,000 maximum for each individual claim.

02:13 However they say that in many cases that is quite low and unfair for the level of abuse

02:19 that these victims have suffered.

02:22 And they've pointed to a case study involving three brothers who were abused by a teacher

02:28 called Ian Perry back in the 80s and early 90s.

02:33 So that went from 1980 to 1993.

02:38 And Ian Perry has been convicted already of some of those abuse allegations.

02:44 One of the brothers has already had his case settled in the courts while two others are

02:50 still pursuing action.

02:52 And one of those brothers has said that no amount of money will give back what he has

02:58 lost.

02:59 He says that he was just six years old at the time and he was denied the life of a child.

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