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.
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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.
03:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]