The State of Western Australia is appealing the entire basis of a judgement which awarded a Perth man nearly $3 million in compensation for abuse he suffered while he was in state care.<\/p>\n
It is also appealing the amount that was awarded to Dion Barber, which has been described as the largest for a sexual abuse survivor in Western Australia.<\/p>\n
A successful appeal would have major implications for other abuse survivors planning legal action.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dion Barber received what has been described as the largest payout for a sexual abuse survivor in WA. (ABC News: Cy Millington)<\/p>\n
Mr Barber suffered abuse while a ward of the state in the 1980s and 1990s, and at one point the WA Department of Community Services placed him with his mother and sexually abusive stepfather.<\/p>\n
The abuse survivor, now in his forties, took legal action against the state over the harm he suffered at the hands of relatives and others while in state care, and District Court Judge Linda Black awarded Mr Barber more than $2.8 million.<\/p>\n
What are the grounds for appeal?<\/p>\n
The ABC revealed last month that an appeal had been lodged by the state, and has now seen the grounds, which are based on three key areas.<\/p>\n
The first is that the state shouldn’t be held liable because its workers acted in good faith when making decisions about Mr Barber’s placements, including the steps to return him to his mother and abusive stepfather.<\/p>\n
Man awarded almost $3 million for sexual abuse in state care<\/a><\/p>\n Perth man Dion Barber, who was repeatedly sexually abused at successive state care placements, is awarded almost $3 million in compensation by a judge.\u00a0<\/p>\n After Mr Barber had suffered further abuse from his stepfather, which wasn’t known to the department at the time, he was placed with his father.<\/p>\n But his father was physically abusive, and while he also offended against his son sexually, the department did not know.<\/p>\n The appeal grounds say that the judge made an error because, by acting in good faith, the officers and the Director General were “immune from liability”.<\/p>\n The second ground suggests the judge erred by assessing the risk of harm to the boy “too broadly”, by considering the state’s duty of care regarding physical abuse and not specifically sexual abuse.<\/p>\n This issue relates to a placement with his father who was known to have been physically violent but was not known, at the time the boy was put there, to be sexually abusive.<\/p>\n Mr Barber took legal action against the state over the harm he suffered at the hands of relatives and others. He is pictured with his lawyer Hugo Seymour. (ABC News: David Weber)<\/p>\n The appeal ground asserts that only the risk of sexual abuse should have been considered because this is what the legal action was based on.<\/p>\n If you or anyone you know needs help:Suicide Call Back Service<\/a> on 1300 659 467Lifeline<\/a> on 13 11 14Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support line 13YARN<\/a>\u00a0on 13 92 76Kids Helpline<\/a> on 1800 551 800Beyond Blue<\/a> on 1300 224 636Headspace<\/a> on 1800 650 890ReachOut<\/a> at au.reachout.com<\/a>MensLine Australia<\/a> on 1300 789 978SANE<\/a>\u00a0on 1800 187 263<\/p>\n The third ground suggests the amount awarded to Mr Barber was too high.<\/p>\n It’s being submitted that the judge should have considered whether events “other than the appellant’s negligence” may have caused Mr Barber to suffer harm.<\/p>\n In other words, his ongoing issues could be considered to be the result of abuse which occurred before the involvement of the department, and state care, given that he had been a victim years before that.<\/p>\n And it’s suggested his mother’s rejection of him wasn’t the fault or responsibility of the department.<\/p>\n Legal costs in Mr Barber’s case are yet to be determined.<\/p>\n ‘Can’t hide behind good faith’<\/p>\n Mr Barber labelled the grounds of appeal “disgraceful” and said he was concerned it would deter other survivors from taking legal action.<\/p>\n “It’s taking the power away from the victim and it’s disgraceful,” he told ABC Radio Perth.<\/p>\n “That’s why I’m here fighting it still. I’m not just going to lie down and let them do what they’re doing.<\/p>\n “You can’t hide behind good faith.<\/p>\n “Why don’t they focus in on changing the system, so it doesn’t continue to happen?”<\/p>\n WA Attorney-General Tony Buti said the state was not seeking to recover Mr Barber’s compensation.<\/p>\n Tony Buti says Mr Barber has his compensation and the state government will not be seeking to recover it. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)<\/p>\n “He has been awarded $2.8 million by the District Court. He has that money, we will not be seeking to recover that money,” he said.<\/p>\n When asked whether the appeal would make it more difficult for victim survivors of child sex abuse to pursue cases against the state, Mr Buti said it would not be appropriate to comment on a matter that was before the court.<\/p>\n “We are appealing on grounds of law, that need to be clarified and that is not unusual,” he said.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The State of Western Australia is appealing the entire basis of a judgement which awarded a Perth man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,161034,123090,161033,123093,44,14666,86,14665,45],"class_list":["post-277517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-child-sex-abuse-appeal","tag-dion-barber","tag-dion-barber-appeal","tag-dion-barber-compensation","tag-news","tag-perth-courts","tag-perth-news","tag-wa-courts","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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