Former resident of notorious Stolen Generations home successfully sues Australia, religious group

A former resident of a notorious home for Stolen Generations children, he has successfully sued the federal government and a religious group for sexual abuse he claims he suffered in their care.

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The outcome opens another avenue for former residents of Retta Dixon - a Darwin-based care home that mainly housed Indigenous children removed from their families, according to the man's legal team.

It ended a years-long legal battle brought by the man in his 50 s who did not wish to be named.

The home was the focus of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse in 2014, which heard graphic details of sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated against children in the home before it closed in 1980.

While other former residents have previously received compensation through a class action, a man filed a civil lawsuit seeking compensation for sexual abuse he was accused of at the home of other boys as a young child.

The documents filed in the Supreme Court of Northern Territory in 2020 alleged he was helpless and powerless to resist abuse that was repeated in a violent and destructive way on numerous occasions. Court records show the legal action brought by Maurice Blackburn against the Commonwealth and Australian Indigenous Ministries AIM in July.

Heather Kerley said her client was compensated after the parties reached an agreement in a court-ordered mediation process.

She said that it was a strongly fought case, both by me and by my client.

We can't underestimate how difficult it is for survivors of abuse to go through this kind of legal process now and what this means to other survivors through his strength and through this precedent is that they won't have to. The settlement is confidential, but earlier documents show that he had been seeking more than $1 million.

Case sets precedent for others to follow.

The civil suit alleged that both the government, which was responsible for children in the home, and the church group, then allegedly known as Aborigines Inland Mission, had breached their duty of care to the complainant.

Australian Indigenous Ministries denied it was the same entity as Aborigines Inland Mission, and the federal government denied it was vicariously responsible for staff at the home.

Ms Kerley said her legal team successfully established Australian Indigenous Ministries was a successor of the previous organisation, setting a precedent she described as a landmark abuse law judgement.

She said that this is a lot easier for survivors from Retta Dixon and similar institutions to sue institutions and hold them accountable because of the recent legislative amendments.

There's a survivor of abuse here, and legal avenues need to be open to them to pursue compensation without unnecessary hurdles. Legislative changes passed in May by the NT Parliament are intended to make it easier for survivors to pursue civil lawsuits, including by preventing institutions from avoiding historical claims on legal technicalities such as name changes and restructures.

Sex abuse survivors who lived at home are eligible for claims under the National Redress Scheme, but that bars them from further civil action.

AIM was not willing to make a statement due to the confidential settlement.

The federal government did not respond to a request for comment by the end of the day.