Today in Parliament, Abigail contributed to a debate and the story telling of a particular case detailing the cruelty and failure of the law and justice system in relation to institutional child sexual abuse victim-survivors and their families.

Abigail said:

After the criminal prosecution was discontinued and the Ombudsman process failed, the families were strongly advised to turn to the civil law system. This course was not taken lightly. They told the Attorney General in 2024:

In 2013, we signed onto a civil case, under the advice from our then Barrister that our cases would take 12-18 months, and each of our cases would sit at around the $100k damages level.

They said they "felt it was a risk well worth taking for what we saw then as the last avenue available to us to ask a legal system to hear and respect our daughters' voices and enforce accountability onto the person who sexually abused them when they were 3 years old." At the start of that process, Aimee and Donna said:

Prior to signing that contract, we both made it very clear that we would not allow our daughters to take part in any hearing procedures to save them from the further harm and trauma of cross examination.

However, later they were told, "If the girls did not appear as witnesses, there was no chance of us winning." The case was elevated to the NSW Supreme Court. In September 2020, the hearing finally began. The mothers said that the first morning centred on whether their daughters would be required to take the stand. After argument, the defence withdrew that position. Donna and Aimee described that moment as "a huge personal win for us as mums, being able to take the hearing forward whilst protecting our girls." Justice Schmidt handed down judgment, in their words, "in favour of each of us four plaintiffs, with findings of negligence and vicarious liability." They were awarded substantial damages. Aimee and Donna said:

We were able to tell our daughters that the legal systems had finally heard their voices and delivered them justice.

Then, in a cruel twist, in 2022 that justice was stolen from underneath them once again. The New South Wales Court of Appeal overturned significant parts of the judgment. For Aimee, this overturning of the original judgement meant her family was ordered, in her words "to pay the costs of three defendants, for a court case that ultimately stretched out over 12 years." She added:

The costs are in the millions. If these costs are pursued, our family will go into bankruptcy. Our daughter will lose her home to the man who sexually abused her.

For Donna, it meant being dumped with more than $1 million in legal fees. In the words of Donna and Aimee:

This decision utterly devastated and destroyed us, we, as mums, had to pick ourselves up and deliver the news to our daughters. The legal systems had taken away the justice we had fought so hard for.

The response of Aimee's daughter Emilia was:

They didn't believe us mum, and they are saying to him that he did nothing wrong.

The families sought special leave to the High Court. That was refused on 11 November 2022. The mothers said:

We had to accept we'd finally hit the point, after 14 years, of not being able to write any more letters demanding answers, demanding reviews of processes and investigations.

These women, whose small daughters had been sexually abused, had been failed by every part of the justice system, even though people who held some power within that system could clearly see the justice they were owed. The criminal case was discontinued, the Ombudsman process failed, the civil judgement that first recognised them was overturned by the Court of Appeal, and the High Court did not reopen the locked door to hear them. The compounding costs and consequences remain devastating.

Read the full transcript in Hansard here.

3 June 2026