NSW government secretly paid millions to victims of a teacher it admits was a paedophile

Exclusive: At least 14 Indigenous men received out-of-court settlements after being abused by teacher, principal and school inspector Cletus O’Connor

The New South Wales government has quietly paid out millions of dollars to more than a dozen former schoolchildren who it admits were abused by a paedophile teacher who rose through the ranks of the state’s public school system over three decades while preying on young Indigenous boys.

Since April 2018 lawyers from the state’s education department have signed out-of-court settlements with 14 men from across western NSW. The men, who are all Indigenous, are predominantly based in Dubbo.

Can you imagine if this was a black man doing this to little white boys? … They’d have strung him up

O’Connor ingratiated himself with the claimant’s parents under the guise of an educator taking an interest

We used to call each other ‘Clete’ as a way of ribbing each other, as all teenagers do

These poor blokes are going to have a harder time showing economic loss because of the reality of what it means to be Aboriginal in Australia

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2XBKBd1