Willmot v Queensland
[2024] HCA 42 · Gageler CJ, Gordon, Edelman, Steward, Gleeson, Jagot and Beech-Jones JJ
This was an appeal to the High Court from a Queensland Court of Appeal decision about whether long-delayed child abuse claims should be permanently stopped, or stayed, because too much time had passed for a fair trial. Ms Willmot, an Aboriginal woman born in 1954, sued the State of Queensland for sexual and serious physical abuse she said she suffered as a child in foster care, in a girls' dormitory at Cherbourg, and during visits to relatives more than 50 years ago. Because Queensland law removed time limits for child abuse claims, the question was not whether the claims were too old, but whether the delay meant the State could no longer fairly defend them. The lower courts had stayed all her claims.
The High Court allowed her appeal in part. It let the claims about the foster father's sexual abuse and the dormitory beatings proceed because they were sufficiently specific, and there was still enough evidence available for the State to test them at trial. But it permanently stopped the claim about one relative, 'Pickering', and the vague allegations of beatings by the foster parents. Those claims could not be fairly tried because the allegations lacked enough detail, the key people were dead or unidentified, and the State had no practical way to investigate or answer them beyond saying it could not know what happened.
Incident & injury
Alleged child sexual abuse and serious physical abuse over more than 50 years ago while the plaintiff was a State Child in foster care and institutional care, and during visits to relatives
- Body regions
- Psychiatric
- Diagnoses
- psychological/psychiatric injury arising from alleged childhood sexual and physical abuse
- Incident date
- 1 October 1957
- Location
- Cherbourg Settlement, near Murgon, and near Ipswich, Queensland
Quick facts
- Date of judgment
- 13 November 2024
- Claim type
- Historical Abuse
- Proceeding
- Appeal
- Plaintiff outcome
- Partial
- Plaintiff age at injury
- 3
- Occupation
- State Child (in institutional/foster care) Minor / Child
- Liability
- Stay / procedural
- Total damages
- $0
Outcome
The High Court allowed Ms Willmot's appeal in part. The State's application for a permanent stay was dismissed in relation to the Demlin sexual abuse allegations and the Girls' Dormitory physical abuse allegations (and the NW allegation), allowing those claims to proceed, but the claims concerning the Pickering allegation and the Demlins physical abuse allegations remained permanently stayed.
Key issues
Willmot v Queensland [2024] HCA 42
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