The Ashley Youth Detention Centre (AYDC) Class Action

A ‘Class Action’ is a special kind of court procedure in which one or more named people – the Lead Plaintiffs – are permitted by the Court to bring a case on their own behalf and also on behalf of a wider group of people.

The wider group of people are called Class Members or Group Members.

The Class Action procedure allows a group of victims to combine their claims to fight for compensation for all of them. The stress of litigation is reduced for the Class Members, and it also offers the benefit of “strength in numbers”. If the Class Action succeeds in winning compensation, some of the compensation can be used to share the costs of the litigation across all the successful Class Members.

The Class Action procedure is also more efficient for the Court, because the legal and factual questions that are ‘common’ to all the claims only need to be determined once, rather than separately for each individual claim. After the common questions are resolved, the Court has procedures for dealing with any remaining individual issues affecting particular Class Members.

The end result is that the Class Action will eventually resolve all the claims of all the Class Members. In particular, if a Class Member is entitled to compensation, the Class Action procedure will result in payment of that compensation.

The Class Action is run for the benefit of all the Class Members, but it is the Lead Plaintiffs who give instructions to the lawyers in relation to the running of the case.

For a person to know whether they are a member of a class in a Class Action, they need to find out how the Class Members are defined in the case.

The amount of compensation money for each Class Member is based on each Class Member’s individual experiences and circumstances.

The amount of compensation money for Class Members will be determined by a formula that has been approved by the court.

The amount you will be entitled to will depend on a number of factors, such as your mental health, the abuse you suffered, and personal history.

Again, all these things are subject to the supervision of the Court, and the primary test the Court applies in deciding the proper course is to ask what is ‘fair and reasonable having regard to the interests of the Class Members as a whole’.

The National Redress Scheme (NRS) is a Commonwealth Government-funded compensation scheme. It is separate from, and very different to, the AYDC Class Action.

If a person has suffered sexual abuse in an institution, the NRS scheme may be available as a means of compensation.

Under the NRS, eligible claimants can access the following benefits:

• a payment of up to $150,000.00 (depending on the type of abuse you suffered and the severity of that abuse according to NRS criteria)

• access to counselling & psychological assistance from a service provider arranged through the NRS. If for some reason you are in a jurisdiction which has opted not to participate in NRS, a payment of $5000 for your psychological treatment can be made; and

• a written apology and/or direct personal response from the institution responsible for the abuse.

If you would like to pursue NRS, Angela Sdrinis Legal can refer you to a specialised service that can assist you with an application.

It is important to understand that you can only make one application under the NRS for the abuse you suffered. If you accept an offer of money from NRS you cannot receive any other kind of payment for that abuse, for example from the AYDC Class Action.

If you are already a Class Member in the AYDC Class Action but you have made, or plan to make, an application to the NRS, please contact us immediately so that we can discuss with you any impact it might have on your ability to make a claim in the Class Action.

The Commission of Inquiry is a State government-funded investigation into the handling of complaints of child sexual abuse in Tasmanian institutions.

Only part of the Inquiry relates to the AYDC. The Inquiry is separate to the AYDC Class Action but it will cover many similar issues.

The purpose of the Commission was to discover what went wrong in Tasmanian institutions regarding the handling of reports of sexual abuse, and what can be done to fix it for the future. The Inquiry did not require compensation to be paid by the Government for what happened in the past.

The Class Action is now resolved and you are therefore no longer able to join. However, since settling the Class Action, we have had dozens of new inquiries related to AYDC. We are currently in the process of determining how best to approach these claims.

If you have suffered sexual or serious physical abuse in AYDC, please contact our office via the form below, or by giving our office a call.