NSW government lawyers pursued a tough legal strategy against 15 victims of extreme child sexual abuse at a northern NSW children's home, refusing to undertake mediation and hatching a plan for secret surveillance, the royal commission into child sexual abuse has heard.
But a senior government solicitor is expected to tell the commission that the strategy was in keeping with the state's "model litigant obligations".
The royal commission heard on Wednesday that girls as young as two were raped and assaulted at the Bethcar children's home at Brewarrina – a state-funded foster home for disadvantaged Aboriginal children – in the 1970s and 1980s.
The main perpetrators of the abuse were the so called "parents" of the home, Burt and Edith Gordon, and Burt Gordon's son-in-law Colin Gibson, the commission heard.
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The young victims complained to police and officers from the local branch of the Department of Community Services about the abuse, but no action was taken and the children remained at the home.
Eventually, in 2006, Colin Gibson was convicted on multiple child-sex charges and given sentences of 12 and 18 years' jail for his crimes.
In 2008, 15 of Bethcar's victims sued the NSW government over the abuse on the grounds that it was responsible for funding and licensing the home.
The commission heard that, over the ensuing four years, lawyers from the NSW Crown Solicitors' Office pursued a tough legal strategy that was not concluded until last year.
After initially attempting and failing to have the entire case struck out, lawyers for the NSW Crown Solicitors officers, led by solicitor Evangelos Manollaras, allegedly pursued a limitation defence, arguing that too much time had elapsed between the abuse and the litigation.
It refused to engage in mediation with the victims and their lawyers from the Women's Legal Service until after this question was resolved, thus delaying mediation for a number of years.
On multiple occasions, Mr Manollaras allegedly expressed the view that a number of the victims were either exaggerating or even concocting their abuse claims, despite Mr Gibson's criminal convictions.
"Granted I am having a problem with fondling of breasts, but I still think it is a quantum leap, even if there was some fondling of breasts, to conclude sexual interference," the solicitor said in a letter to the barrister hired by the Crown Solicitor's Office to run the case in court, Patrick Saidi.
On another occasion, Mr Manollaras allegedly said he was "still doubtful as to whether the plaintiffs were sexually molested ... in fact I'm having some difficulty in having understanding of how a jury convicted Gibson".
On the subject of the victims' desire for an apology, Mr Manollaras allegedly said "I don't ever recall the State apologising for anything".
In an email to an officer from the Department of Family and Community Services, he allegedly raised the possibility of undertaking surveillance on some of the victims, suggesting an initial budget of $20,000 to $30,000 to make this happen.
Mr Saidi allegedly expressed doubt about whether the victims were serious about their claims for compensation, and whether they were actually entitled to it.
He declared in a letter that "a number of the plaintiffs, if not a majority of them, are nowhere near as interested in the pursuit of these proceedings as their lawyers may be".
"One would suspect that some of the plaintiffs would accept any reasonable offer made in these proceedings."
The commission heard that it was only late last year, when the state government realised that its limitation defence was going to fail, that it agreed to a mediation with the victims.
The state finally settled the case last December, agreeing to pay each victim $107,142 and issue a formal apology. By this point, the state had spent $930,000 of taxpayers' money in legal costs pursuing the case, and it was then required to pay the victims' legal costs – a further $1.24 million.
Mr Manollaras' supervising solicitor from the Crown Solicitor's office, Helen Allison, is expected to tell the commission that the victims' claims had not been properly pleaded and there was no basis to extend the limitation period.
She is expected to tell the commission that the government lawyers complied with the model litigant strategy.
The hearing continues.