Introduction
The Supreme Court of Queensland has awarded damages to a former high school student who claimed to have been the subject of sexual abuse by his teacher while he was 13 and 14 years of age.
The Court in the matter of Brockhurst v Rawlings1 accepted the female teacher had seduced the plaintiff and ordered she pay the plaintiff $1,456,524.15 by way of damages for personal injury, in trespass, by battery.
The facts
The (now) 38 year old Nicholas Brockhurst (plaintiff) was a former student at Toowoomba Grammar School (school), attending between 1996 and 1997 (years 8 and 9) when aged 13 and 14 respectively.
Mrs Meredith Rawlings (defendant) was employed by the school to provide pastoral care to the Year 8 boys and was the plaintiff’s year 8 English teacher. The plaintiff alleged the defendant had engaged in intimate and sexual physical contact with him that amounted to trespass to person, by battery. Battery is a tort that is committed when a person intentionally makes contact with another in a harmful or offensive way. Intimate or sexual contact, without voluntary consent, is offensive contact and the plaintiff’s age rendered him unable to voluntarily consent to the defendant’s sexual contact with him. The plaintiff claimed the defendant’s sexual abuse caused him personal injury, including a depressive disorder.
The plaintiff’s parents, upon finding notes from the defendant to their son which were ‘affectionate and loving’, raised concerns with the school. After being questioned by the Headmaster, the defendant resigned and ended her relationship with the plaintiff, which he alleged caused him to effectively spiral and withdraw from all attributes of life.
Despite the proceedings, the plaintiff alleged that his relationship with the defendant was romantic, intimate and sexual. The defendant asserted this to be a fantasy the plaintiff had convinced himself was true. She claimed to have had ‘a very close and supportive’, but appropriate, relationship with the plaintiff. Although admitting that she allowed the plaintiff to become too dependent on her, she denied having an inappropriate relationship with him and claimed her ‘loving and affectionate’ correspondence with the plaintiff was intended to be ‘motivational’.
1 [2021] QSC 217.
