ALLEGATIONS of historic sexual abuse at Monivae College have been flagged by a Melbourne-based law firm in an advertisement published earlier this week in a state-wide daily newspaper.

Rightside Legal published a sizeable advertisement in the Herald Sun on Monday with the heading ‘Sexual Abuse at Monivae College’ calling for help to mount a case against the school and its staff; the text not specifically addressing a time period or other details.

“Rightside Legal represents former students of Monivae College, Hamilton, who were sexually abused by staff,” the ad read.

“We seek assistance from other former students who may be able to help our clients’ legal claims.”

Rightside Legal’s website has boldly proclaimed its court successes over recent years with school abuse cases including Geelong College, Wesley College and Trinity Grammar resulting in payouts to victims into the millions of dollars.

In reference to this type of litigation, the website has stated “we are not afraid of powerful and rich defendants” and “we do not back down”.

The firm’s senior partner, Michael Magazanik, told The Spectator on Monday they were suing the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart that run Monivae on behalf of four men who attended the school with the first case set to go to the Supreme Court in May.

“They are denying legal responsibility for the abuse, despite the fact that one of the abusers has been convicted of the abuse,” he said.

Former Catholic Brother, Edward Mamo, was convicted in the County Court of Victoria in December 2015.

Mr Mamo was a groundskeeper, bus driver and sports coach at Monivae College and pleaded guilty to 21 counts of indecent assault.

He was accused of abusing 14 teenagers in the laundry room of the College in the 1970s and 1980s, but Mr Magazanik was convinced there would be many more victims and witnesses that needed to come forward.

“We’re looking for information about abuse at the school, whether it’s at that time or earlier,” he said.

“What we need to prove is that the Missionaries should have known that the kids were at risk and protected them.

“We’ve run that ad a couple of times (and) we’ve had a lot of phone calls from men who were there at the time complaining not just about that era, but earlier periods of time.”

He said the recent increase in cases was connected to two major legal impediments being abolished in the last few years, the first being a statute of limitations in 2016 and the so-called ‘Ellis Defence’ in 2018.

John Ellis was an NSW abuse survivor who brought a case against the Catholic Church in 2007, but the Court of Appeal agreed with the Catholic Church’s argument that the trustees who held all the property could not be responsible for the conduct of clergy and ultimately there was no defendant to sue.

With the removal of these two obstacles, Mr Magazanik said the path was clear to bring cases to court.

“All the men who are abused at Monivae - until very recently, they didn’t really have legal rights,” he said.

“A lot of men who were at Monivae in the past accepted very small sums of compensation because they had no real legal rights.

“I’ve been contacted by some of them - they should all be considering whether they can go back, because there’s also a bit of legislation now in Victoria which allows abuse survivors who previously settled their claims to go to a judge and try to persuade the judge to get rid of their settlement deeds (so) they can sue properly.”

Mr Magazanik said abuse victims needed to be careful if they were looking at the National Redress Scheme (NRS) as they could end up with a significantly reduced outcome.

“(The NRS) is a separate scheme run by the Federal Government, which compensates abuse survivors,” he said.

“But if you take one dollar of the Redress Scheme, you don’t get to sue anyone ever.

“If Monivae abuse survivors are being pushed into Redress by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, they should go and get proper legal advice.

“Redress has a cap of $150,000, so most of those men who were abused at that school will have a legal entitlement if they sue the Missionaries for much, much more than they’re ever going to get under Redress.”

Mr Magazanik said he was confident of winning cases that go to court.

“I’ve got one client who was abused by a Catholic priest in 1959,” he said.

“He brought a claim for compensation into that in the early 2000s and got $150,000. Last year, for a Supreme Court trial we got him $2.2 million.

“People now have proper legal rights, whereas in the past, they didn’t.”

Mr Magazanik said the call for people to contact his firm extended to witnesses, direct and indirect.

“We’re not just appealing for men who were abused,” he said.

“We want to speak to men who saw things and heard things. People who were warned to stay away from these teachers, people who had near misses with these teachers and people who also had experience with these teachers.

“We’ve spoken to a man today (Monday) who reported his abuse to a senior teacher at the school and nothing was done.”

Monivae College issued a statement on the allegations.

“As this relates to a matter that is presently before the Court, it is inappropriate for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to make any comment,” the statement said.

“More broadly, it is a matter of public record that The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) have openly and readily acknowledged that some children in the past have been harmed whilst in their care and are profoundly sorry that this has occurred and apologise to those who have endured pain and suffering as a result.

“Any person who may have experienced harm whilst in the care of the MSCs, is encouraged to report this to the police for investigation.”

The Spectator reported in May 2022 about former Hamilton Kent Road Primary School student, Carol Johnstone, winning a $45,000 payout in the NRS as a victim of sexual abuse by a teacher, with her application expedited for health reasons.

She subsequently donated the money to “a couple of organisations that could help people” that suffered abuse in similar ways to her.

Ms Johnstone died last Tuesday morning after a 10-year battle with cancer; her death notice was in the Spectator’s Classifieds section last Saturday.

Her husband, Greg Lee, paid tribute to her tenacious “private detective” work to find victims and witnesses to encourage them to come forward and report abuse, especially while suffering with poor health.

“That period was a very major period for her and she was very determined to contact as many people as possible from her class and other classes,” he said.

Ms Johnstone’s funeral will be held in Mount Beauty next Monday.