ALLEGED bungled paperwork in 1978 has led to a man alleging he was sexually and physically assaulted by inmates at Maitland jail as a teenager, in a civil case against the State of NSW.
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The man alleges the assaults would not have occurred if his birth date had been correctly recorded on documents to show he was 17 rather than 18 in June, 1978 when he was sentenced to two months jail.
He was convicted of stealing property valued at $70 and sent to the adult jail rather than a juvenile facility because of the wrong birth date, he alleges.
The man alleges the recording of his birth date as March, 1960, rather than March, 1961, led to his transfer to the adult jail system as a juvenile, where he was allegedly sexually and physically assaulted on two occasions by two inmates.
In an interim ruling this week Supreme Court Justice Peter Garling said documents showed the 1960 birth date was recorded on a warrant of commitment at Taree Local Court on June 26, 1978, indicating the man was 18.
The 1960 birth date was repeated on subsequent documents completed at Maitland jail, and signed by the man as a teenager, indicating all details were true and correct.
The man said his actual birth date is March 26, 1961.
In his claim against the state, initiated in April, 2018, the man alleges he was sexually and physically assaulted twice by the two men during a three-day period before he was transferred to Cessnock jail to serve his two-month sentence.
"These physical and sexual assaults are said to have caused injury, loss and damage," Justice Garling said.
The man is claiming damages from the state for the two assaults against him that he alleges would not have occurred without the bungled paperwork, and for which the state can be held liable.
The man alleges the risk of harm was foreseeable and the state had actual knowledge of that risk, or should have been on notice of the risk.
Justice Garling dismissed the man's notice of motion and gave him until the end of July to submit an amended claim after the man's legal representatives accepted his case could not be against the Minister for Child Welfare, as he originally claimed.
Justice Garling ordered the man to pay the state's legal costs for the hearing, and gave the state until early August to indicate if it consented or opposed the filing of amended claims against it.
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