Adass Israel School: ultra-orthodox Jewish school’s $1m abuse payout

By Katherine Towers
Australian
September 16, 2015

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/adass-israel-school-ultra-orthodox-jewish-schools-1m-abuse-payout/story-e6frg6nf-1227530193758?sv=2cd16fe3831541983be952e47ac266bb

An ultra-orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne faces one of the State’s largest payouts to a victim of child sexual abuse after being ordered to pay more than $1 million to a former student for the “monstrous” molestation by its headmistress.

In a damning Supreme Court judgment, the Adass Israel School was ordered to pay just over $1.2 million for the “wanton” abuse suffered by the woman as a student by then principal and mother-of-eight, Malka Leifer.

The Elsternwick-based school and Leifer were sued by the ex-student who says she was sexually abused several times a week between 2003 and 2006.

“There can be no more serious charge levelled against a headmistress of a girls’ school than that such headmistress has abused the trust reposed in her by sexually abusing those in her charge,” Justice Jack Rush found.

Justice Rush slammed the school for helping Leifer flee the country after the abuse allegations came to light in 2008 and before police were notified, describing its actions as “deplorable”, “disgraceful”, “deliberate” and deserving of the Supreme Court’s “disapprobation and denunciation”.