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Ex tempore JUDGMENT

1. The plaintiff, Mr Christopher Wright, makes an application seeking an order for leave to proceed under ss 4 and 5 of the Felons (Civil Proceedings) Act 1981 (NSW) (Felons Act) against the two defendants in this matter, the Trustees of the Patrician Brothers and Sydney Catholic Schools Limited as trustee for the Sydney Catholic Schools Trust.

2. The plaintiff is currently incarcerated and appears for himself. During the course of the proceedings, the plaintiff has had legal representation, but his lawyers ceased to act in March 2026.

3. Today, the first defendant is represented by a solicitor, Mr Irmak, who also mentions the matter on behalf of the second defendant. The two defendants take the position of neither consenting nor opposing the application made by the plaintiff under the Felons Act.

4. The background as to why the plaintiff requires leave under the Felons Act is as follows. The plaintiff pleaded guilty to various offences in the first half of April 2024, some of which meet the description of “serious indictable offence[s]”; being fraud offences under s 192E(1)(b) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW). He commenced these proceedings by a statement of claim on 3 October 2024, and an amended statement of claim was then filed on 31 October 2024. The second defendant filed a defence on 12 December 2025, and the first defendant filed a defence on 15 December 2025.

5. The matter then went to mediation and did not settle, whereupon it was adjourned pending further negotiations. The matter has been before the Registrar a number of times. Registrar Hedge indicated to the plaintiff, correctly, that he required leave under the Felons Act in relation to this matter, and the plaintiff now brings the application which is before me as Duty Judge today.

6. In terms of the evidence before me, I have the affidavit of the plaintiff affirmed 13 August 2026. That affidavit annexed, I assume erroneously, a letter from Karp O’Neill Lawyers dated 31 July 2026, being a five-page letter in which his lawyers indicate they will no longer be acting for him, and set out a number of matters that are clearly, in my view, legal advice given to the plaintiff and ought not to have been annexed to that affidavit. Thus, I have indicated that I do not read that letter as part of the plaintiff’s application, and I will remove it from the annexures to the affidavit that are on the court file.

7. I take the same approach in respect of a psychiatric report annexed to Mr Wright’s affidavit which is a report of Dr Siva Bala dated 21 August 2024. That report has the following heading: “Confidential and privileged: prepared for the dominant purpose of litigation”. In the time available this morning, Mr Irmak, who appears for the first defendant, was unable to indicate whether that psychiatric report has been served as part of the proceedings. In circumstances where I do not require that report in order to be persuaded that it is appropriate to grant leave in this case, I take the same approach of not reading the report as part of the plaintiff’s application under the Felons Act and removing it from the affidavit on the court file.

8. In terms of the nature of these proceedings, the plaintiff alleges that he attended Patrician Brothers Catholic School in Fairfield, New South Wales as a pupil, and that in around 1989 he was sexually abused by the Deputy Principal and one of the Brothers at the school and also suffered serious physical abuse. The plaintiff alleges that he remained under the care, control and supervision of the first and second defendants while he was at the school, and as such, they owed him a non-delegable duty to take reasonable care to prevent foreseeable injury to him. He alleges that the defendants breached their duty of care owed to him in various ways, and that by reason of the negligence of the defendants and the sexual abuse by the perpetrators for whom he alleges they are liable, he has suffered injury, loss and damage. The defendants deny these allegations.

9. Having reviewed the allegations in the statement of claim, I am satisfied that the proceedings are not an abuse of process. I am also satisfied that there is a prima facie ground for the proceedings. One of the allegations of abuse relates to conduct of a Brother (being a religious person who the defendants assert in their defence was provided or made available to the school as a teacher). In this respect, I refer to the recent developments in relation to non-delegable duties of care (see the plurality in the High Court in AA v The Trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle [2026] HCA 2; (2026) 100 ALJR 170).

10. Mr Wright ought to have sought this leave to instigate the proceedings prior to or at the time he commenced them in 2024, and this did not occur. The defendants have taken an active role in this proceeding and filed defences, and have today not opposed the grant of this leave. I have the power to make an order nunc pro tunc that leave be given which will have that retrospective effect, and I do so. I am satisfied that there is a basis for granting the leave under the Felons Act.

11. For the reasons given above, I make the following orders:

12. The plaintiff is granted leave nunc pro tunc pursuant to ss 4 and 5 of the Felons (Civil Proceedings) Act 1981 (NSW) to institute proceedings against the defendants in the form contained in the amended statement of claim filed on 31 October 2024.

13. Each party is to bear its own costs as to the application.

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