Family hopeful after sex-abuse suit dismissed

An Indonesian court’s decision to dismiss a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against an elite international school is an encouraging sign for a Canadian teacher accused of abusing students while working there, his family said Monday.

Guy Bantleman said the reasons for dismissing the $125-million US civil action will be hard to ignore by courts reviewing his brother Neil’s appeal of a highly controversial sexual abuse conviction.

Neil Bantleman and a colleague at the Jakarta Intercultural School were accused of sexually abusing three students in 2014. Both Bantleman and Ferdinand Tjiong were convicted in April after a trial that raised ire for presenting inconsistent and sometimes contradictory evidence.

Bantleman is appealing his 10-year prison sentence, and his brother believes Monday’s related court decision could prove helpful in his bid to return home.

The suit filed by a student’s parents did not name Bantleman directly, but did allege repeated sexual abuse at the school where he was once employed.

Guy Bantleman said the judge dismissed the suit on a technicality, saying the plaintiffs should have named all possible defendants when they brought the suit forward.

But it’s a subsequent set of comments that’s of greatest interest to Guy Bantleman and other family members monitoring the case.

“They went on to say that the plaintiff had not proven that any of the alleged abuses had actually taken place,” Guy Bantleman said in a telephone interview. “This is, ironically, the same court that sentenced Neil back in April.”