Teenage girl with disabilities sexually abused and raped by students on school bus without driver intervening, lawsuit claims
Assaults allegedly took place on 'several consecutive days'
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A 14-year-old girl in Georgia with developmental disabilities was sexually abused for several consecutive days and raped by students on her school bus without intervention by the driver, according to a lawsuit filed last week.
The girl, who was referred to in the lawsuit as “Jane Doe”, was on the bus home from middle school when the abuse occurred in April 2019, the complaint said.
The girl and her family filed the suit in federal court against the Fulton County School District (FCSD) in Georgia on 3 March for failing to protect her, and for discrimination.
“Unbelievably, the sexual abuse took place in only three to four rows of seats on a small special-needs school bus,” Lee Parks, a lawyer for the girl, said in a statement.
According to the complaint, the girl has neurodevelopmental disabilities and “functions at a cognitive and communicative level far below her actual age”.
The complaint said that the abuse started on 4 April, 2019, when a student, a boy with special needs, sat next to the girl on the bus and began groping and kissing her breasts.
A second student, another boy with special needs, did the same thing, the lawsuit said, “emboldened by the lack of discipline and restraint for” the first student.
The suit added that on consecutive days from 15 April to 20 April, the same student engaged in various forms of abuse, including forced oral sex.
“It was not until April 20, 2019, after Doe had been stripped naked, physically battered and raped, that the bus driver reported to FCSD that he had ‘noticed something’,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said that at some point before the abuse took place, the bus had a driver as well as a monitor - both employees of the district - but that the monitor had been removed, leaving only the driver to look after the children.
The district said in a statement that the allegations were “extremely serious and concerning”,
A spokesperson for the school added that “the driver was separated immediately” after the incident was reported and investigated in 2019.
The New York Times
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