A legal landmark was made in the South Australia's Supreme Court, with its decision to award nearly $500,000 to an Indigenous Australian who was taken from his family nearly 50 years ago.
This is the first court case over the 'Stolen Generation' to go through trial and was subsequently settled in the favour of Bruce Trevorrow, who brought the grievance to the court. He was awarded $525,000 for the injuries, losses and false imprisonment he suffered after being given to a foster family without his parents knowing.
Outside court, Mr Trevorrow told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that no monetary value could be placed on his ordeal.
"At the end of the day you can't put a dollar value on what's happened to me," he said.
The South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, has ruled out appealing against the court's decision saying that Mr Trevorrow has been through enough and the case is an appalling treatment of both a family and the baby, reported AAP.
"He has been through enough in his life ... the compassionate thing to do is end any further uncertainty for him," Mr Rann said.
"I cannot think of a more tragic case, this is an appalling case of dispossession - it's an appalling treatment of a family and of a baby and this is a time for justice to be done."
Mr Trevorrow, than a 13-months-year-old baby, was taken to the children's hospital in Adelaide; and there the hospital staff under the authority of Aborigines Protection Board gave him to a woman without his parents' permission, reported the Border Mail.
Responding to the case, Federal Indigenous Minister, Mal Brough said it was up to individual states to decide whether the establishment of a compensation fund was needed in the wake of the ruling. He has ruled out setting one at the Commonwealth-level saying that most of the cases involved state and church organisations.
The issue of the 'Stolen Generation' was examined by a government inquiry in 1997, which found that Aboriginal children removed during the period between 1910 till 1970s - under the presumption that it was a 'humane alternative' - had suffered long-term psychological problems due to the lost of their family and culture. It recommended that the government apologise for it as well as compensate them; which the Federal Government has refused, reported AP.