Australian military threatened with mass abuse lawsuit
Australia's scandal-hit defence force faced the threat of a class action lawsuit after advocates for an ex-recruit who claims he was beaten and raped warned "hundreds" more cases could emerge. Police are investigating the allegations of the man, who was just 15 when he joined HMAS Leeuwin in the 1970s and says he endured beatings and assaults that saw him honourably discharged after less than a year. Fellow sailors forced the victim, now in his 50s, to run a gauntlet of rubber hoses and pillowcases filled with boots and sexually abused him with a mop handle, he claims.