Government and council efforts to stop victims of abuse from seeking compensations have failed.

An appeal to block former residents of a Devon approved school seeking compensation for abuse they claim to have suffered dating back over 40 years have been rejected.

Devon County Council and the Home Office wanted to launch court proceedings to prevent up to 70 former pupils of an approved school in the county seeking compensation.

They wanted to argue in the High Court that the former residents of Forde Park Approved School at Newton Abbot had left it too late to lodge their claims.

But Lord Justice Sedley ruled that the issue of the former students' claims being "time barred" should be decided at the time of the compensation hearing - and not beforehand.

His decision rubber-stamped an original High Court ruling on the matter which the council and Home Office had appealed against.

He said witnesses would have been put through the possibility of giving evidence twice if two hearings had to be held which would also add to the cost of the proceedings.

Forde Park - a school for young offenders - was run by the Home Office until 1974 before control passed to Devon County Council. It was shut 11 years ago and the site turned into housing.

Around 15 test cases are due to be heard by the High Court in June next year on behalf of ex-students who claim they were sexually and physically abused between 1957 and 1985.

It will establish if they, and the other ex-pupils, are eligible for compensation over their treatment at the school - and who should pay if the ruling goes in their favour.

However, the Home Office is due to mount its own application in the High Court later this month on the matter.

It claims it is seeking a ruling that all liabilities passed to Devon County Council in 1973 when the Government passed control of Forde Park to the local authority in the 1970s.

If that ruling is upheld, it would mean the council would have to pay any compensation agreed out of its public liability insurance.

A Devon County Council spokesman said: "We are concerned about the impact of any claims on the public purse," he said.

"There are claims which date back 20 to 30 years. The question is whether that is a reasonable amount to time to elapse before making a claim. We think not."

Used courtesy of the Exeter Express and Echo