‘Watershed moment’: Australian child abuse survivors finally have real access to justice

Margaret Spivey, in her home in the Blue Mountains, is challenging the settlement she received for abuse suffered as a child in children's homes in Victoria. Photograph: Dean Sewell/The Guardian

Margaret Spivey was just a toddler when the betrayals began.

Abandoned after the death of her father, Spivey was a made a ward of the state at the age of 22 months.