State officials in West Virginia have filed a civil rights lawsuit against a middle school, alleging that it covered up the sexual assault of at least two girls by two male students who are relatives of employees of the school district.

The compaint alleges that the two boys sexually assaulted several female students repeatedly. When the students sought punishment for the offenders, members of the Burch middle school administration attempted to conceal the case and threatened the girls with discipline and, in some cases, also took retaliatory action against them.

The state attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, filed a suit in the Mingo county circuit court on Thursday against the Mingo county board of education, five of its employees and the two minors accused of the assault, along with their parents. He said the school has “continued conduct and actions” against the girls since a guidance counsellor was first informed of the accusations in the spring of last year.

“The two male students have avoided criminal investigation, prosecution, or meaningful punishment due to the actions and conduct of the administrators and teachers at Burch middle school and the Mingo county board of education,” Morrisey said in the suit. “Instead of a meaningful investigation by the school, upon information and belief, the female victims have been disparately treated and punished, while the alleged male perpetrators have been ‘taken care of’.”

The school is in Delbarton, West Virginia – a 579-person town less than 10 miles from the Kentucky border, in the heart of West Virginia's coal mining industry.

The two boys accused of committing repeated acts of sexual abuse against female students at the middle school are relatives of school district employees. One of the victims said that during one assault, one of the boys told the other: "Don't worry, [your relative] will take care of us."

The first victim listed in the complaint did not immediately report the case because of fear and embarrassment, but two other girls, who said they had been abused, told the school guidance counsellor, Hester Keatley, that the victim had been attacked. Keatley, a defendant in the case, questioned the girl and the school principal, Jada Hunter, said she would be calling the girl’s mother.

The suit states that the two suspects abused the girl on the school’s campus and on school buses.

The girl told her mother for the first time about the accusations before Hunter’s phone call, but did not go into detail about the abuse until later, at which point her mother repeatedly called the principal, who did not reply for several days, eventually calling the mother and telling her “she had taken care of it”.

A meeting was held with the parents of the victim, the fathers of both male suspects and Melvin Cunningham, a teacher and coach at the school who is also a defendant in the case. One of the fathers said his son had admitted he committed the acts, but Cunningham and Hunter said there were no witnesses so the girl’s accusations could not be proven. Both threatened disciplinary action against the girl if she continued to make complaints.

During the current semester, the victim shared a class with one of the defendants. On the first day of school, he saw her in class and promptly walked out of the room, the suit says. The victim's schedule was soon changed so she had classes with students in a lower grade.

Hunter told the victims' parents she would take action, and told them not to call police. They understood this to mean Hunter was contacting authorities. In March of this year, they learned she had not done so.

School policy mandates a call to law enforcement within 48 hours of disclosure of sexual abuse.

"Every action taken by defendants was either to minimalise the allegations against the boys and/or to protect the alleged male juvenile perpetrators,” Morrisey wrote. He also said that relative of one of the boys was "directly involved in the handling and investigation into the allegations against the relative" and in decisions relating to his punishment.

Morrisey called the school's investigation "ineffective, non-existent and/or designed to elicit contradictory and/or less incriminating statements from the females."

The other victim in the suit, a 13-year-old girl, was subjected to sexual abuse in the school's computer lab, where she sat next to the boys. Another attack occurred on a field trip, where she was "forcibly penetrated".

The day after she was first questioned by police, in April, middle school administrators cited her for “bullying” after she had blocked her Facebook account from a niece of a teacher at the school. A day later, she was written up again for "insubordination".

On 24 April, Melissa Webb, the middle school’s current principal and a defendant in the case, blocked a trooper from taking another victim's statement.

The injunction seeks to block the defendants from intervening in the state’s ongoing criminal and human rights investigation to prevent them from committing more sexual abuse, intimidation or retaliation against the girls.

The district said in a statement that it was aware of the complaint. "Once the county has been formally served, we will respond accordingly," the statement said. "Mingo County Schools takes student safety seriously and remains committed to providing a secure environment for all students."

The school district has been the scene a series of sex abuse charges in recent years. James Keatley, a math teacher at the district's Matewan middle school and the son of guidance counsellor Randy Keatley, was charged with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse in 2012. His charges were dropped after he agreed to give up his teaching licence.



Alandra Wellman, a student aide at Burch middle school, pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from minors on the internet in July 2013. Her husband Justin Wellman, a custodian at Matewan, also pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from minors on the internet in August 2013.

Jennifer Parsons, a math teacher and soccer coach at Matewan, was charged with a felony count of sex abuse in December 2013. Her husband, John Parsons, was charged with misdemeanour sex abuse later that month.

• This article was amended on 9 May 2014. An earlier version referred to an injunction alleging sexual assault. It was in fact a complaint requesting an injunction.