Children who have been the victims of sexual assault are being retraumatised and further abused by being forced by the WA government to attend school with their perpetrators, a leading mental health and psychology expert has warned.

WA’s Australian of the Year for 2018, adjunct professor Tracy Westerman, who has extensive expertise in working with sex offenders and victims, said the government was harming child sexual assault victims by allowing the peers who offended against them to remain students at the same schools.

In 2019 at least six child sexual offenders were enrolled at the same WA schools as their victims. Credit:John Woudstra

“This is not about more abuse potentially taking place,” she said. “The presence of a perpetrator in the environment of the victim is abuse - and the systems that are there to protect are failing to do so.”

It was revealed in WA Parliament after questions from opposition child protection spokesman Nick Goiran, that as of Tuesday, there were six alleged offenders attending the same public school as their victims.