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The New South Wales government has quietly paid out millions of dollars to more than a dozen former schoolchildren who it admits were abused by a paedophile teacher who rose through the ranks of the state’s public school system over three decades while preying on young Indigenous boys.

Since April 2018 lawyers from the state’s education department have signed out-of-court settlements with 14 men from across western NSW. The men, who are all Indigenous, are predominantly based in Dubbo.

The department has never publicly disclosed the settlements, which in some cases included confidentiality clauses preventing disclosure of the value of the payouts. Nor has it acknowledged the existence of a serial paedophile in the public school system, a step that might have encouraged others to come forward.

But documents seen by Guardian Australia during a months-long investigation can reveal the Department of Education unequivocally accepted the men were victims of Cletus O’Connor, a teacher, principal and school inspector who worked throughout the state from the 1950s to the 80s. The investigation found evidence to suggest that O’Connor, better known as Clete, used his almost unchecked power and standing in western NSW throughout his career to systematically groom and abuse young Indigenous boys.

O’Connor, who died in 1995, remains well respected by some in the towns where he worked. One former colleague described him as being “like a god” to teachers he worked with, and many of those contacted by the Guardian angrily dismissed specific allegations made against him.

Yet Indigenous men who came into contact with O’Connor as students continue to grapple with the mark his abuse left on them. All of the survivors who the Guardian spoke to described lifelong battles with depression and addiction, and a deeply ingrained mistrust of white authority.

The case highlights systemic historical failures within the public school system to protect children and marks another dark chapter in relations between white and Indigenous Australia. Lawyers acting for O’Connor’s victims argued that the state had, in effect, “harboured” a serial paedophile for decades, and questioned how his “flagrant” abuse could have gone unchecked for so long.

As one victim said to the Guardian: “Can you imagine if this was a black man doing this to little white boys? You reckon we wouldn’t know about it? They’d have strung him up.”

Rumours about O’Connor’s behaviour were widespread during and after his career. Students at Dubbo high school in the 80s swapped lurid stories about him sexually abusing Indigenous boys, and teachers in Bourke were aware of O’Connor taking students on overnight “excursions” as he travelled through the state while working as a school inspector.

“The boys said [that] white people in Dubbo knew what he was doing,” a relative of one victim told the Guardian. “They reckon they used to all talk about how he used to take the Aboriginal boys in his car.”

An unfiled court document prepared on behalf of one of the victims and obtained by Guardian Australia shows lawyers found evidence of complaints made against O’Connor to police from September 1986, the year he retired.

Yet he escaped justice throughout his life. No charges were laid and, in a statement, the Department of Education said it “did not become aware of complaints made against O’Connor before he died”. Victims told the Guardian they recalled seeing photographs of O’Connor on the wall of a NSW public school as late as 2015.

The NSW education department refused to disclose how much it had paid out in the 14 settlements, but the Guardian understands the figure runs into the millions. In a statement, the department said each settlement had followed the government’s “guiding principles for responding to civil claims for child sexual abuse”.