Qld’s history of child safety failures: List of cases
Queensland’s child safety system has repeatedly come under fire for decades - this is the reality of that failure.
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Queensland’s child safety system has repeatedly come under fire for decades - this is the heartbreaking reality of that failure.
These are the cases and stories that rocked the state and led to further demands for answers.
MARCH 1996
A toddler was killed by his father just two weeks after the Family Services Department ignored a SCAN team recommendation to investigate ongoing physical abuse.
Anxieties about the child, Paul Robert Homer, who was 21 months old when he died of head injuries, had also been raised with the department some months earlier by his grandmother.
In both cases, the department decided that a child protection investigation was not warranted.
Paul Homer’s father, Victor Korin, was jailed for eight years in December 1995, after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of his son on September 30, 1993. He was released after three years.
In what Mr Justice Brian Ambrose described as “aggression of an unbelievable kind’’, Korin had admitted to biting the baby and hitting him on the head.
Nambour Hospital referred Paul Homer to the Sunshine Coast Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect team after the child was admitted to the hospital on September 11, 1993, with bite marks and injuries to the head.
In what was then described as “in retrospect, an error of judgment’’, a SCAN departmental officer decided not to investigate the matter.
Paul Homer was discharged by the hospital into the custody of his parents. He was re-admitted on September 29 and died a day later.
JULY 1999
Three-year-old Brooke Brennan was beaten to death by her mother’s boyfriend on the Gold Coast.
Troy Self, a violent, remorseless monster sentenced to life in prison, beat the little girl so badly he ruptured internal organs and caused massive internal bleeding. He kicked her with the force of a car crash and ignored her when she vomited blood.
Two weeks earlier, Brooke had been admitted to hospital with a broken finger and bruising. A Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) team was called but Brooke’s mother had taken her daughter from the hospital.
When two case workers turned up at their unit soon after, she and Brooke hid in the laundry. They didn’t attempt to find the child again.
Then premier Peter Beattie called for a report into the failure and the Queensland Ombudsman wrote 150 pages in response.
The department was ordered to improve its communication and record keeping processes.
2004
Ten-week-old “baby Kate” was on the department’s radar before she was born.
Her mother, a woman with intellectual and physical impairments, had been seen by hospital staff shaking Kate and swearing at her.
The medical superintendent reported she had shown “minimal interest” in the child.
Despite this, within weeks Kate was in the sole care of her mother.
She died after her mother covered her with jumpers and a blanket to muffle the noise of her cries.
“Every year my office receives thousands of complaints,” Ombudsman David Bevan wrote.
“The most serious are the relatively few in which it is alleged that a public agency’s actions or failure to act have contributed directly or indirectly to a person’s death.”
The department’s own internal review found “no negligence had occurred” but Mr Bevan saw it differently.
Kate’s death led to a series of changes aimed at improved communication and record keeping as well as the establishment of the external Child Death Review Committee.
NOVEMBER 2011
Eight-year-old Faith Leaso was beaten to death with a vacuum cleaner pipe by her mother Ane Leaso when they were living in Cairns.
Child safety officers had twice been called to the little girl’s school in 2010 after she was found with an “enormous” bruise on her stomach, what appeared to be a cigarette burn and welts.
Little was done and Faith died with more than 50 separate areas of bruising and abrasions inflicted over days.
Her mother was sentenced to seven years for manslaughter.
A pathologist found several of her fingers had been broken and pressure sores had begun to develop, indicated the child had been unable to move for days.
Again, multiple inquiries were held to determine what had gone wrong.
A team leader from the department told an investigator the same mistakes that led to Faith’s death “will be repeated … because nothing’s changed”.
“In fact,” the team leader said, “it has probably deteriorated in the fact that we have less staff and the incoming is high and I have a real genuine fear that this will happen again.”
OCTOBER 2015
It was the crime that rocked the state and led to a review of Queensland’s foster care system. .
Tiahleigh Palmer, 12, was killed – most likely choked or smothered, according to a coroner – by her foster carer Rick Thorburn.
He was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 20 years.
Tiahleigh was reported missing on October 30, 2015, from the Chambers Flat home where she’d been living with foster carers Rick and Julene Thorburn and their sons Joshua and Trent.
Rick told police he’d dropped Tiahleigh off at the school gate on the morning of October 30 but later discovered she had not arrived for class.
Her naked body was found on November 5 on the banks of the Pimpama River by a trio of fishermen, although a cause of death could not be determined because she was so badly decomposed.
Rick later pleaded guilty to her murder, with the court hearing he killed her on the night of October 29 after learning she had been sexually abused by his son Trent.
Trent had confessed to his mother that he’d had sex with the schoolgirl and Tiahleigh was now worried she might be pregnant.
Thorburn’s wife, Julene and two sons were also jailed for their involvement in Tiahleigh murder.
Trent received a four-year sentence and was charged on incest and perjury offences, while his brother Josh was charged with perverting the course of justice.
Julene was also charged with perverting the course of justice.
OCTOBER 2016
It was costing $14,000 every time a child safety officer knocked on the door of a dysfunctional family, with Queenslanders paying $1 billion to try to fix an overstretched and under-resourced system that had faced eight inquiries in 20 years.
A breakdown of child protection expenses at the time revealed each notification and investigation had cost Queensland $14,085.
The figure was well beyond the $9159 bill in Western Australia and the $3043 outlay in NSW.
Years of independent inquiries laid the blame on “desperately under-resourced” staff, only for the next inquiry to discuss the same problem.
Child Safety Minister Shannon Fentiman said the task of keeping kids safe had been problematic “forever” and the strain on staff had forced the department to order a full audit of child safety offices.
JUNE 2020
The moments leading up to the horrific fatal blow to the abdomen that caused the death of Caboolture toddler Mason Lee were recorded, it was revealed.
A coroner’s report pinpointed the moment the fatal blow was struck – a detail never before uncovered in court proceedings against Mason’s mother Anne Maree Lee and stepfather William O’Sullivan.
In June of 2016, O’Sullivan struck the neglected boy so hard that his organs ruptured and left him to die a slow and painful death over days, refusing to seek help.
Mason’s mother and O’Sullivan were each sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment over the 21-month-old toddler’s manslaughter.
The coroner said an audio recording from CCTV that O’Sullivan had installed at his house revealed that on June 6, 2016, Mason can be heard crying and O’Sullivan tells the boy “Oh, shut up”.
When the toddler continues to cry he is then heard to scream.
“I find that it was at this time that Mr O’Sullivan struck him forcefully in the abdomen,” the coroner said.
Mason died five days later on June 11.
JANUARY 2022
Child safety officers were walking off the job at increasing rates as their work got harder and busier.
Figures at the time highlighted the alarming churn rate for some of the state’s most important workers, revealing the northern Queensland attrition rate was more than 27 per cent, 26 per cent in central Queensland and nearly 20 per cent in the southeast.
Rates had worsened across the board since 2018-19.
Opposition Child Protection spokesman Amanda Camm said a turnover rate of almost 30 per cent left too much room for error and no consistency of oversight to ensure children were protected.
“The risk is children will fall through the cracks,” she said.
Ms Camm said the exodus suggested the government was “losing control of child safety”.
“The numbers of Child Safety Officers leaving their jobs, particularly in Central Queensland and the Far North, is alarmingly high,” she said.
SEPTEMBER 2022
Major delays in child safety investigations were putting Queensland kids in serious danger, said an advocate, in the wake of shocking data showing thousands of reports to the department hadn’t been finished.
According to a question on notice in parliament answered by Children’s Minister Leanne Linard, almost 5000 investigations were outstanding across the state, and 1140 of those had been open for more than 100 days.
Independent Advocacy Queensland intake officer Melissa Laing said these kinds of delays put vulnerable children at risk of more harm or even death.
“There’s no reason for it. They have to act on it. It’s not acceptable,” Ms Laing said.
“I don’t think it’s ever going to get better.”
The document said the number of reports to Child Safety across Queensland in the past year had increased by more than 3000, and more than 8000 since eight years ago.
Of the 31,244 reports in need of investigation for the year ending March 31, nearly 5000 still had not been done.
More than 1100 of those outstanding investigations have been open for more than 100 days.
NOVEMBER 2022
At least 150 child safety officer positions were sitting unfilled across the state, with vacancy rates in some regions rocketing to more than 30 per cent.
More than 25 full-time equivalent positions were vacant in Far North Queensland alone, with more than 10 in North Queensland and at least 32 on the Sunshine Coast and Central Queensland.
In Bundaberg close to 40 per cent of government-funded positions for child safety officers were sitting empty.
The new data came after it was revealed earlier in the year the average tenure for a child safety officer in Queensland had fallen to less than six years.
LNP child safety spokeswoman Amanda Camm said the exodus of child safety officers was evidence of a “broken system”.
“The number of child safety officers leaving their jobs, from the far north to the South East is alarmingly high and putting vulnerable children at risk,” she said.
A Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs spokeswoman said there were 150 vacant child safety officer positions in Queensland, with 1272 employed.
“Our department is experiencing the same recruitment challenges as many other employers right across the nation,” she said.
Ms Camm said children’s lives were “being put at risk”, and said keeping vulnerable children safe must be a priority.
NOVEMBER 2022
A bright and funny teenager who took his own life at just 14 years old may still be alive today if the department of child safety had not failed him, a coroner ruled.
EJ, who suffered years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his father, took his own life on December 10, 2018 while in foster care.
In non-inquest findings, Acting Coroner Ainslie Kirkegaard ruled the Department of Children failed EJ in multiple ways, including not investigating his father’s abuse properly, “victim blaming”, and not doing enough to help EJ in his final weeks alive.
EJ took his own life on December 10, 2018 – just eight months after going into foster care.
Act for Kids CEO Dr Katrina Lines said EJ never should have died.
“EJ’s case is incredibly sad and distressing because it is an unnecessary loss of a young life,” Dr Lines said.
Dr Lines said EJ should have had access to support earlier.
“Children who experience significant trauma like EJ did need highly specialised therapeutic supports at all stages of their development,” Dr Lines said.
EJ was in Year 8 at a rural high school, described as a smart young man, a “scallywag”, always full of life and having a great sense of humour.
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