A plea to fix Queensland’s dysfunctional mental health system

WHEN Bianca Girven died at the hands of her boyfriend, her mum, Sonia Anderson, was plunged into a dark and bizarre world.

Sonia Anderson says her biggest concern is that the man who killed daughter Bianca Girven could be free to kill again. Picture: Annette Dew

When Bianca Girven died at the hands of her schizophrenic boyfriend, her mum, Sonia Anderson, was plunged into a dark and bizarre world.

It is a world where public safety comes a distant second to patient comfort, killers have more rights than victims, and absolutely no one is accountable for their decisions.

A world where Bianca’s killer, Rhys Austin, could be back in the community and the public would not be allowed to know about it, despite experts getting him so badly wrong before.

“Some doctors went from him being totally crazy to totally normal to totally crazy,” Ms Anderson told The Sunday Mail.

“On any given day they’d make a decision one way or the other and it might be true or it might be completely incorrect.

“It’s voodoo. It’s not real.”

Speaking out in a bid to change the system, Ms Anderson said her biggest concern was that Austin could be free to kill again.

On March 30, 2010, Austin and Bianca had driven to a lookout at Mt Gravatt, in Brisbane’s south, and chatted in the back of a white van under a full moon.

The two 22-year-olds had been best friends since high school, with an on-again off-again relationship.

Bianca Girven married a Balinese reggae singer and had a son, Ziggy, but the marriage ended and she again started seeing the man who would go on to kill her.

Bianca, who was artistic and quirky, married a Balinese reggae singer and had a son, Ziggy, but the marriage ended and she started seeing Austin again.

At 12.04am, Ms Anderson’s life was shattered forever with a phone call from Austin’s mother.

“She just started a story about two masked men hurting Bianca,” Ms Anderson says.

Austin had driven to his mother’s house with Bianca’s near-lifeless body and claimed masked men attacked them at the lookout.

She died in hospital later that morning. An autopsy found that she had been asphyxiated.

“The doctor said, ‘What we were told happened and what we have here don’t match up’,” Ms Anderson said.

“That’s when I realised. I said, ‘Rhys did this’. I just knew.”

Austin, the son of two psychologists, had a long history of mental illness, which doctors believed had been induced by drug use.

In July 2006, he had been charged with an armed robbery of a Night Owl convenience store, was admitted to a private hospital and treated for schizophrenia.

Bianca Girven, whose killer had seen a psychiatrist more than 100 times.

A difficult patient, he went absent without leave several times and tested positive to amphetamines.

In November 2007, the Mental Health Court found Austin was of unsound mind at the time of the robbery, and he was placed on a Forensic Order, allowing authorities to dictate and monitor his treatment.

But in August 2009 – seven months before Bianca’s death – the Mental Health Review Tribunal removed the Forensic Order, certifying his safety.

There were no conditions, such as drug testing.

When detectives interviewed Austin at length immediately after Bianca’s death, he stuck to his “masked men” story.

His long-term psychiatrist – who had seen Austin at least 100 times – assessed him just 36 hours afterwards and concluded he was not acutely psychotic.

She also didn’t think Austin was lying about the attack, believing it was a “sincere description and his grief was also very sincere”.

Police charged Austin with murder, but it was not until 14 months after Bianca’s death that he admitted killing her to a psychiatrist.

Bianca Girven’s killer, Rhys Austin, could be back in the community and the public would not be allowed to know.

In the Mental Health Court, prosecutors argued that Austin’s elaborate false account was evidence he knew he shouldn’t kill.

Experts altered their respective positions as Austin’s story evolved.

The psychiatrist who assessed him soon after Bianca’s death changed her mind and said he was psychotic and probably deprived of his capacity.

In May 2013, the court ruled Austin was of unsound mind and would not face trial.

The court noted he had a severe, treatment-resistant illness, with symptoms that he could conceal but that “never completely disappear”.

According to at least one psychiatrist, his urge to kill “is not something that bothers him”.

Despite this, the public won’t be told when he is released from The Park Centre for Mental Health in Brisbane’s west.

Ms Anderson is banned from discussing the limited information she has.

“I’m the criminal if I speak publicly about it,” she said.

Her faith in the system was shaken further after daughter Bonnie had an incredible encounter with another mentally ill killer in late 2014.

Bonnie had met a man at a bar in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley who got her phone number and Facebook details and later repeatedly contacted her, wanting her to go to his unit.

In a bizarre twist, Bianca’s sister, Bonnie, began seeing David Terelinck (above), who had stabbed his partner to death in 2008.

She declined his offers but, in December that year, she saw his picture in a police media release about a mental health patient on the run.

The man she had met was David Terelinck, who had stabbed his partner to death in 2008 and was being treated at The Park Centre, alongside Austin.

Terelinck had been given leave and failed to return by curfew. Bonnie called Crime Stoppers and the family fled.

“I had a meeting with the Chief Psychiatrist; he believed David and Rhys didn’t know each other,” said Ms Anderson, who had to find out through media reports that Terelinck had been found.

“I wasn’t contacted.”

Ms Anderson said of Austin: “On the night he killed Bianca, nothing had gone wrong.

“It was just a full moon and there was a strong desire to kill.

“I do not think he should ever be free.

“I believe he’ll do it again.”

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Ram Saroop Sharma and Amit Alisher, the father and brother of Manmeet Alisher, the Brisbane City Council bus driver killed in Moorooka last October. Picture: Ric Frearson

PATIENTS BOLT BUT PUBLIC KEPT IN DARK

HUNDREDS of mentally ill patients are fleeing facilities and committing crimes every month.

Figures obtained by The Sunday Mail show authorities issued 3167 orders for the return of patients who were absent without permission from Queensland mental health facilities last financial year – a rate of 60 a week.

And 1387 patients on Forensic Orders or Involuntary Treatment Orders were charged with offences last financial year.

Bus driver Manmeet Alisher, who was allegedly murdered by a mental health patient.

Forensic Orders are imposed after someone is charged with a crime but is found in the Mental Health Court to be of unsound mind or unfit to stand trial. Involuntary Treatment Orders are for people who have a mental illness and are at imminent risk to themselves or others.

The figures can be revealed as the State Government refuses to release two reports on a mental health patient accused of killing Brisbane bus driver Manmeet Alisher at Moorooka in October last year.

Health Minister Cameron Dick says he cannot release details on the case while criminal proceedings are continuing.

But Opposition Health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek accused the Government of a cover-up.

Queensland Health figures show 903 patients were on Forensic Orders and 4200 were on Involuntary Treatment Orders at the end of the last financial year.

The department declined to provide a full list of offences allegedly committed by patients, stating “the range of offences is broad”.

The number of offences only included those serious enough to come to the attention of the Office of Chief Psychiatrist. Of those cases related to being absent without leave, 1454 involved inpatients and 1713 people on leave in the community.

Cairns mum Raina Thaiday, who stabbed to death seven of her children and her 14-year-old niece in 2014, is the latest killer found to be of unsound mind.

A Queensland Health spokesman said instances of inpatients being absent without leave had “decreased substantially – down 44 per cent between September 2013 and June 2016”.

“The majority of patients who are absent without approval return to their treating mental health facility within a short time frame,” the spokesman said.

Cairns mum Raina Thaiday, who stabbed to death seven of her children and her 14-year-old niece at her Murray St home in 2014, is the latest killer found to be of unsound mind.

A Mental Health Court judgment published last week said Thaiday’s marijuana-induced schizophrenia led her to suffer “religious delusions” and she did not know killing was wrong.

Thaiday will be assessed for release from The Park Centre for Mental Health at Wacol every six months. But the public won’t be told when she rejoins the community, under laws banning reporting on the assessment process.