Child Protection and Investigation Unit boss says officers have toughest, most important job in policing
A UNIQUE police taskforce which takes a ‘holistic’ approach to tackling child abuse has allowed The Courier-Mail into its offices, where investigations are carried out under a cloak of confidentiality.
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GOLD Coast police call it the ‘‘house of harm’’. It’s the name they’ve given to a new strategy aimed at combating the horrors of child abuse.
With cases like the Mason Lee tragedy at the forefront of their minds, officers from the Gold Coast Child Protection and Investigation Unit (CPIU) work closely with a new local domestic violence taskforce to thoroughly investigate troubled households where they suspect children may be being harmed.
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“If there’s domestic violence in the household, there’s probably other stuff going on there as well,’’ says Detective Inspector Marc Hogan, who heads the Gold Coast Domestic and Family Violence Taskforce and oversees the local CPIU.
“It’s a new way of doing business for us in terms of taking a holistic approach.’’
CPIU boss Detective Senior-Sergeant Troy Penrose reveals: “Just the other day, while investigating a DV matter, we uncovered evidence of a stepdad allegedly sexually abusing his young stepdaughter.
“If police go to a domestic violence incident where mum’s been bashed, we’re investigating everyone in the house because it may well be that kids are being abused too.
“Conversely, if we’re investigating a child abuse complaint, we also look into possible domestic violence in the household.
“We definitely recognise the links between domestic and family violence and child abuse.’’
The ‘‘house of harm’’ is a guiding maxim for Sen-Sgt Penrose and his colleagues when they come to work each day to tackle arguably the toughest and most important job in policing: protecting children and investigating crimes against them.
To mark Child Protection Week, the Gold Coast CPIU allowed The Courier-Mail rare access to its offices where, because of the sensitivities of dealing with child victims, investigations are carried out under a cloak of confidentiality.
One of the biggest CPIUs in the state, the Gold Coast unit occupies an entire floor in regional police headquarters at Surfers Paradise. The secured lift opens to reveal a children’s play area filled with toys and books. Normally, such an area would be a place of innocence, fun and happiness. Here, sadly, it’s often merely a momentary distraction for abused and neglected children before they and/or their parents or carers are interviewed by officers.
The unit is made up of more than 40 officers, including detectives and plainclothes police as well as three school-based officers.
As well as child abuse and exploitation, their duties include investigating accidental child deaths and suicides, missing children (especially those subject to amber alerts) and juvenile crime.
Officers wanting to join the CPIU first have to undergo a psychological assessment to ensure they are emotionally equipped to handle the often harrowing duties of the job, including investigating horrific child killings, torture and sexual abuse.
Child abuse team members are rotated every 12 to 18 months to give them a respite from the often traumatic rigours of their work.
“Many of them have kids of their own and the stuff they see has to impact on them,’’ Sen-Sgt Penrose says. “They come to work each day not knowing what they’re going to be confronted with. But all of them are incredibly dedicated and talented professionals who are absolutely committed to protecting some of the most vulnerable people in the community, our kids.’’
In her office, CPIU administrator Detective Sergeant Katrina Bull is reading through overnight reports and farming out files to detectives. Each month, the unit receives about 100 ‘‘notifications’’ of potential child abuse from sources including schools, hospitals, the Department of Child Safety and Crime Stoppers.
Sgt Bull tells Sen-Sgt Penrose about a report that has come in overnight. It’s about a 12-year-old girl whose father has allegedly put his hands around her throat after an argument.
“She’s been out late at night, train surfing, meeting up with random blokes off Facebook and sending nude pictures of herself,” Sgt Bull says. “She’s had an argument with dad who’s ended up putting his hands around her neck, which is a real concern.
‘‘There’s intel on him for drugs. The train-jumping is a real concern too.
‘‘I’m going to delegate it (for further investigation).’’
In the adjoining room, a group of CPIU officers are discussing another job from the previous day – the brutal whipping of a 10-year-old boy with a belt, which has led to his stepfather being charged with assault occasioning bodily harm.
After the lashing, the child – who has allegedly been subjected to “numerous physical assaults” in recent months – has been left with bruising including the imprint of the belt buckle on his backside.
“The stepfather referred to the child in the interview as an animal – ‘nothing but an animal … and he deserved a flogging’,” one CPIU investigator reveals.
The stepfather allegedly broke his finger wrenching the boy’s schoolbag when he picked him up from school. The child was also allegedly punched.
“The kid was s--- scared when we turned up,’’ the investigator tells Sen-Sgt Penrose. “The bloke turned on the missus and kid, blaming them for bringing us to his doorstep. We’ve notified DOCS (Department of Child Safety) and the DV taskforce.’’
CPIU senior officer Detective Senior-Sergeant Greg Aubort says while corporal punishment of children is allowed under ‘‘domestic discipline’’ laws, only reasonable force can be used. “Every parent has a right to discipline their children but there is a difference between discipline and punitive abuse,’’ he says.
Another CPIU investigator is studying disturbing CCTV footage of a mother dragging her two-year-old child by the leg from a public library. While the woman’s actions are not deemed to be illegal, she’s been issued with a stern warning by officers.
Sen-Sgt Penrose says often complex child abuse investigations are made even harder by the difficulties of getting legally admissible statements from young, often frightened children – or those for whom abuse has become ‘‘normalised’’.
Some of the more complex cases have included an attention-seeking Gold Coast mum who fed her healthy four-year-old daughter potentially lethal chemotherapy drugs bought online and then posted about the girl’s “cancer battle” on Facebook. The woman was jailed for six years.
An investigation into historical child-sex crimes committed by a woman’s father and his friend during a decade of horrific abuse led to the two men charged with 50 offences and given lengthy jail sentences.
In June, Coast CPIU officers charged a man with torture and assault occasioning bodily harm after a three-month-old boy turned up at Gold Coast Hospital with 14 fractures.
Earlier this year, they charged another man with poisoning his baby daughter after he allegedly gave the girl potent painkiller OxyContin, known as ‘‘hillbilly heroin’’, to pacify her so he could have some ‘‘time out’’.
While the state’s Taskforce Argos leads the fight against child exploitation, CPIU investigators are also trained in online evidence extraction.
Recent arrests by Coast officers have included two men who encouraged women online to send them indecent photos of their children.
Sen-Sgt Penrose regards his team as unsung heroes.
“A lot of their work doesn’t make the media,” he says.
“You hear all horror stories like Daniel Morcombe, (murdered Logan schoolgirl) Tiahleigh Palmer and Mason Lee, but there’s a lot of work going on every day to protect children. People just don’t know about it.”
Queensland Child Protection Week, supported by The Courier-Mail, starts tomorrow
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