Court unconvinced state care placement could prevent reoffending

A 12-year-old boy allegedly involved in a stolen car rampage that left young school students terrified has been denied bail.

An intellectually impaired Indigenous boy in state care who was allegedly involved in a stolen car rampage has been denied bail in part due to a lack of suitable placement homes.

The boy, 12, was one of six children – some as young as 10 – allegedly involved in stealing a vehicle in Mt Isa last month, ramming multiple cars and plunging schools into lockdown.

Police allege the stolen Mitsubishi Pajero was seen driving dangerously around Mount Isa, including near four schools, on July 13.

An allegedly stolen car being driven in Mount Isa on July 13, 2023.

The vehicle allegedly smashed through the gates of three schools “terrifying young students.”

Police allege the Pajero rammed a car that had driven across a school’s driveway to prevent the stolen car’s progress.

Police also claim it was also involved in at least five traffic crashes at different locations.

After his arrest the boy – given the pseudonym Noah Jackson – applied for bail in Mt Isa’s Childrens Court on July 27. It’s not alleged he was the driver.

Noah was previously released on bail for unrelated offences on June 6 after having been on remand for 13 days by Magistrate Eoin Mac Giolla Rí.

He released Noah on bail despite holding concerns about the adequacy of the care the Department of Child Safety was providing Noah.

At that bail hearing the court was told the team leader in Noah’s care home believed the boy needed a better model of care than what was available in that placement.

An allegedly stolen car being driven in Mount Isa on July 13, 2023.

When Mr Mac Giolla Rí raised his concerns Child Safety responded that “it is in [Noah’s] best interest that upon release from custody he return to his [current] placement”.

At the time Mr Mac Giolla Rí said it was “difficult to see how this could possibly be correct”, given Noah allegedly committed the offences while in that placement.

Between his release in June and the most recent charges the court heard Noah had been doing well by consistently attending school, behaving in his placement, taking his ADHD medication and not committing offences until the stolen car incident.

However the court heard other children were visiting Noah at night at the residential care home to try and get him to leave his placement to commit offences.

Initially Noah refused to leave his placement and was bullied and assaulted by the other children as a result.

The court heard he even took to sleeping in the loungeroom to avoid the children when they came knocking on his bedroom window at night.

Mr Mac Giolla Rí said he was satisfied Noah’s intellectual disability played a substantial part in his alleged offending.

During the most recent bail application Mr Mac Giolla Rí invited Child Safety to find a placement for Noah that provided a one-on-one level of care as the team leader suggested was needed.

Child Safety responded there was no such level of care in Mt Isa or Townsville and removing him from those areas would risk harming his “connection to country and kin”.

The court heard Noah’s kin in Mt Isa included a relative in state care, a relative in juvenile detention and an adult who is the person Child Safety want to remove him from for his own safety.

Mr Mac Giolla Ri said he founds Child Safety’s insistence on placing Noah in Mt Isa or Townsville difficult to understand given his current placement hadn’t prevented him from allegedly reoffending in a manner “that caused extreme danger to the community”, the substandard level of care available and if imprisoned the boy “faces a high risk of further harm”

Mr Mac Giolla Ri said he was satisfied that, broadly, Noah did his best to avoid offending in the lead up to the current charges but bailing him to his current placement address, as proposed by Child Safety, would not adequately mitigate the risk that he will reoffend.

He refused bail noting If Child Safety could make a placement with suitable care available a further bail application could be warranted.