THE physical, sexual and emotional abuse of a dozen Aboriginal children over 16 years by two foster carers in Central Australia was overlooked and unnoticed because of “systemic failures” by multiple NT Government authorities and contractors, an investigation has found.

An Office of the Children’s Commissioner report released on Wednesday night revealed successive failures by government departments from 2004 allowed the carers to be accredited again and again, despite allegations against them.

The woman was even awarded for her work in 2011 and she told authorities in 2012 that she had once been on the NT Minister’s Foster Carer Advisory Committee for three years, a claim that was not checked by the department.

The pair were most recently cleared to be carers again in August 2019 and the youngest child ever in their care was younger than two in 2018.

The foster carers, a woman and a man who are related, are still caring for two children. It does not appear that they have been charged with any crimes.

Abuse allegations against the carers include hitting or whipping the children, some of whom had cognitive disabilities, with metal pipes and sticks including a hockey stick.

It was also alleged the female carer repeatedly emotionally abused the children by using racially discriminatory language, including calling the kids “filthy black c***s” and telling them they smelt bad because they were Aboriginal.

The report says there were concerns the carers had promoted fear in the children when discussing family and made false threats about the kids being subjected to “pay back” if they returned to community. It cites evidence that the woman actively sabotaged the ability of the kids to reconnect with family.

It is also alleged that she locked the kids in their rooms as she had difficulty climbing stairs due to her obesity.

‘SYSTEMIC FAILURE’ BY AUTHORITIES

Failures by authorities included multiple instances of NT Police’s Child Abuse Taskforce not thoroughly investigating, if at all, alleged sexual assault of the children.

An incident in 2005 in which a 15-year-old cognitively disabled girl was allegedly sexually abused by the male carer was never reported to police by the child’s case manager, the report says.

Police have confirmed they will now look into this, as per the OCC’s recommendation, though investigations have been delayed due to COVID-19.

There were also multiple instances of bungled record keeping by the predecessors of Territory Families and contractor Life Without Barriers that allowed allegations of child abuse to slip through.

This includes Life Without Barriers having no record of a girl who stayed with the woman for a week in 2006, despite that placement being terminated early because the girl had told a case manager she had sex with a boy while at the house.

It was also alleged that the female carer had at times coached the children on what to say to case managers to avoid scrutiny.

It is unknown how many children this woman fostered before living in the NT because authorities did not do historical or criminal checks.

The OCC report says the woman could have informally fostered up to 100 children while living outside of the NT.

Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne said the pair had fostered about 30 kids in the NT.

Ms Gwynne said the investigation showed there was “still a lack of rigorous oversight, co-ordination and accountability in order to produce quality safety assessments and out-of-home care placements for vulnerable children and young people”.

In total, the OCC report makes 14 recommendations.

REPORT SHOWS ‘REAL FAILURES’ IN WITHIN NT CHILD SAFETY SYSTEM

Territory Families minister Dale Wakefield confirmed all recommendations had been accepted and defended the department’s current record, dismissing the allegations as being “historical”.

Ms Wakefield also defended the head of Territory Families Ken Davies in light of the OCC’s findings.

But the OCC report says the systemic failures of government authorities has yet to be addressed by Territory Families.

This includes the continual placement of children with the carers despite the history; the fact case managers only saw the two children still in the carers’ care five times in two years between 2016 and 2017, despite the target being once a month; and a startling oversight in 2018 where an infant was meant to be with the carers for three days but stayed for six months.

Ms Gwynne said having to investigate and author this report was a sign of “real failures” in the system.

She took aim at NT authorities, including NT Police, for not following up on recommendations she had made in previous reports in 2018.

“We have a report that pretty recently, in 2018, where we outline matters that are central to the assessment and monitoring of carers,” she said.

“I would have hoped that these issues wouldn’t continue to happen and we have had opportunities to intervene, to change the circumstances of some of these children.

“Not all of the issues were historical, we are talking about 16 years … there are matters reported to the department, and to police as recently as 2018-2019, there were two further carer approvals in 2017 and 2019, so those matters are very recent.”

The OCC again recommended NT Police undertake a full review of the Child Abuse Taskforce to ensure current practices align with operational objectives, something the commissioner recommended last year.

NT Police had a deadline of December 2019 to complete this but did not. In their response to the recent report, Commissioner Jamie Chalker confirmed the review was under way.

AMSANT chief executive John Paterson said the revelations were alarming but not surprising.

“We were hearing about it anecdotally from networks and contacts and community members,” he said.

“It’s definitely proven that the system needs a lot of work, it’s still got a number of deficiencies.

“We’re calling on the government to take this report seriously and look carefully at the systematic failures that lead to the harm to these children.”

CHILD SAFETY WATCHDOG STILL UNDER STAFFED

A STAFFER at the Office of Children’s Commissioner looking into a case file uncovered a series of historic child abuse allegations that led to the damning investigation, Commissioner Colleen Gwynne said.

“Significant (resources go into investigations like these) … it is a really difficult job because there’s a lot of detail in there,” she said.

The Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse recommended the Children’s Commissioner have 20 staff in order to undertake its critical work, though Ms Gwynne confirmed she currently has 12 working in the office, an increase of four in this term of NT’s government.

Ms Gwynne said there were other recommendations from the royal commission, including more powers for the OCC, that the NT Government was yet to implement.

“There are still a number of recommendations that are outstanding … particularly around legislation and providing powers to my office to be able to undertake the function more fully,” she said.

“Also, the formation of a commission to look at the all children not just vulnerable children, so there was a lot of work to be done.”

Until that is done, gaps in services for vulnerable children in the NT remain.

“If you talk about young people in care who have been subject to the abuses outlined in our report, unfortunately their future … will be quite challenging,” Ms Gwynne said.