Girl X rape scandal: Royal Commission call after new abuse claims

EXCLUSIVE: A photograph obtained by the Daily Telegraph shows Girl X scrawling ‘F**k the system’ on the bathroom wall of the foster home where she was allegedly repeatedly raped.

• ALLEGED ABUSER DENIES RELATIONSHIP WITH GIRL X
• TEEN VICTIM WAS PUSHED TO THE VERY EDGE
• GIRL DIED BEFORE TRIAL OF ALLEGED ATTACKER
• SEX ABUSE WARNINGS MADE BEFORE GIRL X’S DEATH

THE Baird government has requested a royal commission into residential foster care after being presented with more cases of abuse at the same Sydney facility where a girl aged 14 was repeatedly raped.

On the day a week-long coronial inquiry into the subsequent death of the teen, dubbed Girl X, in state care starts, The Daily Telegraph can reveal Family and Community Services Minister Brad Hazzard (right) has contacted organisers of the Royal Commission into Child Abuse to ask it to “expand its previous investigation to consider the particular circumstances of that residential facility”.

Girl X died at 14 from a presumed drug overdose / Supplied

“Last Wednesday certain historic information regarding the same facility as was involved in the case highlighted by The Telegraph was given to me by FACS,” Mr Hazzard said. “These cases involved serious allegations of sexual assault by staff.

“My level of concern was such that I again personally contacted the royal commission and asked it to expand its investigation to consider the particular circumstances of that particular residential facility.”

It is understood that the sexual assault allegations are subject to police investigations and prosecutions underway.

Girl X’s alleged rapist (right).

Last week The Telegraph revealed that the 2012 rape charge against one of the youth workers accused of sexually assaulting Girl X, who was 14 at the time, was dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions, after the girl died following a drug overdose just two weeks before the case was set down for trial in 2014.

The accused man, now 30, furiously denied the allegations when confronted by The Telegraph.

It was also revealed last week that if Girl X had not attempted suicide the morning after the sexual assault, authorities may never have known about the rape.

The Telegraph has also obtained a picture showing Girl X just two days before her death scrawling “f... the system” on a bathroom wall.

Girl X scribbles on the wall of a bathroom.

Mr Hazzard said drugs, alcohol and domestic violence had forced “a massive increase” in the number of children who needed care, with a jump from 5500 in 1995, to “close to 20,000”.

“Right now, following recommendation from the 2008 Wood Special Commission Inquiry, almost half of children in care have been transferred from the government sector (FACS) to charitable-run facilities,” he said.

“My view is that some of those NGOs need to focus a lot more on better training and oversight of their carers and workers. Equally FACS needs to pick up its capacity in that area. The facility where the child was allegedly raped in 2012 underpins my view.”

Opposition Family and Community Services spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk demanded that Mr Hazard “immediately suspend” the contract of the provider running the facility and order an independent inquiry.

“We need assurances now that all children in this provider’s care are in safe hands,” Ms Mihailuk said.

The residential facility where the abuse allegedly took place. Picture Craig Greenhill

“Despite being questioned in Parliament, the Minister has failed to reveal what steps he has taken to establish if other sexual assaults occurred at this facility or in any of the facilities managed by the provider.”

It can also be revealed that in a submission by a Family and Community Services insider to the Inquiry into Child Protection on June 2, a separate allegation of sexual abuse at the facility was made.

“Matters of allegations against carers are not consistently being treated as urgent matters,” the FACS worker of 35 years wrote, and “an undue amount of importance attached to maintaining status quo between agencies and FACS” had “led to a situation where a child was sexually assaulted by multiple workers in an NGO OOHC (Out of Home Care) facility.”

Minister for Family and Community Service Brad Hazzard / Picture: Cameron Richardson

The insider said “many situations” where foster carers had been subject to “multiple reports as a ‘person of interest’ or ‘persons associated with causing risk’” had not been “adequately investigated by FACS” and “further children have been put at risk when placed in their care”.

A submission to the inquiry by Legal Aid on July 29 slammed the transfer of children from FACS to charitable-run organisations, stating that the “disparity in training, qualifications and skills between the government and non-government sector is of great concern” and the result was “such a significant impact on young people in care”.

One of the former care workers accused of Girl X’s abuse.

MOTHER NOT TOLD ABOUT SEX CLAIMS

Clarissa Bye

THE heartbroken biological mother of Girl X said she was unaware of her daughter’s alleged rape at the hands of at least two youth workers until it was revealed in The Daily Telegraph.

An inquest begins today into the death of the teenager, whose case came to light only after a youth worker tried to overturn a Working With Children ban imposed after he was charged with sexually assaulting her when she was just 14 years old.

Girl X died on Easter Sunday, April 21, 2014, with an autopsy suggesting she died of pneumonia, with the drug ice in her system.

The mother of Girl X.

The 43-year-old woman said she had not been told by police or social workers about the alleged 2012 rape by an overnight youth worker sleeping at the group home. The worker was 12 years older than her daughter.

She said she fought to get her children back from FACS when they were removed because of violence and alcohol issues.

The woman, who cannot be identified and who had tracked down her daughter via Facebook, said nothing could return her child but called for a royal commission into child protection in NSW.

“Maybe her death will save another child but it shouldn’t have happened like that, she shouldn’t have suffered,” she said.

“FACS didn’t even tell me at the time. They turned up last week and asked me how I was. Why have they hushed this up?

Only days before her death Girl X had said to her mother: “I’m finding life hard.”

GIRL X: WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR

* Girl X was 14 when repeatedly raped by at least two youth workers during “sleepover shifts” at a youth refuge in 2012

* Was still in state care when she died two years later after a drug overdose

* Charges against one of her alleged abusers, aged 26 at the time of the incidents, dropped by DPP

* That’s despite a DNA profile match — on sperm found in Girl X’s underwear — with the accused man was “expected to occur in fewer than 1 in 100 billion individuals”

* Classified as “high needs” while in care

* Police were only alerted to Girl X’s sexual abuse when she attempted suicide

* All workers at the facility were sacked after the incident but the centre did not change its working processes

* The Baird government has extended the foster care facility operator’s contract to June 2017

* Family Services Minister Brad Hazzard has ordered the DPP to review the case