The moments a toddler’s life could have been saved when authorities should have stepped up
The parents of the baby who was found dead on Surfers Paradise beach played a game of hide of seek with authorities in the sand dunes to avoid being detected.
Crime and Court
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THE parents of the baby who was found dead on Surfers Paradise beach played a game of hide of seek with authorities in the sand dunes.
As the couple moved from Kingscliff to Tweed Heads and north to Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach, they made sure never to stay long in the one location. The trigger for authorities becoming involved was the family choosing Sydney Hamilton Family Park on Garfield Terrace, a slim green plot that can be seen from the balconies of penthouses bordering it.
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This was a busier location than other haunts such as the Jack Evans Boat Harbour on the border. The homeless camp out on the Tweed in larger numbers. At Surfers, with a baby, they were a curiosity.
A Garfield Tce resident told the Gold Coast Bulletin: “They’d only turn up at eight or nine o’clock at night and would pick up their things and be gone by 7am.”
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During the day the family sheltered in bushland in the dunes overlooking the beach and only left after the police discovered their location.
“When they were sleeping on the wooden boards they had heaps of blankets,” the resident said.
“The first night, I heard a baby crying, around nine or 10pm. There were no lights on. The second night there was a light on. I could see the blankets there and a pram.”
This was in mid-May when the Coast experienced an early winter chill. On a closer look, the infant was obviously a newborn, the resident said.
“I said to my husband that I was going to ring someone. I emailed a councillor’s office and I sent another email to homeless services.” they said.
“The baby was very young. If I’d known what was going to happen I would have gone and taken the baby then.
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“I can’t believe what’s happened. It’s so unfair. When I saw the helicopter (on Monday morning) I had a bad feeling.”
Early one morning in June four police officers arrived in the park looking for the parents.
“He (the father) had the children in his possession. He didn’t leave them in the dunes,” the resident said.
The father had the baby in the pram and he was holding her older brother before police escorted them to their car.
The resident was shocked later to see the mother pushing the baby in a pram several blocks away near the Gold Coast Highway.
“I saw the young girl racing around with the pram. To tell you the truth she was acting really erratically,” they said.
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A follow-up phone call was made to police officers to check that the family had not returned to the streets.
Police explained that the case, like many involving homeless people, was problematic but that Child Safety Services staff were in touch with the family.
Three months later the family had moved to the dunes in front of Broadbeach State School.
“I reported it (to police) and a few days later the tent was gone but I often saw them here,” a Broadbeach resident said.
“I just feel sick nothing happened.
“Are we the only people that spoke up. Surely we aren’t the only ones that saw.”
As they reflected on the enormity of this, the residents and support workers thought about how everyone had let the baby down.
They stopped talking and then there were tears.
“It was everyone’s responsibility,” the Surfers Paradise resident said.
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