Child safety death on the Gold Coast: Department failed to act despite concerns over treatment
The state government’s inability to drive a stake into the heart of the child safety crisis is a reflection of its inability to handle widespread social disharmony and community frustration. READ OUR SPECIAL REPORT >>>
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THE state government’s inability to drive a stake into the heart of the child safety crisis is a reflection of its inability to handle widespread social disharmony and community frustration.
For more than three years the Gold Coast Bulletin has exposed rorts, rackets, ineptitude and cover ups in a system designed to protect and enable vulnerable children.
Babies were thrown in rivers and bashed; children lived in tents outside Child Safety offices; a 12-year-old girl remained on the streets after being taken from a loving foster family; and cops babysat kids in police station corridors because carers paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each year couldn’t be bothered picking them up.
Children are dying and taxpayers are being screwed.
As the depths of the cesspit darkened, the Bulletin demanded a full-scale review to fix the rot. The government’s response has largely been mute.
Last year, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk encouraged her then Minister for Child Safety Di Farmer to embrace bipartisan talks with the LNP to find a solution to the sorry mess.
It broke down because neither party could get past the first hurdle of what to call the damn thing. A sticking point was the word “force”.
Six months on, a coronial report reveals a 23-week-old died despite multiple warnings to authorities about the baby’s family.
And still the government dithers.
Sadly, we have seen it too often in relation to a number of other serious issues in society: Domestic violence, youth justice and hospital ambulance ramping.
It is time to stop the talkfest and the blaming of other regimes. We have known the core and mechanics of all those social blights for a very long time and do not need a taskforce meeting to set up a taskforce meeting.
It is time to act so that, heaven forbid, the unthinkable does not happen and those community cancers claim other innocent lives.
– GOLD COAST BULLETIN EDITORIAL
Children failed: How government responded to Baby J’s death
THE state’s embattled Department of Child Safety faces fresh scrutiny after a new coronial report revealed multiple red flags were raised but not acted on before a 23-week-old Gold Coast baby ended up dead.
The department was twice notified about concerns with a family that had a newborn but deemed nothing suggested an acceptable risk.
In part three of our special report, we reveal the questions we asked Minister for Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs Leanne Linard and Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates, shadow minister for health and ambulance services and shadow minister for women and how they responded.
>>> SCROLL TO THE DOWN TO READ PART ONE AND TWO OF OUR SPECIAL REPORT – THE SHOCK DEATH OF 23-WEEK-OLD BABY J AND THE LITANY OF OTHER CHILDREN FAILED
BULLETIN QUESTIONS
What the Bulletin asked Minister for Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs Leanne Linard:
1. How were so many opportunities to intervene in Baby J’s life missed?
2. What is the state government doing to ensure this does not happen again?
3. Coroner Bentley said it was a “significant concern” that there is still no system in Queensland for tracking children from birth and through school. She also pointed out it was recommended after a coronial investigation after the death of 8-year-old “Faith” in June 2014 that there was an urgent need for development of information sharing systems between Education Queensland, police, Queensland Health and representatives from the non-state school sector to help track children as they move schools. Why has this not been enacted? Does the state government have plans to enact this? Why/why not?
4. The case of Baby J is another in a long list of cases on the Gold Coast which have highlighted failures of Child Safety, including: A 12-year-old girl allowed to walk out of hospital and back onto the streets; the case of the baby girl thrown into the Tweed River in which Child Safety did not visit the family; homeless teens living in tents pitched outside the Child Safety office; twin babies under the department’s watch allegedly assaulted; supervisors allowing a teen to take the train to score pot off his mother; and a spike in indigenous children needing help. Why won’t the state government conduct a review/overhaul of Child Safety to ensure all children remain safe?
5. In October last year a bipartisan approach to Child Safety changes collapsed. What has been done since?
6. Are any changes to Child Safety on the horizon? if so, what?
7. What is being done to ensure children at risk are safe?
MINISTER’S RESPONSE
The response from Minister for Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs Leanne Linard:
“The Child Protection Act 1999 prevents me from commenting on individual cases. However, the death of any child is a tragedy and the safety and wellbeing of children continues to be my top priority.
“All children deserve to be safe and loved in their own homes, but I know many of these homes are facing increasingly complex situations and pressures.
“In recent years the department has made extensive changes to its systems and processes to help ensure more children are protected and safe from harm. The system we have today is much stronger and more robust than in 2015 because of these changes.
“We now have new systems to ensure better and faster information sharing between police, health and education agencies, and Child Safety service centres undergo continuous quality improvement site visits.
“Staff have improved training and supervision and changes have been made to improve risk assessments in relation to families with a history of drug-taking and domestic violence.
“Since 2015, we have invested more than $850m in our Child Safety system, including restoring and increasing Child Safety staff levels by 550, including 39 this financial year.
In March this year, we announced a further 150 new positions for frontline child safety workers.
“Our 2020–21 budget sits at a record $1.475b, including $166.6m to continue early intervention which is so vital for children from birth to five years.
“It also includes $98.4m to manage the increasing demand on the child protection system.
“I will work with anyone who seeks to make the child protection system better and more robust. I met with the Shadow Minister for Child Protection Amanda Camm in February and we both agreed to continue to meet on an ongoing basis.
OPPOSITION RESPONSE
Ros Bates, Mudgeeraba MP and shadow minister for health and ambulance services and shadow minister for women:
“Labor is failing the most vulnerable people in our society.
“Time and time again, we see kids supposedly under the protection of the Child Safety system dying, because they aren’t being cared for properly.
“The LNP knows the Child Safety system needs an overhaul. No-one else should go through the horror these kids go through because Labor isn’t doing its job.”
PART TWO: Children failed, horror litany of tragic cases on the Coast
In part two of our special report, we reveal how it’s far from the first such tragedy on the Gold Coast.
>>> SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM TO READ PART ONE OF OUR SPECIAL REPORT – THE SHOCK DEATH OF 23-WEEK-OLD BABY J
TRAGEDY ON THE TWEED
A nine-month-old baby thrown into the Tweed River in November 2018 was never made a priority or checked by Child Safety, despite repeated pleas by police and the community.
Police warned the department of the urgency of the case when they had the baby in their care about 3am on the day she died. However, Child Safety only listed her as “concerned inquiry of the child”.
Hours later the baby was tossed in the river. Her body washed up on Surfers Paradise beach less than two days later.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Child Safety Minister Di Farmer declined to answer Bulletin questions at the time about the department’s role, citing the Child Protection Act.
Despite six months of repeated calls and emails from concerned residents, workers in the Broadbeach area and police, friends of the family say only police and council workers intervened.
The Bulletin reported police were called at 9.50am the day before the girl’s death, after a Broadbeach worker heard baby screams and adults yelling. Officers returned at 6pm and again about 3am the next day, finding the parents allegedly intoxicated.
Child Safety ignored repeated police calls for back-up. Gold Coast cops became so frustrated they drove the homeless family to relatives across the border.
Last November, the father was found not guilty of murder due to mental illness. He had ongoing psychotic beliefs related to schizophrenia when the family was sleeping rough, a court was told.
TWIN TRAUMA
A FAMILY called for an independent investigation into staffing levels at the Nerang and Mermaid Beach Child Safety offices after twin babies both suffered head injuries.
A Bulletin investigation in mid-2018 found one of the departments had concerns about the parents being able to cope with the babies’ premature births.
One of the twins was rushed to hospital weeks later with severe head injuries and was placed on life support. Child Safety officers went to the family’s home to find the other child also had injuries.
The Bulletin began highlighting the Coast’s child abuse crisis in October 2016 after at least one-fifth of critical cases involving suspected child abuse were not being investigated within the required 24 hours.
Confidential data showed 20 per cent of the urgent 24-hour investigations in which a child may be in danger of harm or neglect were being missed at the Mermaid Beach office.
HOMELESS AT 12
THE Bulletin last year exposed the sad journey of a 12-year-old girl who joined a teenage gang and resorted to prostitution, drugs and alcohol after Child Safety removed her from her foster care family.
She had been with them for 10 years.
From March 2020, she had camped on a southern beach and outside shops at Southport, and slept in a public toilet at Eagleby. She was photographed smoking a bong, was hanging out with members of a street gang, and friends suspected she had been prostituting herself with men and women to get money.
She was admitted to hospital with a staph infection, only to secretly walk out under the nose of Child Safety. Weeks later she was involved in a head-on collision in a stolen car with other juveniles.
A friend told the Bulletin: “She was dropped off at Emergency. They showed her two videos (about mental health). She told them she wanted to go home. They told her it was Child Safety’s decision and they could not help her. She was then released back on the streets.”
The government refused to get her off the streets. Instead, a Child Safety department chief once told the Bulletin that she was being “provided extensive daily support”.
RESIDENTIAL-CARE RACKET
TAXPAYERS are being slugged $27,000 a week for a child in residential care as profit-hungry agencies rort the system under the watch of Child Safety.
A Bulletin investigation in early 2019 lifted the lid on a “resi-care” racket in which providers were charging up to $1.4m a year to look after one child.
On average, it was estimated taxpayers were coughing up $450,000-600,000 every year for each of the hundreds of southeast Queensland children deemed too vulnerable to be placed in foster care.
Even then, Gold Coast teenagers complained they were physically and sexually abused and going without food. Their carers said they were underpaid and working marathon shifts.
TENT WITH GOVERNMENT VIEW
FOUR teenagers under the care of Child Safety were living in a tent outside a state government department office.
In November 2020, the Bulletin was given a photograph of the tent from an adult friend of the boys concerned about their mental and physical health after two months living on the streets.
The friend sent complaints to the department and Child Safety Minister after being told the teenagers had earlier sought refuge in a “drug house” with bikie links.
The decision by two of the teenagers – brothers aged 17 and 16 – to pitch the tent in full view of Child Safety offices was more a cry for help than a protest, she said. They were given a $25 food voucher because they were starving.
Children and Youth Justice Minister Leanne Linard said at the time: “It’s just heartbreaking to hear about children living in these circumstances. There are reasons children end up in a situation like this and we are constantly working towards solutions. Unfortunately, I am unable to comment on individual cases because of the Child Protection Act 1999.”
SCORING OFF MUM
AN in-care child costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars was allowed to hop on trains to the Gold Coast “every day” so he could “score” drugs off his mother.
Explosive recordings, case notes and interviews from a child care whistleblower in late 2019 revealed the boy, 14, would be dropped off at a Brisbane train station by carers and return home “high” on marijuana because “that’s the best time to work with them”.
The boy, being cared for by employees of a state government contractor, received supervised support 24 hours a day while staying in a Brisbane motel.
NURSERY RHYME COPS
COPS are babysitting children in the foyers of police stations because organisations paid on average $500,000 a year to look after each kid won’t pick them up.
A damning report into the state of family support and child protection in August 2020 highlighted the extra stress on officers. Police say they “don’t know what to do” with the kids.
“Their carers either refused to collect them or allow them to return to care facilities because of their complex behavioural needs.”
A Gold Coast police source told the Bulletin: “Due to the lack of support from Child Safety, kids who are being processed after hours with no hope of placement are being babysat by police.”
FOUR-MINUTE METH MADNESS
THE Bulletin reported in December last year that Child Safety was receiving fresh reports on troubled children every four minutes because a third of the parents are meth users.
New government data showed almost 10,200 children were in state care – 670 more than the previous year. The government received 125,000 reports on vulnerable children in 12 months.
BIPARTISAN COLLAPSE
IT was the unprecedented pre-election pledge to work together and fix a broken Child Safety system that virtually collapsed before it got started.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had urged then-Child Safety Minister Di Farmer to engage in cross-party talks to work on Child Safety policy in a “bipartisan and constructive way”.
Within three months, the prospect of talks had collapsed with each side blaming the other.
The LNP proposed compulsory drug testing without second chances for parents, recruiting more foster parents, police investigating high-risk cases and officers working 24-7 to help kids on the street as part of a new Child Protection Force.
However, a letter tabled in Parliament in December 2020 showed talks stalled over using the word “force” and that the government would not be renaming the department.
“The use of a term like ‘force’ implies a punitive action, which would be counterproductive to supporting families and children,” new Children and Youth Justice Minister Leanne Linard wrote.
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She said PeakCare Queensland and Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak had released a report in September on the LNP’s proposal.
“Of nearly 2000 respondents, 61.57 per cent disagreed with the proposal, with the majority raising concerns about negative connotations of the term ‘force’,” Ms Linard wrote.
Earlier, Labor said Opposition frontbenchers Stephen Bennett and Ros Bates had declined to attend meetings. In response, Mr Bennett said: “(The Minister) chose not to back our plan. There is no bipartisanship when it comes to child safety.”
Foster carers who had lobbied for the reforms were devastated. One wrote: “Our most vulnerable children are being placed in situations under the watch of the Child Safety department that are often far worse than those they were removed from.”
* Reporting Paul Weston and Chris McMahon
PART ONE: COAST BABY DIES AT 23 WEEKS DESPITE MULTIPLE SAFETY WARNINGS
THE Department of Child Safety failed to investigate multiple reports into the safety of a months-old baby, despite the parents being known to authorities.
At just 23 weeks, the child would be dead.
In the latest crisis into Child Safety, the department had at least three opportunities to help the infant but did not investigate, according to a coronial report.
That included not acting on reports of drug use, the children wandering on their own and screaming, and the mother delaying doctor instructions to take the baby to hospital for a day.
12-year-old homeless Gold Coast girl under watch of Child Safety
A pre-birth assessment of the baby’s safety was also closed without proper investigation.
All this was despite the baby’s father had been known to the department for almost 15 years.
The baby, given the pseudonym Baby J by the Southport Coroner’s Court, died in early 2015 – about 11 days after he was taken to hospital and found to have bronchiolitis.
Coroner Jane Bentley noted in her non-inquest coronial findings released on Thursday last week: “Whilst the department’s failures did not directly contribute to Baby J’s death it cannot be ascertained whether the involvement of the department with Baby J’s family may have resulted in a different outcome for Baby J … there were missed opportunities to intervene with the family which may have created increased safety for Baby J.”
The coronial findings show Baby J died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Baby J was put to sleep on a couch in the lounge room where the family was sleeping as it had airconditioning.
The father woke during the night, fed Baby J and then both slept on the couch.
The mother woke the next morning and found Baby J not breathing. Triple-0 was called.
“The father was known to the department since his first child was born in 2001,” the coronial report said.
Baby J’s father had previously had another daughter removed from his care, had spent time in prison for domestic violence and the department had concerns about his drug use and transience.
Child Safety was notified in July 2013 in relation to Baby J’s sister as his father was violent to the mother, the family was about to be evicted and the mother and father had “paranoid belief and a new world order that they did not believe in immunisations”.
In June 2014 an unborn child risk assessment was done for Baby J, but it was marked as “no outcome” after the department was unable to locate the family.
“I find that the investigation and assessment was not conducted in accordance with the Child Safety Manual and was finalised without an appropriate investigation when the department was unable to locate the family,” Coroner Bentley wrote.
“The I & A was not conducted in accordance with departmental policy and the closure led to significant risks being overlooked.”
On August 7, 2014 the department was notified Baby J was born and it was concluded the children were not at risk.
“The review team found that although this decision was appropriate there was insufficient consideration given to the family’s history with the department,” the coronial report said.
The department was notified two times in September 2014 for concerns “the father was using drugs, screaming at the children, assaulted the mother, assaulted the grandmother, the children were scared of him and wandered around on their own a lot”.
A decision was made there was no information to suggest the children were at an unacceptable risk of harm.
The coronial report said a review team later found the decision was not appropriate and should have been investigated.
On January 4, 2015 Baby J and his sister were taken to see a GP because of a chest infection.
The GP told the mother to take the children to hospital but she waited a day.
Child Safety was notified but the officer taking the call noted “nil child protection history could be located for the family” and the children were deemed not at risk.
“The review team considered that the fact that child protection history was missed in its entirety was of concern given it’s significance and length,” the coronial report said.
The report went on to say the same review team found there were a number of key points “which became missed opportunities for attempt to provide more meaningful intervention to the family”.
Coroner Bentley said it was “of significant concern” that no compulsory register for school enrolments existed despite being recommended in June 2014 after a coronial inquiry into the death of an eight-year-old girl in Cairns.
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