Marion Scrymgour releases personal statement in response to son’s latest criminal conviction and ice addiction
An NT politician has made a deeply personal statement, reflecting on her duty as a mother to support her son through his ice addiction and recent criminal convictions.
A Northern Territory member of parliament has released a deeply personal statement reflecting on her son’s battles with ice addiction and her duty as a mother and parliamentarian “to do better”.
Lingiari MP Marion Scrymgour released the humanising statement after her son Richard Maurice Scrymgour fronted a Darwin court for the second time in four months.
On Tuesday, he was given a three-month suspended sentence and a nine-month good behaviour bond after he pleaded guilty to stealing more than $500 worth of groceries from a Darwin supermarket and driving an uninsured and unregistered vehicle on August 25.
Ms Scrymgour made it clear she did not excuse her son’s actions, but hoped the once “proud and dependable worker” would overcome what she called the “scourge” of methamphetamine addiction.
“As a mother it is my task and role to express to him my anger and frustration when he stoops low, to be there when the fair weather friends and family leave him where he has fallen, to try and pick him up from the ground on which he lies (no matter how unsympathetic I may feel about it),” Ms Scrymgour said.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge Greg MacDonald was scathing in his dressing down of Scrymgour’s “appalling record”, stating his grandfather Jack Scrymgour would be “disgusted in [his] dishonesty”.
Ms Scrymgour reflected on these statements, affirming Judge MacDonald’s remarks.
“The judge said that Richard’s grandfather, my father Jack Scrymgour, would have been disgusted by the dishonesty of what Richard had done. That is true. He worked hard his whole life and had no time for lawbreakers,” she said.
“What is also true is that Richard’s grandmother, my mother, would have been heartbroken if she was still alive.
“She was the person who Richard was closest to in life.
“The absence of her shame and her love makes a road to recovery all that much more difficult.”
Like many mothers supporting their children through addiction, Ms Scrymgour reflected on the futility of the struggle to “salvage addiction-scarred” family.
“So where to from here — Not just for me but for all the many families trying to make sense of and navigate a pathway through the methamphetamine scourge?,” she said.
“The answer is that I don’t know. I certainly don’t claim to have any special insight or capacity to fix things just because I am an elected member of Parliament.
“If anything, at a family level that makes it harder – because I am away so much and can’t always follow through on an intervention or be consistently present to prevent backsliding.
“I have always spoken out for and in support of victims of crime, and I will continue to do so.
“I believe in law and order and protecting the vulnerable.
“But I also need to do more, I need to do better, to assist those family members who are up for it throughout the Territory, especially older mothers like me, to salvage addiction-scarred human beings who without help will end up hurting themselves and others.”
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Originally published as Marion Scrymgour releases personal statement in response to son’s latest criminal conviction and ice addiction
