Girl, 12, charged over alleged stabbing death of woman in Footscray ran away from state care
A girl charged over the alleged stabbing murder of a woman at a Footscray hotel fled state care 275 times and had a history of violence, a court has heard.
Police & Courts
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A 12-year-old girl charged with murder last month had gone missing from state care for more than a fortnight and was “significantly substance affected” when she allegedly stabbed a woman to death in Footscray.
Damning new details of the girl’s history — which the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing fought to keep secret — can now be revealed after a Supreme Court judge on Friday ruled it “inappropriate” to make a gag order.
The girl, who cannot be named, ran away from carers on average twice a week in the years before she allegedly killed a woman, 37, in the early hours of November 16.
The Supreme Court heard she’d run away 275 times in three years — often for “one to two” nights in a row.
The court also heard allegations that there were at least 10 reports of escalating violent behaviour made in the 20-months before her arrest by the Homicide Squad.
Those reports included allegedly holding up a shop with a knife in a bid to steal alcohol, carrying a knife in public, assaulting three people on separate occasions, stealing her carer’s car and throwing a stone through a resident’s window.
The court heard the child has history of abuse and would regularly go missing from her care facilities where she could come and go as she pleased.
The child had allegedly been the victim of sexual exploitation by adults, would drink alcohol as her “choice of substance abuse” and had gone missing for two weeks until she was arrested at the Barkly St apartments, about 2am on November 16.
After her arrest over the woman’s death, the court heard that while still affected by substances, she told a Royal Children’s Hospital psychologist, “I’m going to f***ing kill you motherf***ers”.
Information about the case can only now be reported after the State — the girl’s legal guardian — lost a Supreme Court bid to keep the details secret after it cited “parental concern” for the girl’s welfare.
Lawyers for the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing Secretary Peta McCammon fought for five weeks for a gag order, claiming the media went “too far” in reporting that the girl was in state care as it could identify her.
But in extensive written reasons on Friday, Justice James Elliott dismissed the bid, finding the order wasn’t necessary as the girl was already afforded a “significant degree of protection” under laws that prohibited an underage accused from being identified.
The girl remains on bail at a secure unit that allows therapeutic treatment after juvenile detention was considered inappropriate given her needs and young age.
She is housed in an isolated area of the accommodation, where she has allegedly made threats to kill other children through a window, and had told workers, “I’m going to burn down the building”, and, “I’m going to hurt people”.
Lawyers for the Secretary have this month asked the court to revoke her bail, citing concerns with keeping the girl and other children safe.
But Justice Elliott refused, ordering she stay there for the moment as alternate secure accommodation is now being considered.
No information is yet known about the circumstances of the alleged murder, with the criminal case stalled amid the suppression fight.
The girl was supposed to have her fingerprints and DNA taken to compare against blood stains found at the crime scene.
But that process — which requires a forensic procedure application to a court — was delayed as the child’s lawyer and the State sought a hold up until the gag order was determined.
With the court dismissing the suppression bid on Friday, that forensic hearing can now go ahead, where details of the crime scene are expected to be aired.
In its application for a suppression order, lawyers for the Secretary claimed that it was “not in the interest of justice to have this matter in detail published through the media”.
“Such publicity is only going to cause injustice either by way of further traumatising this vulnerable child and/or any future proceedings that are to flow from the charge that she is facing,” the Secretary’s barrister said.
He urged that the “very fragile equanimity” of the girl needed to be protected without “sensational details being made public”.
The suppression bid came after the Department wrote to the Herald Sun on November 16 and November 17 demanding that it stop reporting particular details about the case.
But lawyers for the Herald Sun refused and raised grave concerns that the Department was trying to “improperly stifle public discussion on a matter of immense public interest”.
The Herald Sun informed the Department that it “took its role in reporting on matters of public interest very seriously, and that the case had exposed serious flaws in the child protection system which could not go unreported”.
The girl has been in and out of state care since she was an infant.
For years, the Secretary has been her sole guardian.
Questions have already been raised over the girl’s capacity to be held accountable to the charge of murder.
The girl’s lawyer told the court the presumption of doli incapax – that a child lacks the capacity to be held criminally responsible – was “as strong if not equally” so to that of a boy, 12, recently found not guilty of murder.
Her case will return to court next month.