‘Come on p*ss-face’: Hidden camera catches sickening abuse

We can’t tell you Ryleigh’s* real name, but we can tell you what she suffered at the hands of people who were meant to care for her. Warning: Distressing

Note: The following article contains graphic descriptions of abuse that may be extremely upsetting to some readers.

When Ryleigh* first told her parents that one of her disability support workers was hurting her, they put it down to staff inexperience.

Kaylie* and Adan* spoke to management at the group home where their daughter lives and put up instructional signs on how to properly move Ryleigh without causing her pain. Their daughter, who was then in her late 30s, has cerebral palsy and is non-verbal so uses eye gaze to communicate.

They believed that with the additional training, the issues would stop.

They didn’t.

A few months later, after Ryleigh began waking up in the night screaming, her parents brought their daughter home for a period of time to try and alleviate her distress. Then, bone-density scans showed Ryleigh had a number of new and healed fractures, as well as osteoporosis.

Ryleigh told her parents one of her disability support workers was hurting her. Picture: Alamy, posed by model

After Ryleigh returned to her group home she refused to sleep in her bed, preferring to stay in her wheelchair. A hidden camera installed by her parents revealed why.

Videos showed staff swinging Ryleigh in her hoist and behaving sexually inappropriately with her. Ryleigh has no gag reflex, and female staff members made jokes, sticking objects down her throat.

Ryleigh used eye gaze communication with her parents, spelling out the names of staff who were doing these things. Her parents told management what was going on, but initially didn’t tell them about the video.

In a narrative recorded by the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability, the continued abuse Ryleigh suffered is listed in horrifying detail:

Video showed Ryleigh crying and staff telling her to ‘shut the f**k up’ and go to sleep. Staff told her to stop looking at the signs her parents had placed around the room to communicate her pain.

Staff did not engage with Ryleigh while they changed her, instead swore and complained. They “told her off” for bullying them and, as a punishment, stopped her from socialising with other residents.

Further recordings showed staff saying, “Come on piss-face, let’s get you changed.” They changed Ryleigh in the bathroom even though they knew it was painful for her.

The abuse from staff was caught on video. Picture: iStock, posed by model

“They just don’t seem to realise they’re dealing with human beings,” Adan said in a private session with the Royal Commission.

“They’re not dealing with a doll or a lump of meat on the bed there. And they need to show them more respect and have proper empathy.”

Ryleigh’s story – along with countless others submitted by people with disability and their families – contributed to the recommendation made in the Commission’s final report that group homes be phased out over the next 15 years.

As a result of the video, several staff members had their employment terminated and were charged by police. Though, Ryleigh’s parents are among many in the community who believe the issues are institutional and cannot be solved with consequences for individuals alone.

After making a complaint to the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Adan says the body “ticked all the boxes” but is ultimately ineffectual.

A spokesperson for the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission said: “The NDIS Commission is aware of this very serious matter and in 2021 imposed banning orders on the three workers involved. This means they are prohibited from working in the NDIS.

“These orders are one of the strongest actions the NDIS Commission can take against workers who do the wrong thing.

“The NDIS Commission also understands this matter was investigated by [redacted] Police and the workers were charged and convicted.”

Dr Rhonda Galbally AC, who served as a Commissioner and during the four-year investigation, says she found through hearings that a complicating factor is that often, families are afraid to make too much of a fuss about issues lest it further impact their loved ones.

“You’ve got families that are horrified about what’s going on trying to advocate, then being deemed a nuisance,” she says. “So the safeguarding that families can bring – that is, when people are lucky enough to have them, because a lot of people in group homes don’t have family – is not as straightforward as it seems.

“Families try to say ‘hey, this is really terrible, and we don’t want this’ – they can be deemed ‘nuisances’. And at the extreme end of that, the service provider may try and succeed in getting guardianship over their family member, and then the walls go up even higher.”

Dr Rhonda Galbally says families are often afraid to speak up. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

This fear, explains Galbally, is part of the reason so many submissions to the Royal Commission have been de-identified at the request of those who made them – because ultimately, they are still dependent on accessing the system they are trying to change, for the care they need.

With the final reports from both the Disability Royal Commission and the NDIS Review both handed down in the past three months, the responsibility for lasting change and the implementation of their various recommendations falls on the shoulders of Government.

In the aftermath of these reports, numbers have dominated the headlines.

Numbers like the estimated $1.4 billion in NDIS funds lost to fraud and incorrect payments. Numbers like 10,000 – the number of submissions received by the Royal Commission. In among the numbers however, are the countless stories from people like Ryleigh and her parents – human beings whose experience cannot be neatly quantified in a headline-grabbing number, but whose courage might just contribute to lasting change, as long as we ensure never to forget their stories.

*Names have been changed.

Bek Day is a freelance writer.