Territory Families continues to deny alleged rape of a two-year-old girl in Tennant Creek was ‘foreseeable’

TERRITORY Families continues to deny the alleged rape of a two-year-old girl in Tennant Creek was “foreseeable”, despite a 102-page report from Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne which details multiple instances of sexual abuse of her siblings

In an embarrassing blunder, a highly sensitive report into the alleged rape of a two-year-old girl was unwittingly released in full to the public

TERRITORY Families continues to deny the alleged rape of a two-year-old girl in Tennant Creek was “foreseeable”, despite a 102-page report from Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne which details multiple instances of sexual abuse of her siblings.

Ms Gwynne’s report found the little girl and her four siblings were the subject of reports related to sexual abuse, physical harm, neglect, emotional harm, family violence and parental substance abuse.

READ: GIRL, 2, WHO WAS ALLEGEDLY RAPED IN TENNANT CREEK MAY HAVE BEEN RAPED BY A DIFFERENT ASSAILANT ON ANOTHER OCCASION

A heavily redacted version of the report was tabled in Parliament this week and a copy made publicly available online. But in an embarrassing blunder, the blacked out text of the online copy could be easily unredacted through copy and paste.

That copy was removed on Thursday and a properly redacted version put online in its place. The redacted sections were highly critical of Territory Families and its failure to act at dozens of critical points in the previous 16 years.

Media outlets with access to the unredacted information were threatened with criminal prosecution should they publish any of the information.

NT News graphic for Children's Commissioner's report into the alleged rape of a two-year-old girl in Tennant Creek

In a letter sent out to media and stakeholders late on Thursday, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner took the heat for the mistake.

According to the report, the girl’s family came into contact with police more than 150 times and 52 child protection notifications were received about the family from 2002, 13 of which were substantiated.

The little girl, now 3, and her baby brother have finally been removed from their mother – by South Australia’s child protection agency.

In its response to Ms Gwynne’s report, Territory Families wrote it “refutes the finding that ‘it was foreseeable that (the girl) was at risk of sexual assault’.”

One of the notifications, made in 2013, was in reference to “strange men” living in the house. That wasn’t an indicator of potential future harm because the mother had left the home and the children were in the care of an aunt, according to the department.

Another notification related to one of the girl’s sisters – received just four months before the alleged rape – alleged a man aged 40-50 was “buying young girls clothes and taking them to a hotel room”.

According to Territory Families, that alleged incident didn’t indicate potential harm to the little girl as it bore “no similarity to the alleged crime committed upon (the girl)”.

In a shocking admission, Territory Families claimed the risk faced by the little girl before the alleged rape was “not dissimilar” to many other open child protection investigations.

If the approach suggested in the report was used that would result in more kids being taken from their families, it said.

Speaking on Thursday, Ms Gwynne said that was a risk worth taking. “If it means we have take more children into care so be it. We cannot leave them in situations where they remain in danger,” she said.

Territory Families continues to deny the alleged rape of a two-year-old girl in Tennant Creek was “foreseeable”

Territory Families noted many of the incidents of family violence detailed in the report were “verbal disputes”. Ms Gwynne fired back at the attempt to downplay the impact of family violence.

In the report, she said a “simple review” showed the violence was not limited to verbal disputes.

“The impact on developing brains of young people are so significant and the research is so clear that children as participants of domestic violence often have really poor outcomes,” she said.

Territory Families boss Ken Davies continued to dig in on Thursday, maintaining the department couldn’t have known the girl was at risk of sexual assault.

Mr Davies said Territory Families accepted the recommendations of the Children’s Commissioner’s report and that the child was foreseeably at “risk of harm”. But he denied that foreseeable risk included the risk of sexual assault.

That is at odds with the opinion of his boss, Families Minister Dale Wakefield.

She said it was “clear” that sexual harm was one of the risks the child faced.

“Obviously where there is a lack of supervision, there is inconsistent parenting, people are at risk of a range of harms, including sexual violence,” she said.

Ms Wakefield said she was concerned that Territory Families had downplayed the impact of family violence, but said she continued to have faith in the department and in her chief executive.

No disciplinary action has been taken against any department staff over the alleged incident.

Mr Davies said Territory Families staff did a “fantastic job in very difficult circumstances” and were in need of “support and stability”.

The department lobbied for the findings of the report to remain secret, because their release would have an “unreasonably adverse impact on Territory Families” and would likely be “interpreted as a specific finding of failure by Territory Families”.