Mum’s desperate plea: ‘Please tell me, where’s my son?’

The Indigenous mother of the 11-year-old boy dragged screaming by NT police into a paddy wagon is worried for her son and wants to know where they took him?

The distressing moment Benny, 11, was taken away.

Every morning this week, a worried Indigenous mother has walked the streets of a Northern Territory neighbourhood looking for her son. “I want to see him,’’ *Maya said, wiping tears from her face, a look of despair in her eyes. “I don’t know where he is.’’

Her son is the boy known by the pseudonym Benny, the 11-year-old foster child who was wrestled into the cage of paddy wagon by armed police last Friday and taken, it’s presumed, to a new foster placement.

Benny was removed from Maya when he was seven weeks old and she has tried to maintain contact while dealing with troubles in her own life. She has never stopped loving her boy.

“I’m really worried. Every night I can’t sleep,’’ she told The Australian. “They shouldn’t have come here and dragged him like a dog, put him in a paddy wagon like a kangaroo. That’s not right for an Aboriginal boy. I’m angry, really angry, upset.

“I am still looking for him. I will get up again tomorrow morning and walk into town looking for him.’’

Her comments come as concerns mount over the manner in which Benny was removed last week from the home where his sisters live with their long-term carers, *Tom and *Marie, who took in Benny as a baby.

Maya said the white couple were like family to her and she trusts them to care for her son and his two sisters.

However, in the midst of an ongoing dispute with the department, the foster carers’ accreditation was not renewed and they were told Benny couldn’t be in their home without departmental authorisation.

When the boy refused to leave last Friday, Territory Families workers arrived with armed police to force him out.

The acting NT Children’s Commissioner Nicole Hucks confirmed her office had received formal complaints about the incident but stopped short of announcing an investigation, saying she was being “actively briefed’’ by Territory Families.

She acknowledged the “confronting nature’’ of video footage taken at the scene. “The immediate focus is on the current and ongoing safety and wellbeing of the child involved,’’ she said.

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles refused to comment on the case when contacted by The Australian on Tuesday but was quoted in the NT News two days later. “It’s distressing to see but at the same time these cases are complex and our frontline agencies are working extremely hard in those situations that are not straight forward,” she reportedly said.

Former NT police officer turned politician Mark Turner called for an investigation into the incident, saying it presented a “grave picture of how we are safeguarding our most vulnerable”.

He questioned whether negotiators could have been used to defuse the situation rather than armed police officers.

“I cannot help but wonder if the involvement of police negotiators, who would not routinely carry overt firearms or weaponry, could have changed the course of events,” he said.

“My concerns extend beyond the immediate incident. There seems to be an overarching theme of administrative bureaucracy taking precedence over the genuine welfare of children in our care,’’ Mr Turner said.

In a letter of complaint to the NT Children’s Commissioner, he asked: “Did we move the child for safety, or to satisfy Territory Families internal policies and procedures?’’

The circumstances of Benny’s removal have distressed his two sisters, who were home when police wrestled the struggling boy from their home.

Northern Territory police take the 11-year-old boy into custody.

His birth mother Maya says the entire family is upset and she worries the boy has been taken from the area, away from his sisters, away from his grandmother, who loves to take him fishing, and his broader family who like to sit with the boy, tell him stories, pass down cultural knowledge.

Maya told The Australian on Wednesday night she hoped the boy would be returned to Tom and Marie, back to the house where his biological family are welcome to visit.

“We are close with (Tom and Marie), we call (Marie) Mum. We know they will always be there for us and especially for the kids.

“We have different cultures, white and black. We’re trying to teach them in our way and they teach us white (way). For me, I’m happy for the kids to be here, to learn, get education, go to school.’’

The Australian met Benny’s grandparents and aunt earlier this year and they too said they were happy for the children to be with the couple. Like Maya, they expressed concern at the boy’s movement through foster homes after he was taken from Tom and Marie a couple of years ago.

“We don’t see him,’’ the grandfather says. “No one tells us where he is. I want to see his face, to talk face-to-face. He needs to know where we are.”

These grandparents have stories and cultural practices they need to pass on, and if they can’t care for the children themselves it doesn’t mean they have nothing to offer. “They keep moving him and moving him, it’s not good,’’ Maya said.

Her own life has been beset with problems, including extreme domestic violence, alcohol abuse and periods in custody. Her four children were removed and placed with Tom and Marie, who have struggled at times to cope with their challenging behaviours and ongoing trauma. One of Maya’s children took his life in a residential care home at the age of 15.

Despite the difficulties, Maya still wants input in their lives, for her voice to be heard when she is strong enough to use it.

“I say to Family Services the kids should be with (Tom and Marie) and they don’t listen,” she said. “They keep telling me I need to do three months in rehab and the kids can come back but I say my kids are all right with (Tom and Marie). They’re safe.’’

Maya was poised and candid when she spoke with The Australian this week, clearly advocating for her children between tears when she kept asking, where is Benny?

“What I want to know is, does he know I’m looking for him?’’

* Names have been changed