‘Treated worse than a stray dog’: anger mounts over NT foster boy removed by armed cops

Concerns are mounting for the boy removed from his home by armed police as campaigners call for the NT government to take urgent action.

The 11-year-old boy is forced into the cage by armed police. He screams: ‘No, no, no, no!’

The Northern Territory Chief Minister must be held accountable for allowing innocent children to be locked in police cages and treated “worse than stray dogs’’, a leading Indigenous campaigner has said.

Rodney Dillon, the Indigenous adviser for Amnesty International Australia and a former member of the Stolen Generations Alliance, was commenting after distressing video obtained by The Australian showed armed NT police wrestling an 11-year-old Indigenous foster child out of his home and into the cage of a police wagon last week.

The incident has sparked calls from Aboriginal-led justice coalition Change the Record for an urgent investigation into the boy’s case.

“This can’t be a police investigation, nor can it be run by Territory Families – it needs to be entirely independent of the systems that allow for such cruelty and inhumanity,’’ a spokesman said.

Mr Dillon, through Amnesty, has spent years lobbying the NT government and police to stop transporting children in caged wagons. “It’s inhumane. If you saw police pick up a stray dog by the legs and throw them in a cage like that they’d be charged, but they get away with it because it’s an Aboriginal person, a defenceless kid.

“The Chief Minister needs to be asked what she is doing about this. Does she feel comfortable about this situation? We need people to stand up.”

He predicted the NT government would try to stay quiet in the face of criticism of their handling of the boy, ride out the storm, and “keep doing what they do”.

Chief Minister Natasha Fyles was asked detailed questions on the case on Tuesday but delegated responsibility to Families and Police Minister Kate Worden, who issued a generic, self-evident statement: “All Territory children deserve to grow up in safe, healthy, happy homes, this is why we take child protection very seriously.’’

The video shows a foster child known by the pseudonym Benny being wrestled out of his home by three police and bundled into the wagon. He’d run away from a new foster care placement and back to his biological sisters and his “mum and dad”, a white couple who had fostered him since he was a baby.

The couple, *Tom and *Marie, who have been foster carers to Benny and his siblings for more than 13 years, have been at loggerheads with Territory Families and their carer authorisation was not renewed.

Police attempt to convince the 11-year-old boy to cooperate before he is wrestled into the paddy wagon.

While Benny’s sister is allowed to stay with them, he is not even ­allowed to visit, and so Territory Families arrived with police to physically remove the struggling, screaming child last week.

Maggie Munn, a Gunggari campaigner and national director of Change the Record, said there was extreme concern for the boy’s safety and wellbeing.

“He has been taken unwillingly and forcibly from the people he came to love and rely on. I can’t tell you the fear I have for the boy’s life and wellbeing,” she said.

“This family has already seen the loss of his brother’s life due to a system failure in services that have failed to care and support a child in distress. This feels like a tragedy waiting to happen.’’

Northern Territory Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy, asked about the issue on Tuesday, said she did not know details of the case but was concerned that a child would be put into a paddy wagon. “That’s certainly not what I would want to see, and I’d certainly like to look into what the ­issues are around that,” she said.

Ms Munn questioned why police were involved, saying: “It’s outrageous meetings didn’t happen with the carers to resolve the situation and a child’s advocate and trusted elder wasn’t consulted in the first place. What happened to this little boy could cause irreparable harm and trauma.”

Mr Dillon agreed that, on the face of it, there must have been alternatives to police intervention.

“We’ve got elders in community who can be used to work these things out. Why did it have to come to this?’’

In her two-paragraph statement, Ms Worden said police use their best judgment and knowledge to make decisions at the time, and the welfare of children was paramount.

Benny’s sisters and former carers don’t know where he is or how he is coping after Friday’s frightening events, and questions to the NT government by The Australian elicited no response.

Ms Munn said full transparency was needed about the boy’s whereabouts.

“His caregivers and sister should absolutely be kept informed of his movements, his location and his wellbeing. This was an entirely disproportionate response to a child who had committed no crime and caused no harm to himself or others,” she said.

Mr Dillon said the video should be seen around the world to show how Australia treats its Aboriginal children. “It’s bloody sad,” he said.

* Names have been changed.