Tragic teen girl’s life of drugs and exploitation

PJQ was born into violence and drugs and let down by a system that was supposed to save her. She died at just 18. How can this happen in a country like ours?

PJQ’s final hours, as laid out in the inquest, paint a devastating picture.

This is the story of PJQ: a girl who never had a chance in life and doesn’t have a name in death.

Born into family violence, she was let down by the system and preyed on by creeps who exploited her mental illness, drug addiction and vulnerability for their sexual gratification.

Neglect, abuse and trauma were grim forces for much of PJQ’s life which started on December 9, 2003 and ended on February 25, 2022, when she took her final breath, aged just 18, in a bed in a drug house in Dandenong.

The harrowing life and death of PJQ has been replayed in the Victorian Coroner’s Court as an inquest attempts to identify gaps in the safety net, particularly around finding long and short term accommodation, for troubled teenagers as they transition out of state care at 18.

As Coroner David Ryan, who made the difficult decision to suppress PJQ’s identity to protect a family member who is also in state care, put it: the inquest is attempting “to see if we can learn anything to help reduce the likelihood of something like this happening again”.

“It’s a very sad, difficult and complex case and I think there were many challenges that PJQ faced in her life and many challenges that her carers faced in providing care and support to her but … it’s an outcome that we as a community can’t accept,” Coroner Ryan told last month’s hearing.

Coroner Ryan noted; “Many people cared for PJQ and did their best to support and assist her but it is clear that she experienced challenging and traumatic circumstances in her childhood and at times she engaged in high-risk behaviours that were difficult for her carers to manage.”

The teenager’s devoted grandmother, who can only be referred to as Ms V, unsuccessfully applied twice via her lawyer to the coroner to lift the suppression order so the world could know her granddaughter was more than three letters.

One friend, in an online tribute, spoke of PJQ as a loyal friend who was more “family even though we didn’t share blood” who “came picked me up” and how she’ll always “love you” and “come visit” PJQ. Another friend described a “beautiful girl” with a “quirky sense of humour” and being “fun loving”.

Ms V, her lawyer told the hearing, was very concerned with preventing this happening again and thought “putting a face to these proceedings is more likely to do that”. Coroner Ryan expressed sympathy, but wouldn’t lift the suppression order.

PJQ’s final hours, involving meth, paint a devastating picture.

PJQ’s final hours, as laid out in the inquest, paint a devastating picture:

On February 24, 2022, on what would be her last day, PJQ and a female friend were at a Dandenong house using meth, GHB and benzodiazepines. Two men — identified in coronial documents as Peter and Anthony — were also there. Drug paraphernalia was scattered throughout the home.

At 4am on February 25, Anthony woke to see PJQ behaving in a severely drug affected manner. He saw her take more GHB. Anthony spent most of that day working in a trailer in the front yard and smoking meth. PJQ remained in bed.

Peter woke at 10.30am and believed PJQ was sleeping in bed. When Peter returned home at 3pm, he noticed she was still in bed.

Anthony remained in the front yard of the house until 8pm, and at 8.50pm took some GHB. Then he checked on PJQ.

Walking into the bedroom, Anthony saw PJQ’s feet and legs looked discoloured. He took some more GHB. Then he rang emergency services at 9.07pm. An ambulance arrived at 9.16pm. Paramedics could not save PJQ. She was pronounced dead at 9.20pm. Authorities would later attribute her death to an accidental overdose from multidrug toxicity.

Ms V’s lawyer recounted to the court this desperately sad anecdote about PJQ’s final hours:

“On the day before her passing away … she wanted to buy washing powder. She accidentally bought fabric softener and then she went back to the house in Dandenong with those men that … and had to be told how to use the washing machine, just absolutely captures how she was pulled in so many different directions. Trying to look after herself, yet sadly, giving into those self-destructive habits that had persisted throughout her young life,” the lawyer said.

“In my submission, when you look at that, because of the lack of housing, PJQ found herself in a house with 40-year-old men with drug paraphernalia everywhere, being the victim of what seems like a terrible sexual exploitation.”

Coroners Court of Victoria in Melbourne. Picture: Steve Tanner

Much of the hearing has focused on a lack of accommodation for teens like PJQ when state care lapses at 18. Ms V’s lawyers have raised concerns about the fact she was discharged from a drug rehab program about ten days before her death, and questioned what ongoing support was offered.

The inquest was told the case highlighted two key issues; the first being that long-term accommodation was not able to be found for PJQ ahead of her care order lapsing when she turned 18, and a lack of available options for short term bridging accommodation.

Airbnbs, motels and private rentals were all considered for PJQ, but for various reasons all fell through, the court heard, including her record for property damage, and that she would be vulnerable to exploitation in some of the settings.

Ms V’s lawyer told the court:

“That should inform the way those housing options are looked at, at those critical times. And if it means an Airbnb, if it means a hotel, that in my submission is what ought to result from those risk assessments because the chance of someone ending up where PJQ did is a very foreseeable one, that she could end up going back to, any area where nothing good had

ever happened to her and drugs would come once again into the picture and we sadly end up where we are today.” The inquest has heard that since PJQ’s death Victoria’s crisis accommodation for teens has improved somewhat through additional funding.

PJQ, the court has heard, was born into family violence. Her parents used drugs and were unable to care for her. By the age of 16, PJQ had been the subject of seven reports to Victorian welfare authorities. The first of these was on the day she was born.

In 2009, a permanent care order was applied to the then six-year-old girl who had moved in with her grandmother.

During much of her primary school years, PJQ was engaged with her learning, the court heard. But this positive trajectory out of the darkness of her early years faltered when she started high school and she struggled socially and academically. For Ms V, her beloved granddaughter was becoming a troubled teenager and proving seriously challenging to care for.

In January 2019, the court heard, a report to welfare authorities raised concerns she was “engaging in sexual activities with older unknown men for money”.

Authorities placed her with an Anglicare program and an initial psychiatric review concluded she relied heavily on substances to regulate her emotions and distress, the court heard. Her symptoms were consistent with PTSD, experts concluded.

During these years, the coroner’s court has been told, a range of government and independent welfare organisations worked hard to help PJQ. She lived in five different residential care homes in this period due to what the court heard was her “challenging behaviour and increased risk”.

In the weeks before her death, PJQ successfully completed one drug rehabilitation program and had signed up to a second one in Traralgon in southeastern Victoria. She had, however, landed a job at a local fast food outlet, suggesting she was heading in the right direction. She told friends she was happy to be working and it would help pay the rent.

But within days, she had returned to drugs. On February 24, a welfare worker picked her up from a Dandenong address and thought she was drug affected. She confirmed she had been using methamphetamine and GHB. Her condition worsened, and the worker called an ambulance. But she ran off. She would die the next day.

A family impact statement from Ms V read to the court speaks to the heartbreak of PJQ’s death, with the grandmother telling the hearing she “cannot come to terms with knowing PJQ believed and was told I didn’t want her home”.

“To be exited with no safe accommodation by her care team, to be told she would have to make arrangements to go to a homeless shelter with alcoholics and addicts, I could only imagine her anxiety and feeling of hopelessness,” the statement reads.

“To be exited into the dangerous situation, putting her life at risk, no one would return my calls. I had no idea what was happening, if PJQ was still at rehab or not.

“I was beside myself with worry. Before I left for a week away, PJQ was happy and positive, making plans for her new accommodation. We even planned which room I would have when I stayed. She had all her furniture ready to move in, in a few short weeks. She had a job she loved. As she said, she’d need money for rent. This is her first ever job. She was so proud of herself.

“She made friends who didn’t know her past, which made her happy. I was so proud to see her positive and happy. She was – she was such a kind, beautiful, bighearted girl. Just 18, with her life ahead of her.

“To come home, my PJQ lost to me. To be told a short time later that she’d been found dead, I cannot express what that call did to me. I now believe your heart can be broken, can break, because in that moment, mine did.

“I could not save my precious PJQ. I kept asking myself what could happen in a week, that this can happen.

“I believe with all my heart PJQ would be alive and happy today had a duty of care been implemented.”

Coroner Ryan paid tribute to Ms V before retiring to consider his findings:

“It’s clear that she (Ms V) was very involved and provided consistent loving support to PJQ throughout her life and this case is incredibly sad, incredibly tragic, for all of us in the court, but obviously for Ms V, for the family, it’s a very difficult thing to come to terms with.”