Number of NT gun licences under scrutiny following teen girl Grace’s unsecured firearm death

Counsel for NT Police Fiona Kepert told the court enforcement remained ‘incredibly difficult’ short of police ‘physically going to addresses for random spot checks’. Warning: Distressing content.

Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage said there were ‘likely other children secretly and silently crying out for help’. Picture: Glenn Campbell

UPDATED, FRIDAY: Enforcing firearms licence conditions is “incredibly difficult” and consideration should be given to the number of licences granted in the Territory following the suicide of a 13-year-old girl, a court has heard.

On the final day of an inquest into the death of Grace – whose last name is suppressed – on Friday, Coroner Elisabeth Armitage said she accepted police had made improvements since her death.

But counsel for NT Police Fiona Kepert said the process remained “incredibly difficult” short of police “physically going to addresses for random spot checks”.

“If they can’t enforce the conditions of licences, maybe there should be consideration as to the number of licences that are granted,” Ms Armitage responded.

In her closing address, counsel assisting the coroner, Chrissy McConnel, said Grace’s death in her parents’ bedroom in 2022 was caused by an unsecured firearm that was registered to a different address, with ammunition also found in her own bedside drawer.

“Every firearm has the capacity to kill, it needs to be secured, police need the resources to properly regulate and enforce the licensing requirements,” she said

“But ultimately, firearms owners have to take responsibility and recognise that they are in possession of something that can kill and that they are trusted to comply with the requirement to keep firearms and ammunition secure to ensure the safety of others.

“For goodness sake, lock up your firearms.”

But Ms McConnel also said the court could not be satisfied “an appropriate risk assessment was conducted” after Grace expressed suicidal thoughts to a school counsellor.

“Perhaps one of the saddest aspects of these proceedings has been the real possibility of Grace’s distress being discovered had there been a best practice risk assessment conducted at the time of her disclosure,” she said.

“Had that happened, it’s possible a safety plan may have been developed, which may have identified, among other things, the risk associated with her having access to unsecured firearms and resulting in that risk being removed.”

While Education Department lawyer Michael McCarthy cautioned against too harsh an assessment of the counsellor’s actions, he conceded “more should have been done by (him) to engage with the family, to engage with the principal and to follow up Grace”.

“Further, the department accepts that concerns with respect of Grace should have been referred to the wellbeing team meeting,” he said.

“If Grace had been raised at the wellbeing team meeting this would have provided an opportunity for a more holistic view of Grace and may have resulted in the provision of additional supports.”

Ms Armitage will hand down her findings at a later date.

UPDATE THURS: The heartbreaking secret diaries of a 13-year-old Darwin girl represented “a chance of reaching her” that was missed in the lead-up to her apparent suicide, a court has heard.

Coroner Elisabeth Armitage is probing the circumstances of the death of Grace, whose surname is suppressed, after she was found unresponsive, lying next to a rifle in her in her parents’ bedroom in January 2022.

On Wednesday, Grace’s school principal, who cannot be named, testified that he had since read her notebooks which Ms Armitage earlier called “a cry for help”.

He described them as “the stuff of nightmares”.

“I read Grace’s diary and I thought, gee that was terrible, shocking – shocking – it makes me tear up actually,” he said.

“From these things, even myself as an experienced principal, there are huge leanings and things that resonate with you forever.”

The court had previously heard Grace had raised the issue of suicide with a school counsellor prior to her death, but the red flag wasn’t followed up with her parents.

On Wednesday Ms Armitage said it was important lessons were learned from the tragedy.

“My concern is that with a more in-depth assessment and conversation when the word ‘suicide’ was used, I feel – we’ll never know – but I feel that given her capacity to be articulate in some ways about the way that she was feeling, there was a chance there of reaching her,” she said.

“So a very careful risk assessment with a number of areas being carefully talked about and explored might give a young person an opportunity to open up.”

The principal said he had been blindsided by Grace’s death, and the fact that a child who “seemed to be doing well” could have been experiencing such immense suffering in silence.

“I was flabbergasted by some of the revelations from the diary,” he said.

“That sort of material I think is really useful for even for teachers and principals like myself to see because it does have such a sharpened pinprick of importance of those interactions that you have with kids when they’re talking about stuff like that.

“This child was bouncing around looking like she was on a trajectory to tremendous success.”

The principal said “there needs to be clearer policies about what things should be done” whenever a student talked about suicide.

“I think there should be something that’s more rigorously accepted that translates between schools so that everybody’s on the same page so they haven’t just done it at one place not at another and there’s a consistency,” he said.

The inquest continues on Thursday.

UPDATE WED: A school counsellor has revealed the depths of despair among Territory teenagers, with three children from the same high school attempting suicide over a single weekend.

On the first day of a inquest into the death of a 13-year-old Darwin girl, NT coroner Elizabeth Armitage criticised the lack of a suicide risk assessment tools for school counsellors asking whether a clearer Education Department guidelines could have saved Grace’s life.

The coronial inquiry heard that Grace — whose full name is suppressed — told her school counsellor that she was having suicidal thoughts four months before she took her own life in January 2022.

On Tuesday the accredited psychologist, who also cannot be named, said despite the teenager disclosing to him that she was thinking about suicide he classified her as “low risk”.

The inquest heard there were only “sparse notes” remaining from his three meetings with Grace, and he had no follow up meetings with the distressed child, or communication with her parents or teachers.

“She was feeling down, just overall … she had thought about suicide,” his notes from their final September meeting said.

“Feels lost … Assessed low suicidality.”

The school counsellor told Ms Armitage there were no formal risk assessment tools at the time, and he made that conclusion based on an assessment of the child’s “positivity versus nihilism”.

But Ms Armitage said any expression of suicidality should have been a major red flag in such a young child.

“That’s a big word to say to someone: ‘I’ve been thinking about suicide’,” she said.

“In middle school parlance it is a word, unfortunately, that is commonly thrown around,” the counsellor responded.

He said the language in middle schools was “quite harsh” and it was not uncommon to hear taunting children say: “go kill yourself”.

But the inquest showed that the 13-year-old’s suffering was clear in the pages of her diary, with notes about self-harming, her depression and a “preoccupation” with songs about death.

On one haunting page Grace wrote a single word 27 times — “help”.

“The documents expressed that she was feeling worthless and useless, and kept tallies of times she felt others had felt this about her,” Ms Armitage said.

The counsellor said if he had asked about these warning signs, and Grace had disclosed them, he would have changed his risk assessment.

Ms Armitage suggested more work was needed, as the new NT Education Department guide prepared in the wake of Grace’s death was still less than 20 questions.

She compared this to the New South Wales model, which was more extensive and includes meeting with parents and children to develop safety plans.

“If Grace had been asked those questions in a safe conversation, it may have given her an opportunity to talk more freely and may have uncovered the very deep distress that she apparently had,” Ms Armitage said.

The school counsellor agreed that a more formal risk assessment process, and follow-up guidelines would be beneficial, but raised concerns about the ever-present resourcing burden.

He said Grace was one of 850 students he was responsible for in 2021, and would often see more than five students a day.

Given the three-month waitlist for external youth mental health services in the NT, he said counsellors were often the first point of contact for kids on the brink.

And this was a daunting burden, with the counsellor revealing that three kids from the same Darwin school attempted suicide over a single weekend in May last year.

The Education Department confirmed there were 30 school counsellor positions – including 10 psychologists – for the 32,780 students enrolled across 152 NT schools.

On Wednesday Director of Inclusion and Engagement Services Aderyn Chatterton told the coroner the Education Department was always searching for more mental health specialists.

“We’re not just aspiring to see an increase in school counsellors, it’s also about youth workers, wellbeing co-ordinators, it’s about Family Liaison Officers,” Ms Chatterton said.

She said to meet the demand the Department had widened the qualification they would accept, and were now recruiting counsellors fresh out of university.

INITIAL TUES: It was a 13-year-old girl’s “secret and silent cry” in the lead up to her apparent suicide in 2022, a single word written 27 times on the page of a notebook: “help”.

In opening an inquest on Tuesday into Grace’s death, Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage said the notebook had only been discovered after it was already too late.

“The contents of those notebooks suggest that she had been suffering for some time but largely she hid this from others, including her family and closest friends,” she said.

“It looks like a cry for help but it was a secret and silent cry, sadly today there are likely other children secretly and silently crying out for help.

“It seems to me that as a community we have to find a way to give them back their voice.”

Counsel assisting the Coroner, Chrissy McConnel, told the court that Grace — whose full name is suppressed — “should have had her whole life ahead of her” when she seemingly picked up the rifle in her parents’ bedroom on January 28, 2022.

Ms McConnel said the weapon had been stored “unsecured, along with an air rifle and ammunition in an unlocked sliding cupboard” in her family’s suburban Darwin home.

In giving evidence on Tuesday, Grace’s father — who cannot be named — struggled to explain why he had failed to secure his firearms, which the court heard were registered to an address in another suburb.

“I bought them when I was in (the suburb where the family lived) and I should have stored them in Wanguri and — sheer complacency — didn’t,” he said.

“I decided very quickly not to go down a rabbit hole of self blame because I know Grace could have accessed all manner of avenues if she was that intent.

“I could spend a lot of time ripping that decision apart.”

Grace’s father also said a school counsellor had not told him his daughter had suicidal thoughts after assessing her as low risk, despite school records indicating he would call him.

“There was zero, if I look back, zero concerns as a parent about anything,” he said.

“She was leading the good life in the Territory really.

“I think if you get a sign that somebody’s depressed or struggling you’re lucky, you’re lucky because if you get that sign you can act on it, but we didn’t get that at all, or if we did we missed it.”

Ms McConnel said coronial records showed there had been 52 child suicide deaths in the NT during the past 10 years.

“The statistics are devastating but this inquest is not about a statistic, it is about Grace,” she said.

“It will no doubt be upsetting for all of us.”

The inquest continues.

Originally published as Number of NT gun licences under scrutiny following teen girl Grace’s unsecured firearm death