Parents of teenagers facing 150 charges in Toowoomba Childrens Court too drunk to drive to support kids in court

A dark reality sits behind the unbridled offending of two young sisters, reflecting back a larger issue in our community an expert has warned.

Criminology experts have slammed the LNP for their proposed approach to youth crime prevention. Picture: File.

• Opinion: What youth crime plan fails to fix

The tragic case of a “family in crisis” encapsulates the acute shortcomings of the LNP’s plan to reduce youth crime, an expert has said.

Two Darling Downs sisters, aged 14 and 16, came before Toowoomba Childrens Court on Friday pleading guilty to far in excess of 150 offences ranging from burglary to breach of bail, drug possession and theft.

In Queensland, youth offenders are required to be supported by a parent or guardian at every court appearance; however, despite numerous attempts to contact the girls’ parents, neither showed for their eldest daughter’s arraignment.

After the arraignment, a dejected Youth Justice representative relayed to the court the parents had finally phoned but were still unable to attend for their youngest daughter.

Their reason: they were both too drunk to drive.

Solicitor Michael Corbin revealed the reality of life at home for the two girls and their younger brothers, both of whom had previously appeared in court.

“These children … they are being poorly cared for by their parents,” Mr Corbin told the court.

“They seem to have abnegated all responsibility and left their children with very little options available to them.”

The court was told a large part of the 14-year-old girl’s offending included stealing bank cards and cash, used to buy food.

“The home situation for them is dire; we will continually have bad outcomes with her unless we are supporting her,” a woman, acting as a guardian, pleaded on the girl’s behalf.

A Youth Justice representative told the court the family was engaging in intensive case management with their eldest daughter but the Department of Child Safety was not yet involved.

“It seems the family is in crisis,” she said.

“I’m unsure why Child Safety is not involved, it may not meet their threshold.”

Griffith University criminology professor emeritus Ross Homel AO is a lead researcher of the Pathways to Prevention project, a decades long study into the effects of early intervention on youth crime, and said this was a story far too common within the state’s youth courts.

“Life is pretty painful for these kids, they’ve suffered trauma,” he said.

“We have to take more seriously the social inequality in this country, particularly the entrenched multigenerational disadvantage that is producing these kids.”

On the LNP’s proposed Making Queensland Safer laws, which would see youth offenders face tougher penalties, Professor Homel rejected the notion that harsh detention would do anything to improve community safety.

“It’s not just that they are missing the point, what they are doing is cruel and it is unnecessarily cruel,” he said.

“It’s going to be economically costly, each child costs well over $1m a year to keep in detention.; we’ve had to abandon our own human rights act to do it, what sort of signal does that send to the world?

“It is based on a profound lie that both sides of politics propagated, which is that tougher punishments, mandatory detention and child accountability will make the community safer.

“I don’t believe there is any evidence they will.”

Newly released findings of the Pathways to Prevention Project showed when at-risk children participated in a particular enriched preschool program their involvement, by age 17, in serious youth offending was reduced by 56 per cent.

If the children’s families had also received community based support at home, they were found to have no involvement in the youth court system whatsoever.

“This is consistent with a whole body of international research … this is, for me, very strong Australian-based evidence that the kind of pathway this new government is embarking on is a complete dead end,” Professor Homel said.

“I’m not arguing that kids (who commit serious offences) shouldn’t go into detention but even (in detention) these children need all the help they can get.

“We need good citizens to come out … and it’s even better to do it in the community before they commit these serious crimes.”

In an effort to offer much needed support, magistrate Mark Howden sentenced the 14-year-old to three months probation after serving 28 days in custody.

Her 16-year-old sister will remain in custody until her sentencing in 2025.

Her parents have been ordered to appear at her next court date.