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What They Did To A Girl In Care
What They Did To A Girl In Care (One)
On 3 November 2001, Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper ran two stories about an incident that had been hidden in the bowels of the Queensland bureaucracy for 13 years.
The stories revealed for the first time what had happened in 1988 when a 14-year-old female detainee in Brisbane's infamous John Oxley Youth Detention Centre was taken on a day's outing by a group of non-custodial officers.
The stories (Rape News Story 1, Rape News Story 2) were based on the recollections of some former members of staff of the centre and those of the victim (by this time a 27-year-old woman) who told of what had happened to her on that day.
The girl, the stories said, had been raped by some of the boys who had been taken on the excursion with her, and the matter had been hushed up.
Over the next few weeks there were a number of follow-up stories in the newspaper.
One revealed that a little more than a year after the incident, during a short-lived inquiry into what had been going on in the John Oxley Centre, the man conducting the investigation had questioned at least one staff member about the rape (Rape News Story 3).
His inquiry, however, was throttled.
On attaining office a new government shut the inquiry down shortly after it had started.
Not only was the inquiry aborted, but all the evidence it had gathered during its short life was shredded.
A recommendation to destroy all the documents, tapes and disks that had been produced by the inquiry was agreed to by the Queensland State Cabinet - despite its being aware that the material was being sought by a firm of lawyers, and others, for foreshadowed legal action.
The Cabinet took this decision, according to one former Minister who was at the meeting concerned, in the knowledge that the shredded documents were "in broad terms" about child abuse.
The state's archivist gave her approval and the inquiry documents were destroyed.
Following the publication of the newspaper stories mentioned above, Queensland's Families Minister called on the state's Criminal Justice Commission to investigate the rape allegations.
Some weeks later the Commission issued a press release saying it had investigated the matter and had found there had been no cover-up and no misconduct on the part of either the John Oxley staff or the police, because, CJC Chairman Brendan Butler said, the police had been called in over the matter and the girl had been examined by a paediatrician.
That was all Mr Butler said.
The Director-General of the Families Department then went public with a press release welcoming the CJC's statement clearing his department of any cover-up.
What follows will provide readers with an opportunity to make up their own minds about the CJC's finding, and to consider the extent to which the Director General's comment is justified.
It should be noted that the Criminal Justice Commission has for years claimed that the shredding has been exhaustively investigated. "To the nth degree" it said - over and over.
Apart from shedding some light on the Commission's finding, the material that follows may also throw some light on why a government would want to shred documents gathered by an inquiry into a youth detention centre - particularly when that government had been given notice that the documents might be needed for court action, and when it knew the documents were broadly about child abuse.
It may not come as a surprise to hear that what follows is not very comforting.
And what was my part in the publication of the newspaper stories mentioned above?
I wrote them.
Here then is the story of what happened on the day in question - just to help fill in the detail the CJC did not provide when it sent out its press release saying there had been no cover-up and no misconduct by anyone.
The story of what happened that day and in subsequent days has been compiled from official records gathered before and after the original rape stories were published, from interviews with the girl, from interviews with those few former staff who have been prepared to talk about the incident, and from interviews with other people who have knowledge of the events that took place.
An educational outing
On Thursday 19 May 1988, a proposal was put before the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre Programs committee requesting that approval be given for an educational outing to be undertaken by a group of residents.
School attendance would be the selection criteria.
Approval was given.
An interesting title had been chosen for this particular activity. On the form that set out the detail of the proposal it was described as "Socialisation in a natural environment". This would turn out to be a most prophetic choice of words, not to
mention something of an understatement.
Day One (Tuesday 24.5.1988)
The following Tuesday morning, five members of John Oxley's non-custodial staff set off on the excursion. Accompanying them in two vehicles were six male residents of the centre and one female resident - a slightly built 14-year-old girl. Just to set the scene, the girl was a little over 40 kilos or six stone, and about 158 cms - 5 foot 2. One little girl and six adolescent boys, none of whom, according to former staff, might have been accurately described as Santa's little helpers. On the contrary, they said, some were very serious offenders. Two of the staff at least were aware of matters that ought to have required them to have carefully considered whether taking the girl on such a trip was a good idea at all - and certainly would have demanded that she be given careful protection during such an outing. One had noted only three weeks before the outing that the girl needed "to be aware of the necessity of birth control". Why she should have such a need in secure custody is unclear but at least the man was of that opinion when he accompanied the girl on that excursion.
The record also shows that another staff member on the outing was aware of other very serious matters connected with the girl's past that ought to have been of grave concern to him on such a trip. But it does not appear to have been the case.
The destination chosen for the outing was a secluded and remote spot in the bush known as The Lower Portals in the Mount Barney National Park not far from the state border with New South Wales.
It was an extraordinary place to take such a group. For those who have seen the movie, this is real "Picnic at Hanging Rock" country - just a thousand times worse.
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Someone I know who has made the trek to the Lower Portals described the terrain and countryside as "hostile". He was right. It is. The silence is as brooding as the tips of the ridge tops of Mount Barney one glimpses from time to time along the way. And anyone can trudge up Hanging Rock. But not everyone could make the trip to The Portals.
The car park entrance to the national park is 110 kilometres from John Oxley Youth Centre via the town of Beaudesert and the village of Rathdowney.
But that is only the start of the journey. One of the bushwalking sites on the Internet describes what follows after you arrive at the car park as a 3.7 kilometre trek that "will feel more like 10". And it does. The sign at the car park says it all. "Round trip three hours, grade moderate to steep." |
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The track is rough and the going very tough - up and down, ridge after ridge. No one who is not reasonably fit should attempt it. A sprain or an injury, or a heart turn, on this walk would be a real problem. It would take quite a large party of bearers to get a stretcher patient out - unless you had a chain saw to clear a pick-up zone for a chopper.
The walk proved to be a difficult proposition for some of the visitors that day. Not only did the party soon split into different groups, three of the staff got lost - or at least took a wrong turn, they said, and did not arrive at their destination until an hour after the others - which means that for a significant period of time the number of staff supervising the youngsters was reduced from five to two.
The surrounding terrain is not the only matter that makes the Lower Portals an extraordinary place for a visit from such a party.
The ridges are well- to heavily-timbered and anyone who wanted to head off into the bush, rather than make the trip, could get away without the slightest difficulty. No one could catch you if you made such a move, and if you were serious about it, no one would then ever find you.
The exact detail of what happened on the walk in to the Portals is a little difficult to reconstruct because the stories of those involved either differ or are, in certain respects, sketchy, but it seems that the girl, five of the boys and two of the staff arrived ahead of the others.
It also appears the sixth boy left the three other staff members he had been with and arrived separately, and then the last group of three staff members, the two women and one of the men, who had taken a wrong turning, arrived an hour later. For much of the time then, the "children" were without most of their supervisors.
Two people could not properly supervise seven youngsters in that place. The Lower Portals is a rock strewn creek bed where the rock formations and boulders have dammed up two distinct pools - one, where the walk ends, relatively small, the other, up stream, much bigger.
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The bigger pool is dominated by the steep cliff faces of the canyon from which it emerges. There are big boulders and rocks all around, the vegetation is thick and only a matter of metres away one could be out of sight - either behind one of the umpteen-ton boulders, or in the bushes and overhanging branches.
There is nowhere that has a clear view of the whole place and the only area of flat ground, where the visitors that day had lunch, is a spot near the lower pool with little or no view of either of the waterholes.
A very strange choice indeed for such a group that day.
After arriving at their destination, the first group set off with just one of the staff to explore. |
What happened during this part of the outing is not clear but the girl apparently slipped on the rocks, which is not hard to do I discovered, and fell into the water. She says despite her objections she was repeatedly told to take her wet clothes off - which in the end she did because they went on and on about it!
So the girl was now in this quite extraordinary place wearing just "a long 'T' shirt and panties" and, according to another staff
member, "a jumper wrapped around her waist".
The first group had lunch and were off exploring again by the time the second group (the two women and one man) arrived. They too had lunch.
Some time later it was noticed that all but one of the "children", if that is the right word, were missing.
The exact sequence of events from then on is a little confused but it appears that some of the men set off to search for their charges. One began to whistle, something he had done on the way up, he said, to try to keep the group together.
Whistling seems and odd thing to do, if you are searching for someone who has gone missing, but there you go. How long the boys and the girl were out of sight is not known exactly but it may have been "15 to 20 minutes" - a very considerable length of time for such a group to be without surveillance in a place such as that. In 15 seconds one could vanish and never be found again. Or to put it another way, in that time, a single, small, 14-year-old girl in just a tee shirt and her undies, would be an appallingly easy target for group of adolescent boys.
One of those who went looking for the children said he and another male member of staff "scaled a nearby small hill". The man he went with described it as a "steep hillside", which, given what I saw on two visits to the place, is the only way the terrain in the vicinity of the waterholes could be described. There are no "small hills".
Eventually they found the missing boys with the girl. The man who first located them immediately became suspicious that there had been "sexual contact between the children". He rounded them up, "admonished" them for "disappearing" and "mustered" them back to where the rest of the party was waiting.
The party then set off on the return journey.
The trek back seems to have been uneventful, although along the way the walkers again split into two groups. The man who had earlier found the children was with the four boys who had gone missing, and they were in the lead.
Eventually they got back close to the car park and waited for the rest to catch up. The man whose suspicions of "sexual contact" had been aroused later reported that: "During this pause the 4 boys were talking about sexual activity with [the girl]. Whilst this talk was similar to the talk that these boys would engage in, in their normal conversation, combined with the fact that they had spent some time missing, my suspicions were further aroused".
These suspicions were of such a magnitude that he questioned the boys who had been with the girl about what had happened, but they declined to answer.
When the others caught up and the party reached the car park he discussed his "suspicions" with the rest of the staff.
It seems that something may have been bothering the four boys who had been questioned about what had happened to the girl. They went to visit the small bush toilet there while the rest of the group began to load up the vehicles for the drive back to John Oxley. When one of the staff went to see why the boys were taking so long at the toilet, he found they were missing - again - "absconded".
The girl remembers the commotion the "absconding" caused and recalls one of the staff chasing one of the boys through the bush but being unable to get anywhere near him.
It appears the boys may not have gone all that far because they could be heard, if not seen, in the bush, and given the vegetation and terrain there, it would not be all that hard to imagine such a situation. The area around the car park is, however, probably the most lightly timbered on the whole trip.
So four of the boys, about some of whom at least, there are suspicions of a serious nature, are now at large in the bush, several kilometres from civilisation, and many more from the nearest telephone or police station.
It was decided to send some of the staff and the remaining children off in one of the vehicles to contact the police and then to go on back to John Oxley. The remainder of the staff would stay behind to look for those who had "absconded" and to be there when the police arrived.
One former John Oxley officer who was on duty that day remembered the incident when I phoned him. I asked if he had any recollection of a girl being sexually abused on an outing from the centre, and, 13 years later, he was able to say he was always troubled by that matter. He was also able to name the girl and place the locality where the group had gone. There had been panic on the bus, he said, and panic back at the centre.
"They called in from a phone box", he said.
"Their story was the girl had egged them [the boys] on."
Some hours later he rang me back. He was wrong about the sexual assault matter he said.
I pointed out he had told me the staff had claimed the girl had "egged" the boys on. He said he had been wrong. The boys had absconded and that was all that had happened.
For some reason the man had had second thoughts - or in the intervening hours between or conversations someone had suggested he have second thoughts.
Exactly what happened when the girl arrived back at John Oxley isn't clear. But nothing appears to have been done to deal with the possibility that she had been sexually assaulted.
She was returned to John Oxley just after 5pm. However, it was not until after 7pm, when the others returned with the boys who had absconded, that the manager was called in.
The runaways had been gathered up and were returned to the Centre via a secure area. For some reason they were "actively provoking a physical confrontation" with the staff. And these were the same boys who, earlier that day, had been left alone with a small girl wearing nothing but a tee shirt and panties!
On arriving at the centre the manager "went to the admission area to find the children yelling, swearing, banging walls and doors as well as whistling on high note. They were still trying to provoke the two staff in the admission area … into a physical confrontation".
The manager decided "not to enter the room for fear that it may escalate the situation and in the hope that in time the children would tire, relax and voluntarily go to their rooms".
He then met with the man who had been concerned about what had happened to the girl and with the two women who had gone on the trip.
He later reported: "They were most concerned about a suspicion that [the girl] may have been sexually assaulted. We spoke for over an hour and agreed a meeting should be held at 9am the next day. The purpose of the meeting was to analyse the program, debrief staff, gather information for future planning and to develop a strategy for investigating the concern about [the girl] being sexually assaulted".
Aware of what may have happened to the girl, the manager went to her room to see her, but she was asleep. He did not wake her, it seems, and went home.
Just what procedures or protocols were in place at John Oxley at that time for the appropriate handling of cases of suspected sexual assault is not known. But the police handbook (which had been prepared eight years earlier) was quite clear on the matter. It says, in part: "Upon receiving a complaint of rape for investigation, bear in mind that swift, accurate, tactful and thorough handling is required. Indispensible evidence may be irretrievably lost if time is allowed to drag; the alleged offender must be located a soon as possible, and speedy examination of the persons of both complainant and assailant may produce vital evidence".
But the police were not called. And no effort was made to have the girl examined or for any investigation to be commenced. Whether the girl showered, which seems likely given the gruelling walk involved that day, is unknown. The demands of proper procedure for the handling of rape cases or allegations specifically advise against showering (in case vital evidence is lost). The available record (i.e. documentation obtained through Freedom of Information processes and from other sources) makes no mention of anything being done to preserve whatever evidence might still have existed at that time.
End of day one.
Day Two (Wednesday 25.5.1988)
The next morning the meeting that had been agreed to the night before was held to review the previous day's events.
The "outcomes" to emerge from that meeting are interesting, to say the least. They were: 1. Organisation of an activity should include: (a) planning meeting (b) purpose of outing to be commonly known and agreed upon (c) team leader (d) discussion of individual roles of staff (e) knowledge of procedures to be followed if absconding occurs. 2. Should be thorough knowledge of location to be visited and assessment of its suitability. 3. Careful selection of young people and group dynamics. 4. Selection of staff in terms of skills and group dynamics. 5. Need for communication between staff to maintain the progress of the outing - team leader should take responsibility for the outing. 6. The activity/outing should be a group experience.
No mention was made of any "strategy" for investigating what might have happened to the girl. The manger reported, however, "Their [sic] was concern that [the girl] had been sexually assaulted but no direct evidence was available".
There is no mention made of any efforts undertaken to gather such evidence.
Shortly after the meeting the manager spoke with a member of staff who passed on some information the staff member later described as "startling". He also informed the manager he was concerned for the girl's safety. He was immediately despatched back to the wings to see that nothing happened to her.
The manager then spoke with all the boys who had been involved in the excursion, and after lunch, with the girl. She told him some of the boys had had sex with her, that she had been under a lot of "pressure" from the boys (which the manager assumed to be "both peer pressure and psychological pressure") and when asked if she wanted the boys charged by the police she had "tentatively said yes".
The manager then contacted his immediate superior in the department (who told me recently the story of a girl being sexually assaulted on an outing from John Oxley was news to him). The purpose of this conversation was to advise the superior officer of the information the manager had obtained "and to seek his advice".
The manager and the assistant manager then had a meeting with the five members of staff who had been on the excursion and the manager advised them he believed the girl "had been sexually assaulted". He asked them to prepare reports of what had happened the previous day.
The girl was moved "to another living area". But the police were not notified and the girl was not examined.
End of day two.
Day Three (Thursday 26.5.1988)
The next morning there was a meeting of the "Review Team" and the manager reviewed the reports of the staff who had been on the trip. He then approached the five boys about being interviewed again, but they declined to take part.
Late that afternoon he advised a departmental officer (who was responsible for the region where the girl's parents lived) of what had happened on the excursion.
The officer concerned then contacted his boss and made a note of the conversation he had with her. There had been an outing to Mt Barney, he said, involving a girl and five boys from John Oxley and they had "disappeared into the bush". "In the course of events," the girl , he advised, had "apparently had sex with two of the boys" and while "there may have been considerable pressure put on her" there was "no allegation of rape".
Putting pressure on an under-age girl to have sex, I am told by contacts with legal and policing experience, does constitute rape. And if more than one individual were to be involved they said, the circumstance might be accurately described as "pack rape".
Then, according to the record, just after seven o'clock that evening the doctor who attended the residents of John Oxley "phoned in re [the girl]".
After ascertaining that the staff member on duty was aware of the situation concerning her, the doctor gave the officer " a list of contraceptive pills that could be taken by [the girl]".
The officer then checked the Medical Room and when the doctor rang back advised that he had "located a packet of Sequilar E.D".
At 8.45pm the manager "phoned back re approval for the contraceptive pills to be given to [the girl] as per [the doctor's] prescription".
That prescription was: two of the tablets to start and then two more "in 12 hours".
The doctor recorded in his notes that "This was ordered after telephone discussion with [the girl] and she was made aware of their purpose".
Their purpose was quite straightforward - in case there should be any chance of the girl becoming pregnant.
A prominent obstetrician told me that such a dose would have an effect similar to the so-called "morning after" pill. From what he said I took it to mean that a double dose of that product, followed by another double dose within 12 hours, would ensure a fertilised egg would not adhere to the lining of a womb.
End of day three.
Day Four (Friday 27.5.1988)
Exactly what occurred early on day four is a little confused. The record indicates that about 12.30pm the girl's mother went in to the centre and the manager and assistant manager spoke with her "at length". However, the girl's mother has consistently denied she was ever told of the matter, and the girl's stepfather flatly rejects those suggestions contained in the record that claim he was advised.
Whatever the truth of this aspect of the story, one thing is clear. The record says the mother and the girl "wanted a complaint made to the police" and the manager "immediately" contacted the head of the Juvenile Aid Bureau.
On the initiative of the police the girl was then taken to the Mater Childrens Hospital for examination. It was now three days after the incident had taken place. (And three weeks later the doctor who examined the girl advised the GP who had prescribed the contraceptive dosage some details of the examination she had conducted - but noted that at that time she wrote her report she was "not aware of the forensic swab results". There is no mention in the available record of what those results revealed).
The doctor's clinical examination notes, however, provide some very disturbing information.
They record that the girl had been on a "picnic", "had been swimming" and had been wearing only "tee shirt and pants".
Then, the notes say: "4 boys [whose names appear on the document] took [the girl's name] into bushes, took off pants, laid on top of her, penetrated vagina with penis, [the names of two of the boys], can't remember if ejaculated, semen present".
And later: "Says didn't want to have intercourse. Not physically held. Did struggle".
Clinical details then follow.
Former police officers have advised that while this information may not be that of "first complaint" and therefore might well be regarded as hearsay at any trial, it does add greatly to the notion of "consistency", that the girl's story is consistent with her other accounts, and would demand serious investigation.
That such investigation appears not to have taken place was described by one senior former policeman as "appallingly sloppy police work". Another suggested that on the basis of what was known it was clear that sufficient evidence might well have been obtained to charge the boys, and if necessary the girl could have been called "as a hostile witness".
End of day four.
Day Five (Saturday 28.5.1988)
Two women police officers arrived at the centre at about 9.20am. According to the record, neither the manager nor assistant manager were in attendance. Their visit would be handled by middle management, it seems.
The senior officer on duty had earlier advised the girl she could choose a member of staff to "sit in and support her".
She chose one of the female staff.
The interview with the police went ahead with the female officer in attendance.
Some time later the policewomen told the senior officer that the girl and the female officer were discussing the matter alone. The senior officer joined them.
Three to five minutes later the policewomen returned and the girl's earlier decisions to pursue the matter were reversed. She changed her mind. Her mother's wishes, as recorded the day before, were apparently of no consequence. Nor was the fact that as a minor the girl had no standing to make such a decision, and certainly no standing to tell the police service what it should and should not investigate. And nor had the mother for that matter, but she was not consulted.
According to the record the girl "implied that some of the reasons for not going ahead with the complaint were: a. the length of time for it to come to court (6-12 months);and b. the fact that she was receiving verbal abuse from some of the boys".
The interview was concluded at 10.48am and the girl was asked to read out and sign a statement written by one of the policewomen in her notebook "acknowledging that she would not make a formal complaint". The two John Oxley officers and the two policewomen also signed the statement.
The statement and the diary entries of one of the two policewomen are illuminating.
The statement said: 10.35 hrs 28.5.88. On Saturday 28ty May, 1988, I (girl's name) spoke with (policewomen's names) from ... Juvenile Aid Bureau in the presence of (two John Oxley officer's names) at John Oxley Youth centre in relation to a sexual type incident which occurred on Tuesday the 24 May at Mt Barney. I do not wish to make an official complaint to the police and am happy with police enquiries made in relation to the matter.
Five signatures appear on the document.
What happened at the Portals had now become a "sexual type incident". However, one of the two policewomen noted in her diary that the matter she had been called on to investigate was something a little more than that.
Her diary says: May Saturday 28. Rostered 8am - 4pm. Correspondence. To John Oxley Youth Centre re allegations of rape by (girl's name), 14 years, by 2 male persons, of the Centre. Alleged to have occurred on 24.5.88 at Gold Coast Hinter. during bush walk. She decided not to make an official complaint. Examined by a doctor on Friday afternoon. Withdrawal of complaint in notebook. N.F.A.D.
So the girl's thinking had been realigned. Intimidation and threats from the boys alone could be expected to have achieved that. After all, the girl might have to share accommodation with them for 6 to 12 months! Just who might have informed her of the time such a court process might take is not clear. But, one thing is certain - it is unlikely a 14-year-old would carry that information around in her head.
So by the end of the interview the girl decided she would not be proceeding with a complaint. No doubt this was a happy result for some people.
But not a proper one.
The girl, being 14, was a child and therefore not in a position to make such a decision. As well, the matter of rape is a very serious one. On the scale of penalties, it ranks just behind murder. And police do not need to have a complainant to pursue an investigation for such a crime. Nor to proceed to trial should there be sufficient evidence. And, as her guardian, it was her carers who made decisions for her - as they did when they gave her a pregnancy-preventing or abortion-inducing dose of medication.
And they could order a intrusive physical examination without fear of any accusation of assault. The girl did not have any say.
So the matter was closed - despite the possibility that a great deal of evidence could have been obtained.
There is nothing in the record seen to date to indicate that any of the staff on the excursion were interviewed by the police, nor any of the alleged perpetrators of the crime, nor the staff member who reported hearing something that was most disturbing, nor the manager, nor anyone at all. And what about the forensic swab results? And what of the doctor's interview with the girl?
So, with the complaint withdrawn, apart from some minor housekeeping, the matter could now be closed.
That minor housekeeping simply involved putting the best possible spin on it all for those up the chain of command.
Day Seven
Six days after the incident, 30 May, one of the department's Deputy Directors wrote to his boss to inform him of what had happened.
It says:
[The manager] rang to advise that on Friday [the girl] was medically examined at the Mater Hospital. This was arranged with the police investigating the matter and on Saturday police again interviewed [the girl] who indicated that she did not wish to make a formal complaint.
[The girl's] mother was then contacted and brought to the centre where she spent a couple of hours with her daughter. Initially [the mother] was upset that her daughter had made this decision, but after spending a couple of hours with her daughter, she was interviewed by the training officer and advised that she was happy for her daughter not to make a complaint.
[The manager] advised that [the girl] had two main reasons for not wishing to make a formal complaint. These were: 1. The court process would take from six to twelve months. 2. Other children at the centre were teasing and threatening her.
[The manager] said he had spoken to the other children involved in the teasing and threatening, and had advised them of the outcomes should they continue in this fashion. Overall, everything has settled down at the Centre.
[The manager] also advised me that one particular staff member (that they have had a lot of trouble with) was saying that there had been a cover-up and a whitewash. [The manager] is having a talk to him this afternoon together with other staff where they will be advised that the complaint has been investigated properly and that all information has been passed on.
[The manager] also advised that there was very little chance of [the girl] becoming pregnant. The paediatrician had advised that she had started her period immediately after the incident and it was very unlikely that she would fall pregnant.
[The author of the letter was (as at April 2002) a senior bureaucrat in the Queensland public service].
Armed with this advice, the director-general (who has since died) sent a letter, dated 30 May, to the Minister.
He wrote:
I received word late on Friday afternoon that there was a problem during a recent picnic outing by a mixed group of children from the John Oxley Youth Centre. Apparently four boys interfered with one of the girls.
I suppose there is some possibility of this leaking to the media and a full report has been requested by Monday [which, presumably would be the following Monday, 5 June].
The girls [sic] parents have been contacted and they are not placing any blame on the staff.
This was "Yes Minister" correspondence of the highest order.
What's more the girl's parents categorically deny the content of these letters.
When contacted, the Minister at the time said he could not recall being advised of the incident, although the correspondence says he was. He did say, however, that he had been the victim of a great deal of "Yes Minister" treatment during his time in that particular portfolio.
In neither letter reproduced above did the plight of the girl, nor, given the threats made against her, her continuing welfare and safety, seem to be a matter of importance. Nor her rights.
The available record makes no mention of anyone being punished or censured for what happened (apart from possibly one staff member who suggested there had been a cover-up), nor if any of the perpetrators suffered any penalty. The only victim would appear to have been the girl.
And she continued to a victim for a very long time. As we will reveal as time goes by.
What's more, at the Centre, nothing appeared to have been learnt by the experience. Abuse of girls in the place did not stop - as we shall see.
The Criminal Justice Commission, however, says it investigated the matter and found there was no cover-up and no misconduct on the part of any departmental or police staff.
Others, including lawyers and former police I have questioned on the matters raised above, beg to differ.
They have described what I have outlined above as outrageous and a complete disgrace.
Curiousier and curiouser
1. Not more shredding - surely!
On the Monday morning after the first story appeared in The Courier-Mail I contacted the current Minister's office and asked a series of questions. I also contacted the Crime Commission, which had a standing reference to investigate matters of criminal paedophilia, and sought a response as to what they intended to do about the case.
One of the questions I put to the Minister's office was: What were the dates on which the girl in the story was admitted to and released from John Oxley?
That evening I received a reply.
When I looked at the dates I was concerned about their accuracy and next day contacted the Minister's office again and asked that they be checked. I was told they were correct.
I then faxed the Minister's office and asked that the dates I had reproduced on the fax be confirmed. I phoned again and was told if the dates were wrong I would be advised. There was no such advice.
The leader of the state Opposition subsequently asked a series of questions of the Minister on notice, including one which sought the dates between which the girl had been held in John Oxley.
A month later, at the end of the notice period, the answers came back.
Suddenly, one of the dates I had been given by the Minister's office was now missing. This was the date on which the girl had been released after the Portals incident. How odd that such a date could go missing in the space of a few weeks?
What was also noteworthy was the fact that other dates provided by the Minister were also wrong!
How a release date could go missing is something of a mystery. But what is most disturbing is, why did this particular release date go missing?
2. The Criminal Justice Commission
When I approached the Crime Commission after the publication of the first story about the rape allegations, they called back to say that the matter was one that was more appropriate for the Criminal Justice Commission to examine.
That was an interesting interpretation of the facts, given that the Criminal Justice Commission did not have a standing reference to investigate paedophilia and the Crime Commission did.
Furthermore, since the CJC had sought over many years to claim the John Oxley matter had been thoroughly investigated, I suggested, as the organisation itself had done in the case of the Connolly/Ryan inquiry into its operations, that there was the matter of public perception of bias if it touched the rape allegations.
Would it not be better if it stayed away from the case altogether? It was not necessarily that the CJC was biased, it was just a case of people perceiving it to be so.
I was not the only one to think such a case had been made - long ago. Both the former Minister who had set up the Heiner Inquiry, and the State Opposition leader said publicly, on radio and in the press, that the CJC was tainted and should not touch the rape allegations matter. One of the members of the 1995 Senate inquiry into unresolved whistleblower cases in Queensland, former Senator John Woodley, strenuously expressed a similar view in the press.
However, the logic of these arguments did not sway the Criminal Justice Commission. It went ahead and found there was no misconduct and no cover-up.
In the absence of any elaboration or qualification from the authorities, the inference a public official in Queensland might draw from the outcome of this case to date would appear to be as follows: it is quite OK to take a child in your care to a totally remote location, allow that child to be molested, to do nothing about it for three days, to leave the child in a situation where he or she clearly knows he or she can be intimidated and threatened for up to, possibly, several months, to arrange (in the case of a girl) for the administration of a pregnancy-preventing or abortion-inducing medication, and then to accept his or her decision (as a minor) not to want to take action against anyone.
It is to be hoped that there will a move to ensure such an interpretation of what has happened in this case is unacceptable and if so, to explain - given the actions of the relevant authorities to date - why such an interpretation might be misplaced.
3. The Queensland Crime Commission
The position of the Crime Commission is also interesting. I spoke with its former chairman some time after the organisation was wound up at the end of December 2001.
He said he remembered seeing my story in the paper but couldn't remember why the organisation had not investigated. He suggested I take the matter up with his former deputy who had become deputy to the head of the new Crime and Misconduct Commission.
Why I should want to do that was not clear to me. If they didn't investigate when they had a standing reference to do so, why would they investigate now when they did not have such a standing reference, and when their overarching authority (the former CJC) had already said there was nothing to worry about?
An interesting development on this aspect of the case occurred in April when a document prepared by the man who has achieved more than any other in cutting through the lies and deceit surrounding the Heiner document shredding, Kevin Lindeberg, was tabled in state parliament.
Lindeberg's contact with the Crime Commission only adds to the extraordinary intrigue that surrounds this story. The deputy chair of that Commission admitted in a letter to Lindeberg in December 2001 (quoted in The 1997 Lindeberg Declaration Revisited in 2002, pp110-111) that "… it would seem that, in addition to constituting a major crime, the alleged rape of a fourteen year old girl would fall within the definition of 'criminal paedophilia' in section 6 of the Crime Commission Act 1997".
So, not only might the pack rape of a girl in care be criminal paedophilia, for which the Crime Commission had a standing reference, but it might also constitute major crime, which the body was also set up to investigate. But, as far as we know, it didn't investigate, and hasn't - on either count. We might be wrong. We hope so. But we doubt it.
If it did not investigate, why could that be? If it did, what did it find?
4. The phantom complainant
There is no shortage of intrigue surrounding this story.
A document prepared within the Police Service in mid-2001 has recently come to light (April 2002).
It reveals that in August 2001, several months before my rape stories were published in The Courier-Mail, someone claiming to be the girl involved in the stories contacted the police alleging she had been raped whilst in custodial care in John Oxley in 1988.
An officer in the Sexual Offences Unit then wrote to the Department of Families asking if the department could provide any information about such an incident.
There are several disturbing aspects of this correspondence.
It was not the girl who was the victim of the rape at the Portals who contacted the police service about the matter. She would not contact the police service about anything!
So who did? Who could the mystery enquirer be? Who was it who contacted the police? And why?
Whoever it was knew the girl's name and birth date, but got her place of birth wrong. Such a mistake seems a little strange and might have alerted someone that the enquiry did not come from the right person (the victim does know where she was born!), but apparently no one saw anything unusual in the error.
And the enquirer gave no address where she (?) could be contacted. She (?) would call back, she(?) said, for a reply. That seems a bit odd too.
Somebody, however, was interested in what had happened to the girl. By August my activities would have become known to various people within the department and the police service. And someone was sufficiently spooked to undertake a fishing, not to mention very fishy, expedition.
Who are you and why were you prying?
I think I know. There are other matters connected with that bogus enquiry that are deeply disturbing and are the subject of continuing investigation by the writer. They will have to wait for another day.
What happened next is also very strange.
The department's response to the request from the police was intriguing to say the least.
Sorry, the department said, we know nothing of the matter (despite having access to, probably, a score or more of people still working in the department, and an unknown number of others elsewhere in the public service, even in senior positions, who would well remember the incident). And furthermore, the department replied, there were no records of such a matter ever taking place. Sorry, we can't help you.
However, several months later, when the first of my stories appeared in the press, the department suddenly located some documents about such a matter after all, and sent them off to the police. They were apparently about the incident at the Lower Portals.
What the police did with this information, is unknown. After all, by now the Criminal Justice Commission, Queensland's public sector watchdog, was on the case.
And we know what that organisation decided. I did contact the police media operation several times after my stories appeared and asked for a response from the Police Commissioner. To date there has been none.
For students of JOUR1021, interested in public administration, some interesting questions arise.
Where were these documents when the police asked for such material and nothing could be found? Where were these documents when they were found? Who had them? How is it that the existence of documents in the possession of the public service can be concealed from the police service and only turn up when a story appears in the media?
And where were these documents during the Forde Inquiry into the abuse of children in care? Did Mrs Forde know of this incident? It does not appear to be mentioned in her report although there is mention of an allegation of a staff member raping a girl in care.
If she did know about the incident, what did she do? If she didn't know, why not? She conducted public hearings into the matter of two residents being handcuffed in the open overnight. What might she do about a matter of rape or pack rape?
And were these documents made available to barristers Morris QC and Howard in 1996 when they were asked to investigate the paper trail involved in the shredding case? There is no mention of the incident in their report (although they concluded there should be a full and open public inquiry into the shredding matter. They also said prima facie evidence existed that a number of people involved in the shredding had breached various sections of the Criminal Code, the Criminal Justice Act and the Libraries and Archives Act, including perverting the course of justice. In responding to the barristers' report the Director of Public Prosecutions at the time was reported by the Premier of the day as wondering if there was any public interest to be served by raking over the John Oxley matter so many years later. I guess it depends on your view of public interest.)
Other Matters of Abuse
Apart from the possibility that such an investigation might have uncovered the pack rape matter, or allegations thereof, it might also have cleaned up John Oxley. Indeed, so might the Heiner Inquiry if it had not been shut down.
Sadly, the picture that emerges from the records of the girl who was taken to the Portals and left to her fate, is that of a "comfort kid" - a junior version, if you like, of the unfortunate women who were required to make themselves available to Japanese soldiers during World War ll.
It is not just the documents relating to the incident at the Lower Portals that leaves the reader with that dreadful impression. There are any number of references in her records to sexual activity going on in the centre.
Former staff have told me that is exactly what did go on and the expression "comfort kid" is an appropriate description of the way some of the residents were regarded by some of the staff.
In other words, they said, there were those who were quite happy to encourage, to turn a blind eye, or to arrange the circumstances for the boys to have sex at the expense of the girls. Some of the "boys" were tough guys and it helped keep them quiet, I was told. It was a control measure.
The girl at the centre of this story says she was constantly pressured by boys in John Oxley for sex.
But it wasn't only the boys that you had to worry about.
One day, on a hunch, I took the girl (woman as she is now) to a picnic spot near the city and later to another on the shores of one of Brisbane's water storage dams.
Yes, she said, a member of the John Oxley staff had taken her in one of the Centre's vehicles to both places. At the dam, the best part of an hour's drive away he had suggested they go for a swim.
He had come prepared. There were towels in the back of the van.
She declined his invitation.
Which might have been just as well. The man was named by another former resident as one of three staff members who took two girls to the same dam some time later.
The following day, I was told, one of the girls complained about what had happened to her in the water. One of the men, I was also told, was not seen in the centre again.
On another occasion the man with the van and the towels took his passenger (the victim in this story) to the picnic spot involved in my hunch. Just him and the girl. He took her for a walk into the bush, she said, and "put the hard word" on her. She told him to leave her alone. She was supposed to be in secure custody.
I also took the girl to another place in the bush. What happened there is the subject of continuing investigation.
But other girls were sexually abused (raped) by staff. The story of one appeared in The Courier-Mail on 20 November 2001.
The then Criminal Justice Commission wrote to me saying the department had no idea who the girl could be and suggested I advise the girl to come forward - which I had already done anyway.
I pointed out to the CJC that the claim by the department that it did not know who the girl was, was nonsense.
In fact, about the very same time the department was not supposed to know who she was, the girl told me a senior public official had contacted her. The main message he delivered was, if she was thinking of suing, forget it. They would never pay.
Nothing changed because of the Lower Portals incident. And nothing changed when the ill-fated Heiner Inquiry was shut down and shredded.
Whether Heiner was told of what happened to this particular girl is unknown. But had he been allowed to do his job, what ultimately did happen to her, rape, may have been prevented.
She was not alone. The same thing happened to yet another girl - after the shutting down of the Heiner Inquiry. That makes three – just before or just after.
BAT, Clayton Utz, John Oxley and the Eames J decision
The following material may be of partuiclar relevance to students of JOUR2311.
The circumstances surrounding the trip to the Lower Portals are serious enough.
And the shredding of documents collected by an inquiry which questioned John Oxley staff about the incident is also extremely serious.
But what can we now say of those who encouraged the shredding to be undertaken? And of those who authorised it?
In his recent judgment in a case in which a dying cancer victim, Rolah Mcabe, sought to sue British American Tobacco over what had happened to her because of her smoking addiction, Victorian Supreme Court Judge Eames said some things which may have one or two resonances in the Sunshine State (despite Mr Justice Eames' decision recently being overturned on appeal - the circumstances involved in the BAT case are different from those involoved in the shredding matter):
Central to the conduct of a fair trial in civil litigation is the process of discovery of documents. That process is particularly important where documentary evidence is likely to be both voluminous and critical to the outcome of the case, and where access to documents is very much dependent on the approach adopted by one party and its advisers. For a fair trial to be assured in such circumstances the approach which that party must adopt may well conflict with its self-interest. The party which controls access to the documents must ensure that its opponent is not denied the opportunity to inspect and use relevant documents, and it must disclose fully and frankly what has become of documents which have been in its possession, custody or control ...
In my opinion, the process of discovery in this case was subverted by the defendant and its solicitor Clayton Utz, with the deliberate intention of denying a fair trial to the plaintiff, and the strategy to achieve that outcome was successful. It is not a strategy which the court should countenance, and it is not an outcome which, in the circumstances of this case, can now be cured so as to permit the trial to proceed on the question of liability. In my opinion, the only appropriate order is that the defence should be struck out and judgment be entered for the plaintiff, with damages to be assessed.
Given that:
- the Queensland government knew the Heiner documents were being sought by lawyers and individuals for foreshadowed legal action;
- that these requests had been communicated to the government in a variety of separate circumstances;
- that no less than four separate kinds of actions were possible;
- that the Office of Crown Law and the Crown Solicitor knew of these requests (that the documents were being sought for possible legal action);
- that, despite knowing of the requests and knowing that the documents were being sought for possible legal action, bureaucrats recommended their destruction;
- and also knowing why the documents were being sought and for what purpose, State Cabinet authorised their destruction (aware that they were broadly about child abuse),
how will the Eames' decision then impact on the matter of the shredding of the Heiner Inquiry documents?
The principles he espoused appear to be well known and understood in legal circles - except, curiously in Queensland, where it would appear, if Eames is correct, something else, rather than the demands of the law and legal practice, appear to have held sway.
6. Where to now?
Someone observed several years ago that "this story [Shreddergate] isn't going away and it only gets worse". Both were true at the time and they still are true. There is much more to be revealed and that will be done as circumstances permit.
But where does the reality of what happened to a girl in the care of the state, and the fact that had happened to her was known to the Heiner Inquiry, leave all those who have taken part in the process of securing or condoning the destruction of the Heiner Inquiry documents?
There are scores of people who now have questions to answer - over 60 when I last looked at the list.
And that should keep me busy for a day or two.
Your responses to what I have recounted here, particularly the responses of women, would be appreciated.
Your views of the decisions of the Criminal Justice Commission that there had not been a cover-up, nor any official misconduct (conduct that might involve disciplinary action or dismissal) and the decision of the then Crime Commission not to investigate, would be welcomed - as would any comments you might have about the standard of public administration and governance in the state of Queensland.
Email messages may be sent to b.grundy@uq.edu.au.
7. A few last words - for the time being
There is much more to say about the girl at the centre of this story and what happened to her … and it will be said one day. Until then …
— Bruce Grundy
Journalist in Residence
The University of Queensland
07.05.2002
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