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What They Did To A Girl In Care
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(A sequel, many years later, to "What They Did To A Girl In Care (1)")
I arrived at the court on Monday morning as it opened. Inside I explained to the court support attendant that I wished to see the duty solicitor.
Some time later the attendant advised me she had spoken to the duty solicitor but he said he had been informed he would not be handling the matter. It was going to the District Court … upstairs.
I went upstairs. There was no one around.
I asked a passing bailiff who directed me to the court registry where I was quite firmly told there was nothing listed in connection with the young woman I was enquiring about.
Back down the stairs to the magistrates court. Only to be told, again, that the matter was not going to be heard there. It would be in the District Court. Ask the man at the front desk, I was advised. I did.
The man at the front desk consulted his papers. Yes, in the District Court, he said, upstairs.
I went back upstairs.
Back at the registry I was again told quite firmly the matter was not, repeat not, listed for the District Court.
I explained that the man at the front desk said it was. He had it listed on his piece of paper.
The woman behind the counter went downstairs to see the man at the front desk.
By now, for all I knew, the person I was supposedly there to try to help may already have been processed somewhere else while I was off chasing my tail around the stairs and corridors of the building.
The woman came back upstairs. She made a phone call. No one told her, she said. Where was the file? What number? And so on.
She will be appearing in the magistrates court downstairs, the woman eventually said. I said downstairs they said she wouldn’t be. The woman said she would be.
What did become clear through all this bureaucratic smoke and haze was that the young woman in the watch house was now facing a matter quite different from that for which she had been arrested.
I went downstairs. This time to the main court registry. The woman there was helpful, but I was not very confident her answers would sort out the matter for me.
In the end, after to-ing and fro-ing up and down the stairs and back and forth through the corridors, it turned out that the appearance would be in the magistrates court.
I asked a solicitor if he might possibly be representing the woman. He said he didn’t think so. The duty solicitor would be.
I heard the duty solicitor say he didn’t think he would be. He had nothing on the case.
Finally, after various conversations were held in various places and in the watch house, it was determined who would represent her.
I told the solicitor her story and her circumstances. There was no else to do it and I knew both better than anyone else.
He made notes.
He went back to the watch house and the court adjourned for lunch.
After lunch the solicitor returned, beckoned me into the court and told me the woman would be going straight into custody. There was an outstanding matter and that is what they were proceeding with.
The side door opened and she was led into the dock between two burly policemen, each twice her size.
They had her handcuffed, of course. Behind her back. A dangerous criminal, this girl, who, as the records had revealed, had been so appallingly treated by her carers as a child. A very dangerous criminal. They took away her last little bit of dignity.
She looked at me. Her face said it all. Why have you let me down?
There was no hearing, in that sense of the word. The magistrate looked at his papers. Remanded in custody, he said. No opportunity to say anything about her situation or on her behalf. That’s it. The law is the law. End of story. Next.
They call it justice. And every other day you hear someone say “Justice? Bullshit”.
Now I know why they say that.
The criminal was led away.
She called out to me as she went out through the door – the one with the heavy bars visible behind it.
What she said was kind. And generous. And that is how she had always been in the 20 months since I had found her … and discovered what her “carers” had done to her.
The prisoner who followed her, a large man, was charged with rape. His hands were secured in front of his body. That a woman in handcuffs, once a victim of rape, should be escorted only by men is troubling enough. That she should be handcuffed behind her back and escorted only by men is simply a profanity.
Her terrible past was not an issue. She was simply a criminal and had to be dealt with. Yet not one of those who took her into the bush, nor any of the boys involved were ever dealt with. When I raised the matter in the newspapers and on the radio the word was spread that it was all the girl's fault.
While those responsible for what had been done to her slept in their beds at night in their comfortable homes with the little nuclear families around them, she had had nightmares. Year after year. The place with the huge boulders and the water, in the middle of nowhere, and the thousand foot drop of the precipice on the escarpment they backed her up to … before leaving her by herself her for the enjoyment of the boys. Twice in the one day.
And what happened to the wretches who did these things?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
And where are some of the boys today? Some of them are in jail. They could have friends or family in the prison she will now be in. For all we know others in the system now controlling her life could be friends or family of those who took her on her visits to the bush.
But that’s the law.
That’s justice.
That’s what we go on about when we talk of democracy and The Australian Way.
Except that it’s not. That’s not justice.
A woman who has serious matters to be dealt with in the Supreme Court, against the State, is now put back in custody by the State.
Does it not seem unjust, harsh, and unreasonable, for a lesser court to be seen to place a witness before the Supreme Court into an environment of disadvantage and distress (given what they did to her before), not to mention fear and possible intimidation, or even provocation, which may tend to prevent justice being done?
Without, at least, wanting to know of the matter?
Or providing some process to be informed of the matter?
Or without expressing concern to other authorities about the matter and her circumstance?
We accept that in a society governed by the rule of law, breaches of the law have to be dealt with. Breaches like hers.
Except that only some breaches are dealt with.
Those responsible for what happened to the woman were never dealt with by the criminal law. And now that the matter may be dealt with by the civil law, her capacity to pursue that matter may be compromised or placed in jeopardy.
And there is more. What happened to the girl was the subject of an elaborate cover-up by a long line of public officials (see The Shreddergate Archive).
An inquiry into the youth centre where she was held was told about at least one of the rapes she suffered. But all the evidence that inquiry gathered was shredded.
The woman was denied justice then … by the State itself.
And is it not reasonable to believe the State could do it again?
I am sure the man on the Clapham omnibus would say it was perfectly reasonable to believe that.
Justice must not only be done, they say, it must be seen to be done.
Hypocrisy.
And what went on along the way in her journey from arrest to prison wasn’t justice either.
It was bluster, incompetence, and bureaucracy … plus the aloof, labyrinthine and impossible processes of the court system, and the exercise of power by those who have it over those who do not.
There was no detectable sense of concern, or compassion, or consideration for a person totally alone and isolated. If the law says you go to jail, you go to jail. No ifs or buts.
And no detectable concern or compassion or consideration that she might have some rights and some needs and some fears and even some human feelings.
No way. She was a criminal. A handcuffed-behind-the-back criminal.
The things we do to other human beings!
Outside the court I asked the solicitor how long the woman would have to serve. The magistrate didn’t say.
The solicitor said it could be a fortnight or eight months – it all depended on how Corrective Services interpreted the law.
Corrective Services told me that’s not so. They don’t determine sentences. Magistrates and judges do.
The man at the court said he couldn’t tell me. His Registrar took the view that kind of information was not to be made available. You had to be in the court to get that, he said. I was but why the girl was there and how long she would be remanded was not made clear.
And when I asked why she was in jail I was told different things. Parole breach. Remand over an offence. Bench warrant matter. Or get lost. How long will she be held? A fortnight or eight months. On remand to a date to be fixed. When is she to appear? We don’t give out that information.
This is what is known as open justice. You get to find out how long you will be incarcerated when you get to jail. And the public doesn’t get to find out at all.
The girl was raped yet again. This time by the system. The justice system.
The story of what they did and have done to this woman is a human rights disgrace.
Over the last few weeks I have seen the law and the legal system, and the criminal justice system, close up. It is frightening.
Be alert. Be alarmed. Be really alarmed. You might be next.
— Bruce Grundy
Footnote
There is much still to be written on this matter.
To be continued.
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