The disability royal commission has been urged to find South Australia’s department of human services failed to adequately investigate threats of violence against a man living in disability accommodation.
In May the inquiry heard from a South Australian couple who received an anonymous letter warning their nephew Mitchell would be “abused with cruelty, violence, regularly and repeatedly” and might be poisoned or drowned.
Mitchell, who is in his late 30s and lives with an intellectual disability, resides in supported accommodation operated by the state government.
At a hearing on Thursday, the counsel assisting the royal commission, Kate Eastman SC, argued the department did not take the March 2018 letter seriously enough and did not properly try to find its author.
Eastman said a few days later department officials spoke with “some managers and supervisors from the residence to see if they suspected anyone had been the author”.
“This was not a formal methodical investigation,” she said. “No records were retained and no investigation report was produced.
“So seven days after the letter, on 10 March what might be scoped as a start of an investigation was nothing more than a chat with various managers and supervisors.
“The fact that none of this was documented has to be a matter of significance with consequences and significant consequences for the way in which the matter was then handled throughout 2018 and 2019.”
Mitchell’s aunt and uncle, Victoria and James, told the royal commission they had raised some concerns about the level of care their nephew was receiving in 2017.
They then received a letter that noted the site manager of the facility had been removed and claimed staff were opposed to her departure, meaning they were “angry and pissed off, which now puts your nephew at risk”.
It said: “Food … poison. Medication … wrong. Shampoo … what’s in the bottle? Acid. Bruises … how did that happen?
“Going out … falling down stairs. How well does he swim? Locked up? Food withheld. Going through the windscreen … seatbelt unclipped.
“This little piglet is going to be abused with cruelty, violence, regularly and repeatedly.”
The department subsequently instigated a second investigation after intervention from the South Australian ombudsman.
But Eastman said that investigation also had “deficiencies in methodology” and in “the scope of information reviewed, such that it was neither sufficient, proper nor competent”.
The author of the letter has still not been found.
“If a person employed by DHS wrote and delivered the letter to Victoria and James’s home then that person had a lot of personal and sensitive information,” Eastman said.
“That person had considered a range of ways to harm a vulnerable person in the context of accommodation services and that harm be perpetrated in a manner that could not be easily detected. The person thought carefully about that.”
“The submissions of South Australia do not engage with the very real possibility that the author of the 3 March letter could have worked in its services and continues to do so,” she added.
Peter O’Brien, representing Victoria and James, said the family supported Eastman’s proposed findings.
“Victoria and James say that there can be no doubt that, one, the DHS investigations into the letter were seriously flawed for the matters set out by counsel assisting,” he said.
The SA government acknowledged the initial investigation into the letter was insufficient. Its submission conceded it had become “distracted” from the aim of finding the person responsible.
But counsel for the government, Tom Simpson, rejected the suggestion it had not taking the letter seriously, saying there was more to the matter than “just the investigation”.
“We accept that the investigation into the author of the letter is an important part of the response to that letter and the state and DHS acknowledge that that part of the response was not adequate and steps are now being taken to attempt to remedy that,” he said.
“The point we make is the department did take the letter seriously and it put measures in place to address Mitchell’s safety immediately following advice about the existence of that letter.”
He also acknowledged it was possible the letter’s author may have worked for the department, but rejected that this was a foregone conclusion.
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