The risk to a two-year-old girl who was allegedly raped in her Tennant Creek home was foreseeable, the Northern Territory children’s commissioner has determined, taking to task an “over-reviewed” but continually failing child protection system.
In a mostly redacted report, the commissioner revealed the young girl suffered “significant and painful” injuries in the alleged attack, after which she tested positive for gonorrhoea and was given post-exposure HIV medication.
The report said the alleged attack, which occurred in February and resulted in the arrest and charge of a 26-year-old man, “was not the only violence that [she] had been exposed to, and experienced, in her short life”.
It also revealed the Territory Families department challenged the commissioner’s draft finding that the child was at foreseeable risk of sexual assault, and successfully proposed an amendment to instead say she was at risk of “harm”.
Both the draft and final findings said the risks could have been managed or mitigated.
The family of the girl, including her four siblings, were well known to service providers in Tennant Creek, including Territory Families and the Department of Education, and every provider had documented interactions with them.
Between 2002 and 2018 child protective services received 52 notifications about the children, relating to all possible harm categories. Of those, 26 proceeded to investigations and 13 were substantiated.
There were also more than 150 police interactions with the child’s parents, including eight for aggravated assault convictions against one parent, P2 – who at the time of the child’s assault was in the Alice Springs prison for assaulting the other parent, P1 – and six convictions against P1 for driving under the influence.
“Prior to the most recent alleged sexual assault upon [the child, referred to as] C1, police had also conducted investigations in relation to sexual and physical abuse upon her siblings, some of these investigations resulted in prosecutions, with the perpetrator incarcerated,” the report said.
The report also revealed the Territory Families department had “an abundance of evidence” that all the girl’s siblings had suffered substantial neglect and numerous harms before the young girl’s birth, and they had “regularly self-placed”, seeking safety with extended family.
Last month the two-year-old and her brother were removed from their mother’s care by South Australian child protection services.
“The examination of this particular child’s life highlights critical intervention points where the system has failed her and her siblings,” the report said.
“The system failures highlighted throughout this investigation report occurred over a significant period of time, and are not new issues. The Northern Territory child protection system has been over-reviewed, however the failures remain.”
The vast majority of the commissioner’s report was redacted, but included 14 recommendations to the NT government, police, and Territory Families, all of which have been accepted.
However, the report also showed the department took exception to a draft finding that the girl was at foreseeable risk of sexual assault, submitting there was not sufficient evidence for such a conclusion.
It said such a finding would have an “unreasonably adverse impact” on the department and on children and families, and in its redacted form would be “likely to be interpreted as a specific finding of failure by Territory Families, rather than of a decades-old systems and resourcing issue”.
It said the suggestion that Territory Families had enough evidence to take action preventing the alleged sexual assault was “not dissimilar to suggesting police should have the ability to stop domestic violence homicides”.
It warned the suggested approach would set a precedent and see many children with open investigations enter state care, and was in direct conflict with legislation and policy, the government’s reform agenda and the royal commission’s recommendations.
The commissioner disputed much of the department’s submission but agreed to its proposed amendment to instead say the child was at foreseeable risk of “harm”.
The department also sought to downplay the large number of domestic violence incidents attributed to the family, noting that they were “largely verbal disputes”.
The commissioner responded that it refused to “minimise the impact of family violence, whether verbal or physical”, and that the evidence showed the violence was not limited to verbal disputes.
The commissioner also accused the department of a “passive acceptance” that various individuals adopting responsibility for the children at different times “sufficiently resolved child protection notifications and investigations”.
It said the need for formalised and supported care arrangements had been a key recommendation as far back as 2010 with the Board of Inquiry report, and was implemented by the department at the time.
In tabling the report, the Territory Families minister, Dale Wakefield, said many of the recommendations were consistent with those of the royal commission into the protection and detention of children in the NT, as well as other reviews, and some responses were already under way as part of the government’s reforms.
The report was heavily redacted but initially published in a format which allowed the redacted sections to be viewed. The alleged assault is currently before the court. The commissioner has been contacted for comment.
The government has previously said it cannot afford to implement all of the recommendations of the royal commission, and that it has to balance its priorities, shared between three areas of children, the economy and jobs, and transparency.
