Kumanjayi Walker's behavioural struggles were first noticed when he was in primary school, but he wasn't formally assessed until he entered the youth justice system as a teenager, the coronial inquest into his death has heard.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of a person who has died, used with the permission of their family.
Mr Walker died in his remote community of Yuendumu, 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs, in November 2019, after he was shot by NT Police Constable Zachary Rolfe during an attempt to arrest him.
Constable Rolfe was last year acquitted of all charges related to the shooting, after jurors heard he acted in self defence when Mr Walker stabbed him in the shoulder with a pair of scissors during the arrest.
As a months-long inquest into the shooting continued on Thursday, coroner Elisabeth Armitage heard evidence about the 19-year-old's childhood and the efforts of his family and child services to keep him on track.
The executive director, families programs of the Department of Territory Families, Housing and Communities, Gabrielle Brown, told the coroner his family's dedication was "admirable" throughout his youth and admitted more could have been done to support them.
Citing a pre-sentence report, written in 2017 for the benefit of a court, Ms Brown said there were indications from his school at the age of six or seven that Mr Walker had additional needs.
"The behaviours present[ed] by Kumanjayi at that stage – and this is a young one of six, seven years old – were highly difficult. He was … a special needs child," Ms Brown said.
"A child, a young person, should not need to get to the level of a statutory child protection agency or an intervention of youth justice to get an assessment of needs."
Ms Brown told the coroner it was unclear from his files why his troubling behaviour was "missed".
The coroner heard the only cognitive assessment of Mr Walker came in 2017, after it was ordered through the youth justice system.
"There [were] likely very clear missed opportunities to try and change the trajectory for Kumanjayi, which would have provided a greater support to the family to understand … why this was occurring and then how best to raise Kumanjayi and what service supports was needed," Ms Brown said.
The coroner heard Kumanjayi Walker accessed several youth facilities throughout his young life, including a Queensland-based development program SevGen, which had a positive impact on his behaviour.
But Ms Brown told the court, in the time he was away in Queensland, his Territory Families 'Strengthen Families' case was closed, and contact was lost, meaning the department was unaware when he returned to Yuendumu.
Ms Brown said as Mr Walker grew older, his behaviour became more difficult to manage.
"Holistically over the reading of the file, it appears that some behaviours that were being presented by Kumanjayi [late in his adolescence] may have been barriers to services accepting it," Ms Brown said.
"So … it seemed that service delivery and options were narrowing for Kumanjayi."
Ms Brown told the inquest it was "a large expectation" for Mr Walker's foster mother, Leanne Oldfield, to be wholly responsible for him.
"That family support, Strengthening Families case work, would have enabled that longer term view, greater support, monitoring and engagement," Ms Brown said.
"Looking back at the case, and saying where we could have done, and should have done things differently."
The inquest continues.
