A Queensland court has found a child’s prospects would be better off while living with an allegedly abusive relative than in a residential care home.
The 14-year-old Indigenous boy, referred to in court documents as Oliver Boland*, has spent large periods of his life in detention, including being held in a watch house 40 times in four years.
Mount Isa magistrate Eoin Mac Giolla Ri said while in the care of his relative, Mary Boland*, Oliver had been subjected to and witnessed “considerable violence”, which was likely used as a form of discipline.
Oliver had not attended school for years and lives with an intellectual impairment, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Due to Mary’s gambling, there is “a real danger” the household could come under financial strain if the pair lived together, Mac Giolla Ri said.
The court heard Mary had also lived in “drinking houses” in the past, which had exposed Oliver to violence, substance abuse and caused him to wander the streets at night.
In a child protection ruling this week, Mac Giolla Ri found that, despite the neglect and abuse Oliver had allegedly experienced while staying with his relative, he was better off living with her than in a residential care home.
“Returning Oliver to Ms Boland’s care through the proposed contact order is a very bad option for limiting Oliver’s risk of reoffending … but having Oliver in the Resicare [option] B would, in my view, be worse,” Mac Giolla Ri said in the written judgment.
“I find that the applicant has proved that … allowing Oliver to reside with her, is better for Oliver’s interests and more consistent with the principles in the [Child Protection] Act.”
The magistrate said he asked the director of child protection for evidence of the effectiveness of residential care for children, but was told there was no such data available.
“In short, there is no data to support [the] efficacy of the model of care suggested by the director for Oliver or at all. Equally, there is no data to support the efficacy of any other model of residential care that may be available to Oliver or to any other child,” Mac Giolla Ri said.
The court heard Oliver was placed in residential care several hundred kilometres from his home on 7 March, after being granted bail for offences involving “serious interpersonal violence”.
He’d only been in residential care for two weeks before he was back in detention as a result of being charged with “extremely serious offences”, including robbery with actual violence and stealing.
The magistrate said it appears Oliver allegedly “committed these offences … because he did not like being in the town in which he was placed and preferred to return to detention”.
“Based on what happened on the last occasion Oliver was released from detention into the care of child safety, it is highly unlikely that Oliver will stay at Resicare B and he is highly likely to commit a further offence for the purposes of being returned to detention,” Mac Giolla Ri said.
If Oliver was to reoffend and return to detention, he would be subject to social isolation due to staff shortages, which have resulted in detainees being locked in their cells for up to 24 hours a day, the court heard.
Mac Giolla Ri said there was no other suitable placements that were available to Oliver.
The child safety department will retain custody over Oliver to ensure he receives appropriate referrals for his various social and medical needs.
* Not their real names
