Episode Details

There is a story in the media that has got me absolutely furious, and it's not Ashley Klein, the referee in the Warriors game. It's a story that's being played out in the Coroners Court of a 12-year-old girl who took her own life in 2017, and she took her own life because the very agency that should have been caring for her, Oranga Tamariki, failed her. And in the Coroners Court, hearing the evidence of the witnesses, I think we have an understanding now why so many children end up dead and tortured at the hands of their caregivers.  

This 12 year old should be alive today, she should be 21, she should be making music, maybe in a band, hanging out with her friends because by all accounts, despite the awful, awful state of her "home", she was a popular girl, musically talented. But she had the great misfortune, as did her two younger sisters, of being born into a dreadful situation. Her life sucked, as a family member gave evidence. There were some people who cared about her, not her caregivers, but before the girl took her own life, her teachers were concerned, the principal was concerned, they'd made several visits to her home because they were so concerned about her appearance, her behaviour, and disclosures she'd made about her home life. They were filthy, she and her sisters, the nits were crawling down the back of her neck, they were starving. And what the school witnessed, according to reports, caused them to seek assistance from organisations such as Oranga Tamariki, New Zealand Police, social support agencies, and others. There's a list a mile long of agencies where you can get help, allegedly, that exist, that are funded to help just these sorts of children. 

She was doing everything right. She couldn't do much about her appalling home life, but she knew that this was not the way she was meant to be living. So she disclosed to teachers what was going on, and it wasn't the first time the agencies had been involved with the girl and those in her home. The counsel, who's in the Coroners Court to assist the coroner, said the girl experienced an extremely difficult childhood characterised by ongoing and severe abuse, as well as a generally unstable living situation. The caregiver was a druggie. Due to the difficulties she encountered in her home life, she spent many nights away staying with friends. She was desperate. She would have known that it was an imposition asking to stay at other people's houses. She'd have known what a real home looked like, and it certainly wasn't what she was going back to.  

The school principal, a police constable, and the young girl turn up at Oranga Tamariki, and a woman from OT told the Coroners Court she was appointed the girl's key contact. A safety plan for the girl was put in place along with a plan to refer her to other services, and an agreement was drawn up that included her caregiver's commitment to engaging with support. But guess what, the caregiver failed to engage, in a shocking revelation, just as she'd failed to engage the many other times that agencies had been involved in her life. There were reports of her being continually under the influence of drugs, concerns from the school about the girl's behaviour and her continued absence from school. So her safety plan included exit plans like calling the Police and running to the neighbours to seek help. 

Counsel for the coroner asked the question that most of us would have asked: if a 12-year-old needed a safety plan to live in her own home, what were they doing there? There was no comment from the social worker. The counsel pointed to multiple previous reports of concerns made to Oranga Tamariki relating to the girl and her living conditions and her druggie caregiver. The social worker said she wasn't aware of the agency's previous involvement when she first took on the case, hadn't reviewed any earlier reports.  

Can these people not read? Would you not think to yourself when a 12 year old