Archive for the ‘Justice’ Category
the secret world of DCSI’s Screening Unit unrevealed
Jacinta: Ok so let’s do a deep dive into the screening unit, the processes involved, the law that’s being followed, the staffing, the numbers of people being processed, time frames, consequences, pushback, serious possibilities of redress, anything else we can think of.
Canto: So here’s the situation as it stands. I received the letter from the DCSI screening unit on October 30 last year claiming that I ‘pose a risk to the safety of children’. I filed an application for a review of this decision on October 31, and the review is registered as having been commenced on that day. As a result of that DCSI decision, I was suspended from my teaching position, without pay, on November 10, the day my five-week contract was completed. I’ve been working from contract to contract, like most of the teaching staff where I work, or worked, though I was given ‘priority’ as a teacher about two years ago.
Jacinta: So you’ll get your job back if the DCSI’s decision is overturned.
Canto: I don’t know if there’s any guarantee of that. I was told, too, by a lawyer from the Legal Services Commission (I’ve called the LSC three times so far about all this) that I should have a right to some pay even as a casual, but I’m feeling cowardly about making any demands upon my employer, because I really really don’t want to lose my job.
Jacinta: So today is March 6, and it’s been well over 4 months since your appeal was lodged.
Canto: Yes and I’ve written two emails of complaint to the screening unit, and I’ve made an official complaint to the Ombudsman’s office. A rep from the Ombudsman has emailed me twice since, and now my review has been given ‘priority’. Last week a woman from the screening unit rang me, asking me to resend information that I’d already supplied. She explained that attached materials often got lost in the to and fro of emails within the screening unit – which didn’t inspire me with confidence. She also assured me that, once I’d resent the materials, she would quickly shunt me along the line to the next assessor in the process, because I was now a ‘priority case’. This, after four months! I’d hate to think of the wait for those who aren’t given priority. Six months, a year, two years? It’s a very destructive and demoralising process.
Jacinta: For the innocent, which of course you are. So while you’re waiting, I suppose you’ll want to find out more about this screening process. It has become more rigorous, it seems. What triggered this more rigorous screening process, and when was it established? Has the screening unit been bolstered, in terms of resources and staffing, to deal with this more rigorous and time-consuming screening process?
Canto: Yes I’ll try to find out more about this online, because again I’m again a little cowardly about approaching DCSI directly. They’ll think I’m a trouble-making nuisance.
Jacinta: Good god Canto, you’re an innocent man who’s been dealt pretty shabbily, first by the police, than the DPP and now the DCSI, and you’re worried about raising a fuss?
Canto: Well, also, to be honest, I don’t think DCSI will be very co-operative.
Jacinta: There’s really nothing online about this. Nobody appears to be protesting apart from yourself, not online at any rate. There’s nothing negative at all about the Screening Unit, The ‘Me Too’ movement is featured strongly, and there’s a lot of irritation online that false allegations are given a lot of attention when under-reporting of real cases of sexual abuse, harassment and so forth, is more of a problem. So it’s not a good environment for bringing all this up. I suppose at least it wasn’t a female that falsely accused you. Females are considered more reliable.
Canto: Well, I’ve received an update from the Ombudsman’s office. Here’s the most important part of it:
As you are aware I have been assessing the processing of your application for a child related screening clearance. I have been provided with updates from the department and your application is still with the Assessment Team. I understand your initial application took 7 months to process. In the department’s assessment you would be aware that the department is considering such information as your disclosable court outcomes from 2006 offences. The department should have advised you that your review is being managed by a team of people who process your application independently from the initial application process. I would anticipate given the current backlog of applications the department is processing that your application may still take some weeks to finalise. This office has met with Screening Unit Officers and the Ombudsman has also met with the Chief Executive of DCSI, Mr Tony Harrison, about the delays in the processing of more complex applications. The department is considering strategies to counter the delay and our office will be advised of their progress. At this stage I do not think it is reasonable for this office to continue to monitor your individual application and I will now close your file. I understand that you are anxious to have your application finalised and invite you to recontact our office in approximately four to six weeks if your application is not finalised.
I’ve put the expression ‘2006 offences’ in bold because the expression was offensive to me, they were of course alleged offences, which were never even tested or explored in court let alone proven. But I don’t think the woman meant to offend me, it was inadvertent.
Jacinta: But wording matters hugely to the innocent, I understand. Anyway the letter provides useful information – you now know that the CEO of DCSI is Tony Harrison, and you learned previously that Kelly Tattersall is the director of the Screening Unit. Above all you’ve learned that there is in fact a backlog of applications and that they’re ‘considering strategies’ to counter the delay. It’s a very slight glimpse through the opacity of the Unit’s workings…
Canto: Another quibble I have – and you’re right, wording matters hugely to the innocent – is the reference to my case as ‘complex’. I don’t see it as complex at all, it’s extremely straightforward, but it was made complex by the behaviour of the police and the DPP.
Jacinta: I’ve found Tattersall on Linked-in. She’s been director of the Screening Unit since May 2013, so she would definitely know something you want to know – whether this ‘rigorous’ screening has been going on for the whole of her period in office, or whether it’s new, and exactly how new it is. She would also know, of course, just how many of these ‘complex cases’ there are. It’s so effing difficult to get any information.
Canto: Another person, who would know, of course, is this Tony Harrison. Just searching on him leads me to the ‘about us’ section of DCSI online. The department is overseen by the state minister Zoe Bettison. The website lists the Screening Unit as one of its assets, but I’m blocked from accessing it. It’s quite literally a black box!
Jacinta: Well I can understand the need for privacy of course, but the lack of public access to its general processes is a problem, to put it mildly. Sunlight is the best…. you know.
Canto: For what it’s worth, I’ve downloaded ta copy of the state’s Children’s Protection Act 1993, updated only last month, and we might look more deeply into that next time.
The battle for justice, part 1: some background to the case
A prosecution should not proceed if there is no reasonable prospect of a conviction being secured. This basic criterion is the cornerstone of the uniform prosecution policy adopted in Australia.
from ‘The decision to prosecute’, in ‘Statement of prosecution policy and guidelines’, Director of Public Prosecutions, South Australia, October 2014
I rarely focus on myself on this blog, but now I feel I have to. Today I lost my job because of something that happened to me about 12 years ago. So the next I don’t know how many posts will be devoted to my battle for justice, in the hope that it may help others in a similar situation. Of course I also find that writing is my best solace, as well as my best weapon. I have no financial resources to speak of, all I have is a certain amount of nous.
Between 2003-4 and 2010 I was a foster carer, under the aegis of Anglicare. Over that period I fostered six boys, with naturally varying success.
So why did I become a foster carer? I simply saw an ad on a volunteering website. I was being pushed to do some work, which I’ve always been reluctant to do, being basically a reclusive bookworm who loves to read history, science, everything that helps to understand what humans are, where they came from, where they’re going. And I hate when work interferes with that! But having come from what for me was a rather toxic family background, trying to shut myself from screaming fights between parents, and being accused by my mother, the dominant parent, of being a sneak and a liar, and ‘just like your father’ (her worst insult), and being physically and mentally abused by both parents (though never sexually), and having run away from home regularly in my teen years, I imagined that, as a survivor, I could offer something which might work for at least some of these kids – a hands-off, non-bullying environment which would be more equal in terms of power than many foster-care situations. Call me naive…
Mostly, this approach worked. I did have to get heavy now and then of course, but not for long, so I always managed to stay on good terms with my foster-kids, as I have more recently with my students. This was even the case with the lad who accused me of raping him.
Let me describe the case as briefly as possible. A fifteen-year old boy was in my care in September 2005. He was much more of a handful than the previous two boys I’d looked after, and when I lost my temper with him during a school holiday trip in Victor Harbour, he took it out on me by claiming to his mother, with whom he spent his weekends, that I’d punched him on the back of the head. This was false, but his mother took the matter to the police, and the boy was immediately taken out of my care.
After an internal review conducted by Anglicare I was cleared of any wrongdoing, to their satisfaction at least, and another boy was placed in my care. Then, sometime in early 2006, this boy was secretly whisked out of my care, and I was informed by Anglicare that a serious allegation had been made against me. I was in shock, naturally thinking this new boy had also accused me of some kind of violence, but I was finally informed by the Anglicare social worker who’d been overseeing my placements that ‘it isn’t your new foster – kid’. The penny dropped more or less immediately that it was the same boy who’d accused me of hitting him. This boy, as far as I was aware, was now living happily with his mum.
I was left in limbo for some time, but eventually I received a message from the police to go to the Port Adelaide police station. There I was asked to sit down in an office with two police officers, and informed that I was under arrest for rape.
I was somewhat taken aback haha, and I don’t recall much of the conversation after that, but I think it went on for a long time. I do remember one key question: if the boy’s lying, why would he make such an allegation? I had no answer: I was unable to think clearly, given the situation. But later that night, after my release on bail, an answer came to me, which might just be the right one. When the boy was in my care, the plan was to reconcile him with his mother, who put him in care in the first place because she couldn’t cope with him. I knew his mother, as I met her every weekend for handover. She was highly strung and nervous, and it seemed likely she was again having trouble coping with full-time care. Quite plausibly, she was threatening to return him to foster care, which he wouldn’t have wanted. She allowed him to smoke, she allowed him to hang out with his mates, and her environment was familiar to him. To him, I would’ve seemed boringly bookish and unadventurous. What’s more, his claim that I’d hit him had worked perfectly for him, getting him exactly where he wanted. Why not shut the door on foster care forever, by making the most extreme claim?
I don’t really know if this sounds preposterous to an impartial reader, but this answer to the riddle struck me as in keeping with what I knew of the boy’s thinking, and it was backed up by a remark he made to me, which soon came back to haunt me. He said ‘my mum’s friend told me that all foster carers are child molesters…’. It was the kind of offhand remark he’d often make, but it was particularly striking in light of something I was told later by my lawyer. Apparently, the boy didn’t tell his mother directly that I’d raped him, he’d told a friend of his mother, who’d then told her.
So, after the sleepless night following my arrest, I felt confident that I knew the answer to the key police question. I typed it up and took it forthwith to the Port Adelaide station (I didn’t trust the mail). How utterly naive of me to think they’d be grateful, or interested! I received no response.
So I obtained a lawyer through legal aid, or the Legal Services Commission. At the time I was dirt poor: I’d received a stipend as a foster carer, but that had stopped. Otherwise I worked occasionally as a community worker or English language teacher, mostly in a voluntary role. From the moment I was charged I spent many a sleepless night imagining my days in court, heroically representing myself of course, exposing contradictions and confabulations, citing my spotless record, my abhorrence of violence of all kinds, etc, etc. So I was a bit miffed when my lawyer told me to sit tight and do nothing, say nothing, and to leave everything to him. Standard procedure, presumably. The case passed from hearing to hearing (I don’t know if that’s the word – at least there were several court appearances), over a period of more than a year, and every time I expected it to be dismissed, since I knew there was no evidence. It had to be dismissed, there could be no other possibility. The only reason it had become a court matter in the first place, it seemed to me, was the absolute enormity of the allegation. But how could this possibly be justified? But I had to admit, the boy had, more or less accidentally, stumbled on the perfect crime to accuse me of – a crime committed months before, where there could be no visible evidence one way or another… It was all very nerve-wracking. And I was very annoyed at the fact that the DPP (the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions) seemed to have different lawyers representing it at every court appearance, and mostly they behaved as if they’d only been handed the brief minutes before.
Finally I arrived at the lowest point so far – an arraignment. I didn’t know this (my last) appearance would be an arraignment and I didn’t know what that was. I just expected yet another appearance with a handful of yawning court officials and lawyers in attendance. Instead I found a packed courtroom.
Arraignment is a formal reading of a criminal charging document in the presence of the defendant to inform the defendant of the charges against him or her. In response to arraignment, the accused is expected to enter a plea.
In Australia, arraignment is the first of eleven stages in a criminal trial, and involves the clerk of the court reading out the indictment. (WIKIPEDIA)
The reason the courtroom was packed is that several arraignments are processed in the same courtroom on the same day, so there were several accused there with their friends and families. Unfortunately, I was solo. On my turn, I was taken out to the holding cells and brought in – some kind of ceremonial – to the dock. The charge was read out (I’d already been given the ‘details’ by the lawyer, so I barely listened to it) and I was asked to plead, and the judge told the court, to my utter amazement, that I was adjudged to have a case to answer.
So it was perhaps even more amazing that, a week or two after that appearance, the case was dropped.