Victoria Police received multiple reports about the welfare of a 12-year-old girl “running wild” on the streets and being “prostituted out” to men despite being in state care for at least a year before she was charged with murder last week.
The child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was arrested in the early hours of Thursday after police found the body of a 37-year-old woman inside a hostel in Footscray in Melbourne.
Local youth worker Samantha Cafaro told the ABC’s 7.30 program last night that she first raised concerns with police late last year.
“What we’d heard in, [in] so many words [was] that she was selling herself to older men for money,” Ms Cafaro said. “When I first heard it, it was hard to believe.”
She made a total of seven calls to police in the 12 months since meeting the child, she told the ABC.
“What we got told by them [the police] is that they can’t do anything, they can’t approach her, and they can’t stop these men,” she said.
“What we said to them was … isn’t there anything more that you can do?”
Prominent youth worker Les Twentyman, who runs the Les Twentyman Foundation and has worked with street kids for more than three decades, told 7.30 the girl’s situation was a “time bomb” waiting to explode.
“We were all watching this kid [but] no-one was doing anything about it,” Mr Twentyman said.
“What’s a 12-year-old doing with a 37-year-old at 2am in the morning, when this kid was in state care?”
In a post on Facebook last week in the wake of the incident, Mr Twentyman claimed the child was seen offering sex services around Footscray Mall last year. She was 11 at the time.
“Many had rang police but to no avail,” he wrote. “I suggested … child protection [but] no response. That young girl allegedly stabbed and killed a woman.”
Emergency services rushed to the Barkly Street building in Melbourne’s inner-north at about 2am on Thursday after reports a woman was found stabbed to death inside an apartment.
Police arrested the girl at the scene, and she was taken to hospital under police guard.
Homicide detectives were working to establish how the pair knew each other and their relationship remains unclear.
The girl was charged with one count of murder.
‘Fallen through the cracks’
Countless calls were reportedly made to police by multiple people about the girl’s welfare in the months leading up to the alleged murder – one as recently as last week.
The Herald Sun last week quoted a source as saying the girl had been “prostituted out” and regularly ran away from carers, sometimes going missing for days on end.
She made occasional visits to the building where the death occurred.
“No one has done anything about this kid’s welfare for the past 12 months,” a youth worker told the newspaper.
“People have called the police about this girl, and she has fallen through the cracks. This is a welfare issue, and no one has picked up on it.
“I’ve never seen a worse example of this.”
Local businessman Chris Tabone told the ABC he phoned police last week when he spotted the girl looking “extremely unwell” and in need of help.
“I reported extra information in regards to what I’ve seen over the past four, four to five weeks with that young girl,” Mr Tabone said.
“And that’s something [that] needed to be done because this was the start of something bigger.”
Victoria Police has been approached for comment.
In September, a report from Victoria Legal Aid revealed two-in-five children in state care are charged with a crime within 12 months of being moved to a residential facility.
“Residential care is meant to provide a safe and supportive environment for children who have been removed from their families due to concerns about their safety,” Joanna Fletcher, Executive Director, Family, Youth and Children’s Law at VLA, said.
“Instead, our lawyers see that children are being charged and sent before the courts, frequently for incidents they would be unlikely to be charged for if they had occurred in a family home.”
Victoria’s Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, who was responsible for the girl’s care, has declined to comment.
Intellectual ability of a six-year-old
The child had been “running wild” for several years while in state care and has the intellectual capacity of a six-year-old, The Herald Sun reported.
Sources close to the case told the newspaper the child should’ve been in secure care, but Victoria has no such facilities.
Mr Twentyman said state services are severely underfunded and under resourced.
“[There are] not enough resources and everyone thinks someone else is doing it. If everyone was doing their bit this crime may not have happened, but they weren’t doing their bit, and this is the outcome.”
The state’s Commissioner for Children, Liana Buchanan, described youth residential care as “a pipeline into the criminal justice system”.
“These are children whose histories of trauma and neglect have brought them into the out-of-home care system,” Ms Buchanan said.
“For that system to cause police and criminal justice contact is unfair and unacceptable.
“This over-criminalisation continues despite a shared agreement that therapeutic, trauma-informed responses should be applied for these children, that police intervention should be reduced and, if police are called, that charges should not be pursued where there is a viable alternative.”
The age of criminal responsibility in Victoria is 10, however the government has committed to lifting the age to 12 by next year, and then to 14 by 2027.
Ms Cafaro told the ABC the tragedy last week could’ve been avoided.
“Of course, it could have been prevented.
“If we could have picked this up a year ago, got this child into services that could have kept her in school, engaged in other programs, she wouldn’t be down here.”
‘Where am I going?’
When she appeared in court on Friday, the child reportedly appeared confused as proceedings took place around here.
“Where am I going?” she asked the court.
“You’re going to go out with police, and they’re going to take you somewhere you can stay at the moment,” the magistrate told her.
That place was “effectively a juvenile detention centre” where she will be held on remand, her lawyer said, placing her in a vulnerable position due to her age and intellectual disabilities.
The lawyer told the court that the child, who has a history of trauma and suffers anxiety, was at risk of self-harming while being held on remand.
In an emergency late-night sitting of the Supreme Court on Friday, she was granted bail and released.
“We ask that the authorities be alerted to her special needs that are exceptional in this case.”
The child will next appear in court via video link on Friday.
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