How Could You? Hall of Shame-Australia-Filipino Adoptee UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Mundijong, Australia, “The girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was adopted from the Phillipines by the couple after suffering an abusive childhood at the hands of her biological father and stepmother.”

“A young girl claims she was beaten, abused and made to sleep in a shipping container for at least four months by her adoptive parents, a court has heard.

The Perth couple at the centre of the claims appeared in the WA District Court on Thursday, pleading not guilty to charges including deprivation of liberty and having control and care of a child and engaging in conduct that could result in the child’s suffering.”

“The couple had three biological children of their own and another adopted daughter, aged 12, when the young girl was taken into the family’s Busselton home.”

“The court heard the alleged victim had trouble adapting to her new life, and her behaviour took a turn for the worse when the family moved from their home in the South West to a property in Mundijong.

Her adoptive parents reportedly struggled with her behaviour, which she alleged culminated in physical abuse and being shut away in a shipping container for at least four months before child protection authorities could become involved.

The girl alleged on more than one occasion, her mother dragged her out of the house and beat her with a metal pipe.

“At home my mum has been hitting me with a pipe, a tennis bat, and pulling my hair,” she said.

“Once I took the bus because she told me to, so I just went to catch the bus and when I got home she said ‘where have you been?’ I said I caught the bus and she said ‘who told you to do that?’ I said you told me to catch the bus.

“She was really angry about that. She said ‘I want to kill you right now, I’m so close to killing you.’

“Before that she said ‘I will shoot you and your head will go in a thousand pieces.’”

On one occasion, the girl said she had been scared to tell her adoptive mother she was hurt after she had allegedly punched her in the neck and pulled her hair.

“It started hurting, I couldn’t breathe properly … I thought it might make it worse if I told her,” she said.

On one day in 2017, the girl said she had been beaten before her mother had cut off her hair.

The girl said her adoptive father also abused her, but he would pull her into a shed on the property so “people don’t see”.

She said while they beat her, the parents often yelled at her for mumbling and her attitude.

“Dad did the same thing as my mum … he hit me with the pipe and pulled my hair. He told me ‘are you ever going to change? [Are you] ever going to change your attitude?’,” she said.

The court also heard the girl had once been left outside in a back paddock “all night”, and she claimed she had never had a birthday party.

The girl said the way her adoptive parents treated her was starkly different to the way they treated their other adopted daughter.

“They treat her nice, not me. She doesn’t get hurt or anything like that,” she said.

The girl said she had been forced to sleep in a green shipping container on the property from May to September in 2017.

“I don’t have blankets, she took them off me,” she said. “I only have a long sleeve shirt and long pants. It’s kind of freezing.

“I go to the toilet before I get in there … it’s locked [by] my mum. I can’t get out.

“She locks it at night time or when she goes with [her stepsister] ice-skating. I have to stay here and do nothing. She’ll lock it all the time.

“It’s big, it’s dark, it’s stuffy, it’s messy and there’s sand everywhere.”

Police began their investigation into the young girl’s claims in late 2017, and her adoptive parents were charged over her alleged neglect.

But the couple’s lawyers said both the mother and father denied all the claims made by the young girl, and said they had tried their best to give her a loving home.

Defence lawyer John Hawkins, representing the mother, said the family had been very highly regarded by Australian adoption authorities when they applied to adopt the young girl, and the couple had thought very hard about her troubled past and how they could help her on her arrival in Australia.

“She had suffered very significantly … she was effectively abandoned,” he said.

“Before [the mother] ever met [the girl], she knew pretty much all about her. She knew her challenges, her abandonment and her background.”

He said the couple had contacted a psychiatrist and the Department of Child Protection when it became clear the girl was struggling to adjust to the family’s move between Busselton and Mundijong.

“[The mother] is a proud and lovely mother who would never hit any child, let alone a challenging and difficult 12-year-old she loved.”

Defence lawyer Tom Percy QC, representing the father, also said it was likely the girl had invented the stories about her adopted family because of her troubled upbringing in the Phillipines.

“Any claim [this couple] were responsible for any neglect is strenuously denied,” he said.

“Neither of them neglected the child in any way as suggested by the prosecutor … the big ticket issue is whether she was ever forced to live in a sea container.

“This is utterly untrue. You’ll hear no evidence that she ever went or came out of a sea container.

“I’m not here to denigrate this young girl. She’s had had enough trauma before she ever set foot in Australia.

“Why she makes up these transparently false allegations is anyone’s guess, but we’re not here to guess.”

Mr Percy said the jury would struggle to find “one scintilla” of evidence that supported the young girl’s claims, and called her allegations regarding the shipping container as “fanciful in the extreme”.

The trial is set to continue for eight days.”
Forced to sleep in shipping container’: Perth girl claims adoptive parents abused her

[WA Today 6/7/19 by Hannah Barry]

“The neighbour of a Perth couple accused of abusing their adopted daughter has told a jury she regretted not making a complaint to child protective services after allegedly witnessing the young girl standing in a paddock in the rain.”

““She was always outside or down in the paddock,” the neighbour said. “She was always at the back of the house, she was always doing things by herself.”

On other occasions the woman said she had witnessed the young girl run laps at the property’s back paddock for hours on end; run to and from school along a busy road by herself; and stand in the rain in the paddock.

“When you look out your window and you just see a little girl standing in the rain … I regret [not making a complaint]. I felt sick,” she said.

“She’s never spoken to me. You couldn’t get close to her. She was very frightened. A very frightened little girl.”

The neighbour said at one point in September 2017, prior to child protection intervention, she had been at her home when she looked towards the shed of the couple’s property and saw a bucket of water tipped over the head of the girl.

“It looked like she had just woken up out of bed … before school,” she said. “I didn’t see the person who did it.”

In her police statement, the neighbour said the girl’s father had told her and her husband they hadn’t known anything was “wrong” with the girl until they adopted her, and they were trying to get her sent back to her home country.

“I just thought she was naughty and they were making her do things … they didn’t want that little girl,” she said.”

‘I felt sick’: Neighbour tells of regret at not contacting authorities over Perth girl’s alleged abuse
[WA Today 6/14/19 by Hannah Barry]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “A West Australian couple who beat their adopted daughter and forced her to sleep in a cold, dark shipping container have both been jailed for four years.

The pair, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child, adopted her aged nine from the Philippines, where she had already suffered trauma at the hands of her birth parents and at an orphanage.

The District Court of WA heard the latest abuse occurred when the girl was aged 10 to 12 at the couple’s semirural property on Perth’s outskirts, where she was neglected and suffered physical and emotional abuse.

For about three months during winter, she was regularly forced to sleep with no bedding in an unlit shipping container, which she described as “freezing”.

She was locked in overnight and when the family went on outings, and learnt it was wise to go the toilet beforehand, but had to do that outside.

The girl was repeatedly assaulted with hands and objects including a rubber hose and a tennis racquet, and was verbally abused and threatened.

“I want to kill you right now,” the woman said.

“I’m so close to killing you. I want to shoot you and your head will go into 1000 pieces.” While another girl the couple had adopted from the Philippines slept in the house, went on outings and was allowed access to items such as TVs and computers, she was not.

“We don’t want you coming ice skating with us. We have fun … you don’t deserve it,” the woman told her.

When she was allowed to sleep in the house, she didn’t have her own bedroom.

She was made to eat and wash outside using a bucket, ordered to run laps around the perimeter of the paddock and made to do menial chores such as weeding or moving rocks.

Neighbours testified seeing her sitting in bushes “very quietly” and standing alone in heavy rain up to two hours at a time.

“She was just standing there. It was raining, pelting,” the neighbour testified.

REEKED OF URINE

The girl went to school reeking of urine, wore tattered shoes and was seen at a bus stop without a jumper, looking cold.

The woman told her teachers she was disruptive, manipulative and would try to cause trouble but they described her as bright and keen to improve academically.

The principal said she was upset when she arrived at class, cheered up during the day then became anxious again.

“That’s because she was going home again to you,” Judge Alan Troy said on Wednesday.

“You must have known she was suffering.”

Judge Troy said the girl was isolated and vulnerable, had already endured impoverishment and a “Dickensian” orphanage, and was bound to be troubled by the prolonged abuse.

He accepted the couple, who previously fostered children, had made a valuable contribution to their community and churches before the offending, so it was “an appalling fall from grace”.

The couple, who the girl referred to as mum and dad, must serve two years behind bars before being eligible for parole.”

West Australian couple jailed over horrific abuse of adopted child
[News.com 9/4/19 by Rebecca LeMay]