Isla Johnson (a pseudonym)
[2023] QChCM 3
•6 February 2023
MAGISTRATES COURT OF QUEENSLAND
CITATION:Re Isla Johnson (a pseudonym) [2023] QChCM 3
PARTIES:ISLA JOHNSON
(Applicant)
v
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE
(Respondent)
FILE NO:Mount Isa CCM 25/23 & 60/23
PROCEEDING:Bail Application
COURT:Children’s Court, Mount Isa
DELIVERED ON:6 February 2023
DELIVERED AT: Mount Isa
HEARING DATE:3 February 2023
MAGISTRATE:E. Mac Giolla Rí
ORDER:Bail refused
APPEARANCES: Ms Brown, ATSILS
Sgt Vanderhelm, QPS
Ms Green, Youth Justice
Ms Allan, Child Safety
On 3 February 2023 I refused bail to Isla Johnson and reserved my reasons and adjourned the matter to 6 February 2023 to allow the parties to present further information on the question of bail.
Isla is a 15 year old girl in the care of the Chief Executive of the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs (‘Child Safety’).
Isla ceased living with her mother because she and her siblings, all under 8, were frequently abandoned by her mother. In her mother’s absence, Isla was required to care for her siblings, though she had no money or food to provide for them. Isla found herself unable to cope. She sought assistance from two relatives, an aunt and uncle, and lived with them but came into the Department’s care when they were sent to prison for domestic violence.
At that point Isla personally approached Child Safety and asked for assistance.
In this way, Isla went into the care of Child Safety in mid-September 2022.
Prior to going into the care of Child Safety, Isla, then aged 14 had only ever been charged with three offences.
Since going into the care of Child Safety, Isla has been cautioned for or been charged with forty-five offences, including an attempted robbery, seven charges of entering a dwelling and 25 charges of entering a premises or attempting to do so.
On 3 February 2023 Isla was charged with seven further offences. The facts behind those offences are not particularly material, except to say that:
a. The offences were committed on 1-2 February, or merely 1 to 2 days after being granted bail on earlier offences; and
b. The offences involve relatively serious instances of entering commercial premises with a view to stealing deodorant cans for sniffing.
c. The offences were committed in the early hours of the morning, in breach of a curfew condition on her present bail.
At that time she committed these offences Isla also had a bail conditions requiring her to comply with a comprehensive conditional bail program of activities arranged by Youth Justice.
10. A review of Isla’s circumstances for the bail applications on 31 January and 3 February 2023 disclosed the following causes of Isla’s offending:
a. Upon going into the care of Child Safety Isla was placed in a care home with girls who are known juvenile property offenders and she has bonded with those girls. It is reasonable clear to me that his is what lead to her property offending, though it is not in evidence that these particular girls are her co-accused on the current offences.
b. Since going into the care of Child Safety, Isla has had four different Child Safety case workers. It is not difficult to see how such a fragmented relationship with Child Safety could be perceived by Isla as a lack of care and, figuratively, drive her into the arms of her anti-social peers, from whom she can expect more meaningful acceptance and interaction.
c. Since going into the care of Child Safety, Isla has not attended school, despite expressing desire to attend school and even to play basketball at school. On 31 January, almost 5 months after she came into the care of Child Safety, Isla still did not have an enrolment, so there is still no school she can attend.
d. Since going into the care of Child Safety, Isla has not seen her siblings or had consistent contact with them. Her younger siblings, for whom she was often a primary carer, are now also in the care of Child Safety and are placed in a remote community to which Isla has previously had substantial connection. A Christmas visit to her siblings was arranged by Child Safety but Isla missed the plane. Isla told the the Court that she had no idea a visit had been arranged.
11. At the bail application on 3 February 2023 a proposed timetable of activities for Isla had been put together by Child Safety. That timetable went some way to keeping Isla active during the day and, as such, somewhat reduced the risk that Isla would roam the streets at night, as she has recently been doing.
12. Unfortunately, the timetable was deficient in two important aspects:
a. The timetable is fragmented, relying on a variety of State and community organisations, without offering any particular pro-social adults with whom Isla could build a relationship. In the absence of such relationships it is unlikely that the activities offered to Isla have any hope of replacing the bonds she has created with her anti-social peers; and
b. School is not included in the timetable because Isla is not enrolled in school and no enrolment is possible at this time.
13. Isla advised the Court that she wants to leave Mount Isa to live with her siblings and wants to attend school. I find that she is genuine in both of these desires.
14. At this point in time, there is no prospect of Isla obtaining an enrolment in a school in Mount Isa and a flight to the remote community where her siblings reside is not available until 10 February 2023.
15. The parties are exploring whether an earlier flight can be obtained and whether a placement for Isla in the same remote community as her siblings can be secured.
16. Although the youth justice principles strongly suggest that, other matters being equal, children should be given bail, I must also consider s48AAA of the Youth Justice Act and whether:
a. Isla’s release would endanger the safety of the community or the safety of a particular person; and
b. Whether any such risk can be mitigated by conditions of release on bail.
17. In my view there are relevant risks, namely:
a. the risk to the community that Isla would continue to enter dwellings and/or business premises seeking solvents for sniffing/chroming;
b. the risk that there would be physical confrontations, even unintended confrontations, between Isla, her co-offenders and the occupants of those homes and businesses.
c. the risk to Isla from such activities, including the risk to her from sniffing/chroming.
18. In circumstances where the offending occurred so soon after Isla was granted bail and where Isla was unable to comply with her curfew or benefit from her conditional bail program, I am concerned that there are no conditions that I could put in place, that Isla would obey, that would sufficiently mitigate that risk.
19. I am conscious that, due to there being no space in youth detention centres in Queensland at the moment, if I remand Isla in custody she will be detained in the Mount Isa watchhouse for an extended period.
After I refused bail, the matter was adjourned to 6 February 2023 at which time I hope the parties will have positive updates in relation to schooling and/or placing Isla in the same remote community as her siblings.
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