Teen rape victim ‘had visitors at all hours’ at foster care facility
The residential foster care facility where a teenager dubbed "Girl X" overdosed was reportedly a “drop-in house” for visitors to her.
According to The Daily Telegraph, a coronial inquest has heard the teenager was regularly visited by older men who would climb in through her window.
The inquest into the death of the 15-year-old heard that visitors to the Uniting Care facility Gordon House in Pennant Hills “would come and go at all hours”.
The inquest also heard that on occasion up to 10 unapproved visitors could be in a bedroom at the facility, reports The Daily Telegraph.
Youth workers allegedly ushered them out the front door and the visitors would run around the back and re-enter through a window.
“It was becoming a bit of a drop-in house,” the caseworker said, referring to a concerned resident who would “lock herself in her room”.
After years of alleged sexual and drug abuse, "Girl X" booked herself into rehab and checked in for a three-month stint, hoping to make others happy and kick her habit.
But two weeks after arriving she lashed out and was sent back to the youth refuge she called home.
A few months later, in April 2014, she injected a lethal mixture of ice and heroin and died in Westmead Children's Hospital from a lack of oxygen to her brain, the coronial inquest heard.
The girl, who cannot be identified, was first been taken from her family home by authorities before she was one and her short life was filled with darkness.
She was preyed upon by abusive adults, some using her for drugs and others pushing her into crime and probably prostitution, the inquest into her death has heard.
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After leaving a care home where she was allegedly repeatedly raped at the age of around 14, the girl was accepted into a three-month rehab program.
It was supposed to run for three months but a few weeks after it began the girl was back at the care facility, forced to leave rehab after several violent outbursts.
The decision to remove her was disappointing, the manager of the care facility where Girl X lived said on Tuesday.
"Those opportunities don't often come by and I think she was let down," he said.
Much of the inquest will focus on the failures, social and systemic, which led to the death of the girl.
NSW deputy state coroner Derek Lee has heard how the girl was "used and abused" by many who were supposed to care for her.
At 14, she was allegedly raped by two carers while a ward of the state, and had probably been injecting drugs and mixing with criminals during her mid-teen years.
Forensic evidence at the inquest is expected to show she died after injecting a "speedball", a dangerous mixture of heroin and methamphetamine.
But moments of brightness emerged at the bleak inquest, and one of the few who looked out for her described a girl with a "heart of gold".
A carer who developed a special bond with the girl wiped away tears as she gave evidence.
"She always wanted to help everybody," the carer, who cannot be identified, said on Tuesday.
Between bouts of drug and alcohol abuse, when the girl was not missing from the home or hanging out with the many unauthorised visitors who snuck into her room, she enjoyed movie and junk food nights with that carer.
The inquest heard how the girl arranged for bags of lollies to share with other kids for the movie nights, and would delight in dispensing Maltesers ahead of a screening.
The carer described the girl as streetwise and said despite her regular consumption of drugs, Girl X never thought she was abusing them.
The inquest also heard from an experienced case worker, who said the girl had suffered some of the worst treatment she had seen.
"She was the child who had the least reason to trust adults," the case worker assigned to 'Girl X', told an inquest into her April 2014 death on Wednesday.
"If a young person had the right to tell and adult to f*** off, it was (her)," the case worker told the inquest.
Girl X had spent a lot of time on western Sydney streets, was injecting drugs, had been dragged into crime and likely prostitution and the case worker said he and other refuge staff were "terribly concerned for her" in the months before she died.
The inquest, before Deputy State Coroner Derek Lee, continues today.
