TRADING IN MISERY

Gary, a father of five, has lived for two years with the frustration and
hardship of having to pay to get back his stolen furniture and electronic
goods from pawnbrokers' shelves.

Had they been taken in a household burglary, Gary could have reported them
stolen and set in train the process that might lead to the arrest of the
burglar. But he couldn't bring himself to do that; he knew the person
stealing the family's property and selling or hocking it. The thief was his
heroin-addicted teenage son.

It left Gary having to weigh up one of the hardest decisions a parent can
face: give up his son to police, or give up his claim to his property.
Gary's decision to protect his son propelled him into "a nightmarish
merry-go-round" of retracing his son's footsteps to the neighborhood
pawnbroker and second-hand shops to find his family's belongings and
discreetly buy them back. Adding urgency to the search was the knowledge
that the pawnbrokers accept the items for a nominal cash amount, but also
charge weekly interest for their return.

Gary, who stays at home to care for his invalid wife, calculates that it
has cost him $6000 to retrieve furniture and power tools. He has approached
pawnbrokers, begging them not to trade with his son and giving them his
photograph. His wife Beth maintains the shops regularly fail to check for
and record stolen items as required.

The couple resorted to having external locks fitted on their bedroom door,
"because we were told, `You're not covered for theft by insurance, because
he (the person taking the items) lives in your house."'

Their son was finally jailed for six months after being arrested and tried
for about 30 offences, including burglaries and six charges of deceiving
pawnbrokers.

But the pawn ticket trail he left behind carried a final sting. He pawned a
mobile phone he had persuaded his sister to buy in his name. She still had
to meet the instalment payments, but couldn't retrieve the phone because he
had sold it in his name.

Parents like Gary and Beth are among the hidden victims of drug addiction.
The detective in charge of the police Criminal Investigation Unit at
Dandenong, Senior Sergeant Shane Pannell, says any parents with a
drug-addicted offspring living at home are open to having their child turn
into their burglar when the need for money to buy drugs becomes desperate.
Many cases never come to light, he says, because parents keep quiet to
protect their children.

The conspiracy of silence makes it hard for parents like Gary, who was no
longer prepared to cover up for his son, to be heard. He has written to
politicians calling for recognition of the plight of parents in his
situation, but received no response.

Near despair, the couple turned to Families Anonymous' Footscray branch for
support. They found themselves hearing other parents recounting the same
ordeal as they had endured.

One member, Beryl from Laverton, estimates that over the years she has
spent thousands of dollars to redeem valuables sold by her 29-year-old
drug-addicted son. One pawnbroker took and eventually sold a diamond ring
valued at $6000, which her mother had bequeathed her.

Beryl warned local pawnbrokers that her son would sell anything he could
lay his hands on. She was exasperated when her son was subsequently charged
with several offences, including deceiving a pawnbroker over a stolen drill.

"They (pawnbrokers) know who the drug addicts are and they are receiving
stolen goods and that's the reality of it," Beryl says bitterly.

Joan, a mother of a heroin-using son and a member of Families Anonymous for
17 years, says the problem extends across Melbourne. "Sadly, this is a
story we hear day in and day out," she says.

The issue was raised late last year by County Court judge Chester
Keon-Cohen, who called for tighter controls on second-hand goods dealers
and pawnbrokers.

In sentencing a 19-year-old drug addict who had sold a range of stolen
power tools for $70 and a video camera and binoculars for $80, the judge
said dealers disregarded statutory checks such as requesting identification
from sellers. He described as "outrageous" procedures that required the
owners of goods to pay the store's outlay and accrued interest to retrieve
them.

The Office of Fair Trading took over the registration of pawnbrokers and
dealers from councils in 1998 and a spokesman says registration
applications are "rarely knocked back", unless the applicant has a criminal
background. One officer confirms the complaints from addicts' parents.

"I had a man who said his son had taken diamonds that his mother had owned.
It is just so sad. We get so many sob stories," she says.

Over the past couple of years, responsibility for keeping tabs on the
dealers has shifted to local police because the former dealers squad was
incorporated into the Tactical Response Group.

At Footscray's Criminal Investigation Unit, Detective Senior Sergeant
Graeme Nash says the number of pawnbrokers has increased in Footscray in
the past few years. "We do get the odd complaint about them and we can make
them hold property, claimed to be stolen, for up to 24 days."

There are procedures for reclaiming property, but Nash acknowledges: "A
person is in a difficult situation when what they want is to get back their
property, but they don't want to assist us in getting an identification of
the person who took it."

Dandenong's Senior Sergeant Shane Pannell agrees. "We have that scenario
... This is the hardship that the parent of a drug user faces and it is the
prerogative of a parent to refuse to press charges. It is 50-50. Some want
them charged, some don't. Some just want their kids back."

He estimates that 60-70 per cent of the items drug addicts steal from their
families are pawned rather than sold. From the pawnbroker or second-hand
dealer's point of view, the goods that the drug addicts ply represent "a
business opportunity". But Pannell adds: "They see them (the addicts), they
know the faces. They know who the parents are."

While it is possible to obtain a court order to return the goods, he says:
"We don't do it often because it opens up the avenue for kids to keep on
doing it."

Pannell suggests the Magistrates Court's new diversion program may offer an
alternative whereby parents can ensure their pilfering offspring are
reprimanded and offered a chance to be rehabilitated without having a
conviction recorded against them.

The state manager of Cash Converters, John Brophy, says: "Traders are
caught between a rock and a hard place. We're not here to judge people,
we're here to do business, but we're compassionate to family interests."

He says his company's 22 Victorian stores keep "don't deal" lists, open to
input from police and parents. In specific instances, if a parent warned
the store against a child selling stolen goods, it might ring the parent if
an attempt was made to pass off the goods. But, Brophy says, the customer's
dignity also has to be considered.

He says the issue is being considered by a State Government review of
legislation on pawnbrokers and second-hand dealers.

The government has released a discussion paper and consulted interested
parties. Brophy says one proposal is to change the law, so that "if the
parent were to come in with the pawn ticket and say here's a statutory
declaration to say my son or daughter came in and sold the goods, I'm the
mother and they were my goods, not theirs, I don't want to press charges
... that allows them to pick up the goods."

Brophy says the industry would be happy with this, if the dealer's
liability wasn't increased in cases where goods didn't end up back in the
hands of their rightful owner. Where goods are returned, he says, owners
should still have to pay the amount borrowed and any loan interest accrued.
With sold goods, where the item was bought for maybe $50 but put on sale at
$90, "that's when we would be flexible ... but we would at least want our
$50 back".

At the moment, if sold goods are proved to be stolen, the dealers get no
compensation unless they go to court.

Brophy says his outlets do not knowingly receive stolen goods. In handing
back goods when he has advanced money on them, which the dealer then
forfeits, "for some reason he is not seen as the victim of a crime".

A spokesman for Consumer and Small Business Minister Marsha Thomson, says
the minister is assessing submissions on proposed legislative changes.

Whatever changes are made, Gary hopes they will spare others from
undergoing the ordeal his family endured.

*Some names have been changed to protect families.