DAD'S PLEA: I HAD TO SAVE HER

Call for 'parents action league'

WHEN Samantha was born in 1979, it was truly a blessing, as my wife
Elizabeth and myself thought we would not be able to have another child.

I was delighted and amazed the day Elizabeth told me. Our son, Wayne, was
then ~1.

Because of better employment opportunIties, we moved from Tasmania to
Queensland where we bought a hobby farm in the Lockyer Valley.

Queensland is a lovely place but if I look back now, in hindsight, I realise
there was so much drug money around invested in legitimate enterprises.

Our life was devastated within a few months of our arrival when Wayne, aged
16 and one week, took off back to Tasmania. We later learnt he got into
trouble and also attempted suicide.

No one had told us. We found out years later. He drifted for a while, was on
welfare, had bad friends and smoked marijuana.

He came home at 17 but soon fell under the influence of an older married
woman with two children. Over the years, she destroyed him. We hoped he
would come back to us and he did. He visited us a couple of weeks before his
death by suicide eight years ago.

We received a phone call at 2am to say Wayne had shot himself.

It was devastating for Samantha. In appearance and in mannerisms, in many
ways, they were like twins. She thought she should have done something to
prevent it, but what could she have done?

Samantha has always been mature for her age. She is a nice looking and a
clever girl. It was easy for her to pass as older and she knew how to work
the system.

I think she convinced a doctor to prescribe anti-depressant drugs not long
after Wayne died but honestly I can't tell you how that progressed to harder
drugs.

If I had known she was taking drugs I would have done something about it. I
was involved in local politics about that time and we started to receive
threats.

Because of this, we sent Samantha to Canada to a relative for a couple of
months but she got into trouble over there. The authorities ordered she have
a psychiatric assessment, which was to be sent to Australia.

We weren't aware of this and she intercepted it at the letter box. It wasn't
until someone sent us some of her belongings recently that we found the
report.

Samantha was charged with possessing drugs in Toowoomba last year and after
her name appeared in the paper she decided to move to Sydney. Half of her
$1200 fine could have paid for her detoxification but the system was not
interested in that.

She checked herself into Rozelle Hospital earlier this year and did detoxify
but failed the rehabilitation. It was there I believe she met all types of
questionable people.

She made a series of telephone calls to me via Homelink and when I
eventually found out which booths they bad been made from, I recognised a
pattern. They were all made from within 100 yards of Kings Cross, where she
was being controlled.

I knew I had to act to get her out, to save her. I will never accept the
fact that I kidnapped my daughter. I removed her from there to save her life
and was then banned from helping her.

Having the kidnap and assault charges withdrawn was no victory for my
family. My daughter still is in drug bondage. For over six months I have
been legally prevented from seeing or helping her, while officialdom stood
by and did nothing.

I no longer have any faith in the government bodies of Australia, which
appear to work to systematically dismember families while turning a blind
eye to crime.

The police system appears, by its inaction, to support drug crime. It is a
soft system that would sooner squeeze a motorist rather than crack a
criminal.

I love my daughter and believe I have a God-given and common law right as a
parent to remove her from drugs and prostitution.

I believe that it is also my duty, both as a parent and a citizen. To date,
the end result of government interference has been the destruction of my
family.

Again, they have now chosen to interpose themselves between loving parents
and an errant young person, thus compounding the damage and the tragedy.

I now appeal for help to all the decent people in Australia.

Let us establish a national parents action legion, to force real justice on
the law to compel them to help us protect our children. If there are a
million addicts, there are about two million disempowered parents.

Checked-by: Don Beck