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