Two young Indigenous children bound with cable ties to the point that their skin tore were happy, happy children – but have now been left ‘traumatised’.
Disturbing images uploaded to Facebook on Tuesday show Margaret, six, and Stuart, seven, huddled with another boy, eight, outside a property on Cable Beach in Broome, Western Australia, on a sweltering day.
The normally vibrant group, who love to play outside together, had their wrists tied and cried for their mother, while the air conditioning plant’s burly boss, Mataj Radelic, 45, paced the concrete to make sure the children were safe. didn’t run away from the police. arrived.
They had jumped the fence of the vacant property to swim in the pool before Radelic, who is not the owner of the house, caught them and carried out the bizarre arrest of the citizens.
Roberta Cox, a close relative of the children, became emotional as she told Daily Mail Australia how she heard people screaming and ran across the road to see what was happening.
Seeing the children bound and wailing on the concrete reminded her of horrific images of Aboriginal people forced to wear metal shackles around their necks before 1950.
Margaret, six, and Stuart, seven, are pictured tied together with another family member on Tuesday
Margaret’s zip ties were so tight they drew blood (pictured) and left marks on her wrists
“I went there because I heard screaming and I came back and got my phone and tried to call the police but it was hard because I had a panic attack,” she said.
“I called them and immediately ran back and filmed it… They’re quite traumatized.”
Daily Mail Australia tried to contact Radelic for comment on Thursday, but his wife Vesna called police and claimed her family felt ‘threatened’.
One officer demanded that the media leave the scene and threatened to arrest anyone who did not comply with an order to leave.
“You’re being locked up,” he said.
When it was pointed out that Radelic was accused of tying up children with cable ties and faced three charges of aggravated assault, the officer said: “You don’t know the circumstances of that.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
Stuart, seven, (pictured) has since had a nightmare and has a scratch on his hand after the incident
Margaret, six, (pictured) was tied up with her brother for about an hour on a 33 degree day
The cable ties were so tight that they left marks on the children’s wrists (photo)
Pictured: A photo the children’s relative showed to Daily Mail Australia explaining the scene reminded her of the way Aboriginal people used to be treated
Earlier on Thursday, Radelic told television reporters that his actions were not racially motivated and that he regrets the scene that unfolded.
But Roberta’s family believes the situation was reminiscent of the way indigenous people were treated between about 1890 and 1950.
She held up a black and white photo of Aboriginal men sitting on the ground with chains around their necks and hands as a white man hovered over them and smiled.
“It looks like this,” she said, gesturing to the photo.
“It’s like what they did to us.”
Ms Cox acknowledged the relatively high crime rates in Broome, but said Margaret and Stuart were normally well behaved.
“They weren’t stealing or anything, they just wanted to swim in the pool,” she said.
We see Vesna Radelic coming home on Thursday afternoon with a McDonalds bag in hand
Vesna Radelic called the police when Daily Mail Australia tried to contact her husband for comment
On Wednesday, the children’s mother, Rowena, who was at the scene at the time, described the situation as a “disgrace.”
‘When I stood behind a fence and saw my children tied up like that, it was an emotion of ‘what can I do?’ she told A Current Affair.
‘He had no feeling or anything for my children who were there crying. My boy was crying for water and I couldn’t even give him water.’
Rowena recalled begging Radelic to release her children, but she was “afraid” of him because of his size.
She also questioned possible double standards in the legal system.
‘If it was the other way around, if an Aboriginal man held three white children and said to the families, ‘You can wait until the police come,’ if he goes to court, the Aboriginal man… he would leave have been,” she said.
“They wouldn’t even let him out of jail. He would have remained in prison. They wouldn’t give him bail. They might have sent him away for kidnapping.”
Rowena (pictured) said Radelic’s actions were a ‘disgrace’
In the photo: the driveway where the children were filmed on Tuesday. The swimming pool is covered on the right
Rod Wilde, acting deputy commissioner of the regional police, said a neighbor called police at 1.35pm on Tuesday after seeing the children swimming in an ‘unoccupied’ pool.
“About ten minutes later, police received a call from a male subject who (reportedly) said he had restrained three children for causing damage in that backyard,” Commissioner Wilde said.
“Police located two children at that time – one had left – who were (allegedly) tied up with cables in that property.”
Police will allege a fourth boy had also been in the pool but managed to flee and alerted family members to what was happening.
Radelic was later charged and granted bail to appear at Broome Magistrates Court on March 25.