House of horrors in Brisbane where two autistic brothers were found in a locked bedroom with no door handle as their violent, alcoholic father lay dead in another room
Locked in the dark for hours, fed raw sausages and left in their own filth for days on end: Kaleb and Jonathon were treated worse than animals by the man who had to look after them most.
The autistic teenage brothers were found naked and covered in feces in May 2020 in a locked bedroom with no door handle, while their alcoholic father, who was suffering from a terminal illness, lay dead in another part of the Brisbane suburban home.
It is unclear how long they had been alone in their grim cell.
But when the police finally found Kaleb and Jonathon – pseudonyms to protect their identities – they were so malnourished that they suffered from a condition called kwashiorkor – a severe protein deficiency that causes a swollen abdomen that is most common in young children who are victims. have become of famine.
The harrowing details, exposed in the damning 222-page report from the Disability Royal Commission published on Tuesday, have raised questions about how Queensland authorities allowed a life of unimaginable misery and deprivation to continue for so long.
Two autistic teenage brothers were found naked and covered in feces in a locked bedroom in May 2020, while their alcoholic father, who was suffering from a terminal illness, lay dead in another part of the Brisbane suburban home.
It ruled that the State of Queensland could and should have done more to prevent the brothers’ suffering, and called on the state government to apologize and consider compensation.
The commission heard that officers from at least half a dozen government departments in Queensland had been walking in and out of the house for years.
During a police visit in 2010 – when Kaleb was nine and Jonathon was seven – officers saw Jonathon ‘locked in a room with a wooden child gate nailed to the door frame’.
His room was furnished with a bare mattress, completely devoid of bedding and some kind of ‘toy’.
That same night, Kaleb was “locked in his room in complete darkness,” the report said.
“Caleb had a brown substance on his fingers. The house smelled of feces.’
A child safety officer said the house was “uninhabitable for the children.” They were removed from their father’s care for just five days.
Photographs of the brothers, included in the commission’s report, show them looking out onto a green field under a blue sky—a far cry from the darkened, dingy cell in which they languished for years.
The committee heard from neighbor Lisa Hair, who witnessed the brothers’ abuse at the hands of their father.
“Ms. Hair recalled that Kaleb and Jonathon’s father locked them in their bedroom during school holidays and weekends,” the report said.
“Sometimes she saw them locked in their room all day and well into the night.
“She played relaxation music loudly for Kaleb and Jonathon to hear. She whistles too, and Jonathon whistles back.’
The friendly neighbor told the committee that Jonathon enjoyed a bubble machine she set up to blow bubbles over the fence and that Kaleb loved chickens, while both brothers loved her dog.
The house was described as ‘uninhabitable’ by a child safety officer
The boys were fed raw sausages and a cold tin of casserole
But her little acts of care and kindness could not save the boys from their father’s cruelty.
Ms. Hair described a time when Paul Barrett opened the boy’s bedroom door and saw Kaleb in his bedroom “slipping in feces and urine,” the report said.
“She said he ‘couldn’t get up and walk’.”
The report added: ‘Mrs Hair said she saw Kaleb and Jonathon’s father being rough with them.
“On many occasions she saw him shoving them in and out of the car and yelling at them.
“Mrs. Hair noticed that Kaleb and Jonathon usually only wore diapers, and only wore clothes when they went to school, or elsewhere.”
The neighbor also saw the boys’ father, who reportedly drank two barrels of port a day, “feeding them an open cold can of casserole.”
The Queensland government has apologized and promised to consider recommendations in an investigative report into the abuse of two autistic teenagers
Child Protection Minister Craig Crawford said the abuse, neglect and violence suffered by teenagers known by the pseudonyms Kaleb and Jonathon should never have happened.
“On another occasion, he gave them raw sausages in a sealed package,” the report said.
Tragically, Ms. Hair told the committee she had no recollection of ever hearing the brothers’ father use their proper names.
Instead, he called them things like “d***head,” “f***wit,” and “fackwad.”
Disability and Child Safety Minister Craig Crawford apologized to the two young men at a press conference on behalf of the Queensland government on Tuesday.
“This shouldn’t be happening in our country, and it shouldn’t be happening in our state,” Crawford said.
“We must do better, we can do better, and we will do better.”
The brothers, now in their twenties, are now in care, where fifteen staff members look after them.
“Kaleb and Jonathon both have closets full of clothes and keep some of their favorite toys with them,” the report said.
Photographs of the brothers, included in the report, show them looking out onto a green field under a blue sky—a far cry from the darkened, dingy cell in which they languished for years.