Sandro

‘The problem with this schooling stuff, they force this stuff in front of you as if you're a robot. You've got to be the same as everyone else. No-one's the same in this world …  The school should be guiding someone to what they really want to do.’

Sandro, early 20s, is autistic, short-statured and has intellectual disability.

He told the Royal Commission he ‘wasn’t treated right’ in primary school. Students would pick on him and he’d react. The principal would remove Sandro and lock him in a room.

‘He'd be quite aggressive about it. Scream at me and threaten.’

Sandro said the school gave him a computer but no-one helped him learn.

The principal suspended him multiple times and expelled him in year 6.

In high school, Sandro had to stay in the special unit.

‘I couldn't go in and do certain things because apparently I’m too violent, dangerous.’

Sandro was good at fixing things and wanted to do a mechanics course with the mainstream kids.

‘The main part of the school won't accept me … I was classed as a bad person … Making out I'm a threat, I'm too dangerous to do that … I was fighting this battle trying to get this program and they wouldn't accept me … classing me as a halfwit.’

Sandro left school at the end of year 10.

‘I don't want to be going to school wasting my time hearing a bunch of rubbish … I want to do a course that I can leave school, I can get into an apprenticeship, get money and then set myself up.’

Sandro joined a program for at-risk youth and did a mechanics course. It was good. But it wasn’t an apprenticeship and he couldn’t get a job.

Centrelink initially refused to give Sandro the Disability Support Pension. He had a meltdown in the office and they approved it immediately.

The NDIA approved funding and Sandro moved into supported independent living (SIL) accommodation.

He was living with people of mixed ages and disability and he didn’t feel comfortable. One man was in his late 60s and had just been released from prison. Another man would open the door when Sandro was having a shower.

Residents would smoke in the house. Sandro is pretty sure some were using drugs because he found used syringes.

People didn’t clean up after themselves and the place was dirty. There were cockroaches and mould in the bathroom and blood on the bathroom windows.

Sandro wanted staff to support him to go out each day, but they could only leave the house if another resident came too.

‘They refused to take me out … giving excuses for the other guy, they can't take me out because that guy's asleep,’ he said.

‘One day I lost it because of the whole situation.’

Police arrived and charged Sandro with assaulting a police officer and property damage.

He said they treated him badly and didn’t provide a support person.

Sandro’s NDIS support coordinator contacted an advocate who helped him prepare for court, but the advocate wasn’t allowed to come into the court room. Zac found it hard to understand what was going on and said the matter was referred to the ‘intellectual disability court’.

Sandro’s case kept being adjourned. He ended up receiving a six-month community-based order.

Sandro moved to a different SIL home.

One of the residents told Sandro he’d like to see him naked.

‘Starts talking about sex and inappropriate stuff … It makes you feel uncomfortable.’

Sandro would like to live on his own.

‘I just want my own house … coz people get me on edge. I get anxiety, I isolate. I just want to focus on me … Not too big, just something that has the space for me really. As long as the house is liveable, it's a home.’