Dane
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
‘Sometimes I can go three, four, five days without eating because I am just too sick and just too upset with it all.’
Dane is a First Nations man in his 50s. He lives with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a physical disability from several years in juvenile detention.
‘I have got complex spinal, broken spinal from long-term torture and sex abuse from when I was a child,’ Dane told the Royal Commission. ‘I can’t walk too far. I am also severe PTSD, still.’
Dane, who lives in a regional community, also has cancer.
‘So, medically wise I haven’t been very good.’
A few years ago, Dane was involved in a traffic incident.
‘I was doing 50 kilometres per hour in a 50 kilometres per hour zone and I was rear ended.’
Dane said police charged him with dangerous driving. He isn’t sure why.
‘I am telling [the police], “I am disabled, I am not coping, what is going on?” … I have been asking all the way along, “I need support, I am disabled.”’
Dane said legal aid initially agreed to help him defend the charge, but withdrew ‘because it wasn’t an incarcerable offence’. Dane said he has to represent himself.
While Dane was in another state being treated for cancer, the COVID-19 pandemic closed the border. Dane said the court agreed to postpone his hearing.
‘I have all the documentation to support this. They told me, you basically get well, and after I was well to come back.’
When Dane returned after the border reopened, police arrested him for failing to attend the hearing. At a later hearing, Dane said he was handed ‘a huge bunch of paperwork’.
‘I was told to go outside the court for 10 minutes to read it, and then come back in and defend myself.’
Dane said the magistrate sentenced him to several months home detention.
‘During the court trial, I am disabled and I am telling this, that I can’t function.’
Dane said that while he was stranded in another state, he was still paying rent for the home he couldn’t access and had to live on the street.
‘I am still a month behind on my rent. I have still got bills coming out of my ears, and I just can’t get out of it. I have been slowly chipping away at it. I got myself down to spending two or three dollars a day just to eat.’
Dane said he’s applying to enter aged care.
‘When the specialists are telling me I could have only two months to two years [to live], that is why we sort of, you know, went straight to aged care … My health has deteriorated from this whole system failure over the last four or five years.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.