Charis
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.
Charis is in her 30s. When her husband, recently released from prison, punched her in the head, she was left with an acquired brain injury (ABI). Her two toddlers were at home at the time.
‘It was just the one punch that time,’ Charis told the Royal Commission. ‘I didn’t go to the hospital or the doctors or anything. I just got the kids safe.’
Charis explained that her husband is ‘very charming and, like, violent all at the same time’.
‘Everyone covers up for him. And even myself.’
After the assault Charis’s speech ‘was really bad’, so she let her husband care for the kids while she recovered.
‘But within two weeks … he wouldn’t give the kids back.’
Charis said her husband and his family told the child protection department that she was mentally ill.
‘I was still learning to, like, try and find all my words … They listened to everyone else that I was crazy … They knew he had history of violence, but they didn’t do anything because I had ABI.’
It wasn’t until her husband began to stalk her and she had to hide in a domestic violence refuge that the department took the children from him.
‘He was doing too much crime and violence everywhere that they had to take them … If I physically had custody of them then, like, I could have kept them … I’m still trying to get them home.’
A court sent her husband to jail and the child protection department let her husband’s family foster the kids.
Charis said the department never offered her support to look after her kids.
‘The only thing I could do … was put in complaints and, like, that didn’t even work either. I think they, like, put a personal sort of judgement against me.’
Charis said the NDIS now supports her and she’s still fighting for custody of her children, who she sees occasionally.
‘They’re such beautiful young men and they’re so happy and bubbly and they just love life. They love their sisters and their mum and their dad and their family. And, yeah, they’re beautiful little boys. They’re just exactly like him, but really innocent and little.’
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.