Joanie and Beryll

Joanie had had epilepsy and cognitive impairment since she was a young child. Now middle-aged, she recently had her cognitive abilities medically and legally assessed for the first time. The assessments found Joanie’s impairment is mild.

Joanie’s older sister Beryll wasn’t surprised. Joanie has a processing delay so is slow to speak and respond. Because of this, Beryll said, people underestimate her.

‘That processing delay might lead people to believe – if they don't give her the time to process, they might believe that, you know, there's no-one home, the light's not on. But in fact the light is well and truly on.’

‘She's able to articulate her wishes and hopes for the future, her dreams ­– if people are prepared to listen to her.’

Joanie has always lived in the home where she grew up, with her mother. For the past 10 years or so, one of her brothers has lived there too and has been her main carer. When their mother went into aged care several years ago. Joanie’s brother and another sibling became very controlling of Joanie, imposing a series of restrictive practices on her and isolating her from family and friends.

‘The United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disability says that a person with a disability should have the right to autonomy and to have some control over their own decisions, but every single decision was taken out of her hands,’ said Beryl.

‘She was never consulted. Her opinion was never sought. Things were never discussed with her. The outcome of [their] decisions were never communicated with her … I can't comprehend that people would treat another person like that.’

Matters came to a head when Joanie contacted Beryll and asked her to intervene. Beryll organised the cognitive assessments. This formal recognition of Joanie’s capabilities meant she was then able to appoint Beryll as her Enduring Power of Attorney (EPOA).

Beryll said being appointed EPOA is ‘very big’.

‘It's an important key. It opens a lot of doors and yes, I found out a lot of things.’

As EPOA, Beryll now has access to Joanie’s financial affairs. Examining these over the years her siblings managed them, she found they had been financially exploiting her, using her account for their own purposes and illicitly withdrawing her money.

‘When we first discovered that that had happened, every time I described it I just burst into tears because I thought how can they have done this? … They don’t know the difference between right and wrong,’ Beryll said. ‘She was a cash cow and it was as simple as that as far as we can see.’

She told the Royal Commission the family is now ‘totally fractured’, following a ‘massive dispute’ over Joanie’s capacity to appoint her as her EPOA.

This dispute is soon to be the subject of a hearing in the state administrative appeals tribunal. Beryll and Joanie’s siblings are arguing the cognitive ability assessments are fraudulent, and that Beryll’s EPOA should be set aside. Beryll is arguing that it shouldn’t be, but if it is, she should be appointed as Joanie’s guardian.

Joanie has had to move out of the family home, which Beryll described as ‘traumatic’ but also the ‘best thing’.

‘She's been liberated from the environment where she was previously and she's now having the happiest life … So lots of positive things have come out of, you know, what might sound like quite a shocking situation.’

She hopes in that sharing Joanie’s story, ‘future [Joanies] don’t have to go through the same thing, or that there are more safeguards in place – that findings are made that make it easier for people in those kinds of situations to be identified and yes, saved from what [Joanie] and our family have been through.’