Mason and Laney
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.
Laney is the mother of Mason, who is in his 30s, autistic and lives with global developmental delay and an intellectual disability.
‘Until he was about six years old, [Mason] was completely out of touch,’ Laney told the Royal Commission. ‘He didn't really know that I was his mother. He wasn't really aware of anything very much at all.’
Laney said it wasn’t until Mason was seven that ‘a little light came on’.
‘Mason sort of had an understanding of what was going on around him, and he did make some progress.’
In high school, where he attended the special education class, Mason had ‘the innocence of a three-year-old’.
‘He was just like a really delightful three-year-old, but he was, you know, by the time he was about 15, he was nearly six foot tall.’
Back then Mason attended respite care, sometimes for several days at a time.
One day, just after Mason returned from respite care, his school called Laney to tell her Mason was upset and curled up in a corner.
‘He was just so completely traumatised … He didn't talk after that and he started to regress really badly, and he was incontinent and stuff, and I had no idea what had happened to him.’
Mason began to ‘act out behaviours … he started pulling his pants down and he'd get really distressed’.
When Mason later became violent, his government support worker told Laney she thought something had happened to Mason in respite care.
‘She said to me there were no records, there was no information that would lead to any allegation or any suspicion that anything had happened to my son, and then she said — and this was the trigger – then she said, "Anyway, he was over 16 so it was consensual, whatever happened." And I said to her, "No, it couldn't have been consensual, you know, because he's got a disability," and she said, "No … if you are over the age of consent, and you give consent, it's consensual, and that's all there is to it."’
Laney said she later realised that Mason, on trips to the beach, would use a particular public toilet.
‘I used to always call out, "Is anyone there?" and no-one would answer, and I naïvely used to let him go in … I didn't realise at the time that it was actually a place where men used to hang around for sex.’
Laney told the police she feared Mason had been sexually assaulted.
‘They told me that under policy changes, they could no longer arrest these men, because the men would say that it was consensual, and [Mason] would not be able to contradict them. And the police said, “We can no longer charge anybody with these offences, because your son can't testify anyway.”’
Laney feels Mason cannot consent to a sexual relationship.
‘[Mason] does not understand any consequences of how a baby is made, even though they have showed him,’ Laney told the Royal Commission. ‘The dichotomy that used to exist between people that needed protections and those that didn't has been removed.’
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.