Nancy and Allison
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.
Nancy has an intellectual disability and bipolar disorder.
Her sister Allison said that one night Nancy went out with friends and didn’t come home.
‘In hindsight she was started to go into a bit of a manic phase in her bipolar illness, but at the time we didn’t really know that … We couldn’t get hold of her, so we were driving around looking everywhere, worried.’
Nancy came home the next morning with cuts and bruises on her face. She told her family she’d fallen down stairs.
‘There were photos of her at the beginning of the night having fun with her friends and stuff like that, so we knew that the start of the night was good.’
Later, Allison discovered that Nancy’s friends had gone home and ‘she was kind of left by herself’.
‘So she stayed in the nightclub, and she asked for another drink and the person at the nightclub refused service, and this obviously got her quite upset.’
Allison said that when Nancy was in a manic phase of her bipolar disorder she could be impulsive, but not violent.
‘The security guard came over and basically forced her to go, and she obviously sort of resisted that.’
The police arrived. When Nancy refused to leave ‘they just straight away pushed her to the ground’ to arrest her, causing ‘quite a lot of grazes, she had like a black eye’.
Allison told the Royal Commission that the police knew about Nancy’s disability because she had ‘quite a detailed record because of her abuse as a child’. She said the police should ‘have realised that something wasn’t right’.
‘It’s quite obvious to me that she has an intellectual disability or a learning disability and that she has a lot of trouble articulating herself and expressing what she needs to say.’
The police charged Nancy ‘with something that she didn’t understand’ and kept her overnight in the watch house. Alison said the police ‘never asked if someone could come and support her, never offered a phone call, nothing’.
‘It’s pretty much like arresting and treating a 12-year-old like that. You wouldn’t just put a 12-year-old in the watch house without even calling their parents or support people or guardians.’
Allison said Nancy’s family valued the police, and this was their first negative experience.
‘This one incident kind of does talk to the systemic disadvantage that people with disabilities have. Because if the police, which is like a pillar of our society, if they can’t deal with people with intellectual disabilities with a bit of dignity and respect, what other services are the same?’
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.