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On the second day of the inquest, details
about the sad life that Chloe had been living came out. Nikki Behsmann
testified that she had been the one who took care of Chloe while Ashlee
and Benjamin hung out in the living room doing drugs and drinking. If
Chloe tried to leave her room, she was yelled at so she sat in her room
crying. Nikki said that she was witness to other abuses that Chloe
suffered:
"Ben asked a friend,
want to see something funny, and said he'd made Chloe stand in the
corner for several
hours while he was drinking and taking drugs. He later went into her
room
and found she had
fallen asleep, he woke her up and made her stand in the corner until
morning"
Nikki told the Coroner
how Chloe, at the age of only three years old,
had said she hated her mother. It was brought out that Families SA had
been warned 20 times before the death of Chloe and nothing was ever
done. Ashlee apparently had people help her clean up and try to make
the home presentable whenever a "planned" inspection was going to take
place.
Krystal Lee Benyk told
the Coroner about how she tried to love, care
for and protect Chloe from her parents from the day she was born.
Krystal had been the one to clean vomit off of Chloe and wash her
filthy hair and after she would play with her and she would have her
for several weeks at a time because Benjamin and Ashlee would not
answer the phone. Krystal tried calling Families SA, but her many calls
never produced any help for Chloe. Ashlee had been 15 years old when
she asked Krystal to be Chloe's Godmother:
"It was an honor to
have a child to look after and guide through life"
Krystal
testified that
she didn't remain happy about the situation for
very long because Ashlee smoked Cannabis all through her pregnancy and
now she was watching as the child was raised in a dirty house with drug
and alcohol abuse taking place:
"I would visit often
and stay overnight to help with Chloe. I think Ashlee had post natal
depression,
at times she wouldn't
want to be around Chloe. I would take care of feeds, changing nappies,
bathing.
I would do a lot of
that in the first three months of Chloe's life. It was pretty filthy,
bottles that had baked
in curdled milk, dishes
growing stuff in the sink, you couldn't walk on the floors because they
were
sticky. The house was
known by local teenagers as a place you could go to do anything you
wanted
because there were no
parents. Smoking cigarettes and marijuana, doing meth, drinking. After
three
months, I couldn't be
around neglectful people"
Krystal
said that she would clean caked on vomit from under Chloe's
chin, it had been there for days. Krystal agreed to meet in a public
place so she could take Chloe to her home, at first it was only
overnight and then for weekends and eventually for weeks at a time.
Ashlee wanted to go out and she couldn't leave Chloe alone:
"When she was two years
old, I was supposed to have her for a weekend
and Ashlee
would pick her up on
the Sunday, but it never happened. I spent the
week trying to find
her, she was
uncontactable. The longest I had her, solely, just me, was
probably four or
five weeks, even a bit
longer"
Krystal never asked and
was never told why Ashlee would leave Chloe for so long:
"It didn't really
matter to me, what mattered to me was Chloe and if she was with me, I
was
happy to care for her.
Ashlee didn't care about herself, about putting herself in danger, she
wouldn't care about
putting her child in danger either"
Krystal
said that as long
as Chloe was with Ashlee, she was in danger with broken bongs in the
home, drugs, alcohol and once she found a moldy glass that had a spider
in it, in the play room as well as Chloe always smelling like Marijuana:
"Her hair was always
dirty, it was dark brown or black until you washed it, then it would
be light brown"
The obvious lack of
attention and neglect of Chloe by Ashlee was called to attention
whenever she would try to pick her up and Chloe would scream:
"Chloe told me she
hated her mum, at three years old. I told her she didn't, that you don't
hate mum, you just
don't like her right now. She was adamant she hated her"
At one point, Krystal
picked Chloe up and all she'd had to drink or eat was a bottle of
curdled milk and she was so sick Krystal took her to the hospital where
she was admitted over night:
"I stayed with her
overnight. I called Ashlee and she said she was off her face on drugs
and wouldn't be able to
come"
At
that point, Krystal
called Families SA several times and tried to get help for Chloe,
though she was afraid if Ashlee found out, she wouldn't let her see
Chloe anymore:
"I
hoped they would follow up, that something would happen. I knew there
were many
people
that would have Chloe in their care, I was hoping that she would get
taken from
Ashlee
and put somewhere. I would have had Chloe in my care"
Krystal said that when
Benjamin came into the picture is when things really got worse for
Chloe and that the abuse she suffered was worse and at that point, she
was cut out of their lives:
"Ashlee
said that was apparently because in my home, I had no rules or
boundaries for
Chloe
and I would let her get away with anything. Apparently, that came from
Ben"
At that point, Krystal
said she gave up, after four and a half years, on trying to get help
for Chloe because it seemed that no matter happened, Families SA didn't
care and wasn't doing anything to protect this little Angel. Krystal
apologized for giving up.
SADLY, Child
Development Minister Jennifer Rankine didn't seem to realize how much
of a role her agency had played in the death of Chloe. Jennifer gave
her condolences to Chloe's family, but didn't apologize at all for how
things were handled, choosing only to say that a review of Families SA
would be the factor to determine if her death could have been prevented
in any way:
"But let's be really
clear, the people responsible for the death of this girl are now in
jail"
Sorry, Jennifer, SOME of the
people responsible are in jail, others, such as those who IGNORED complaints and repeated
warnings for FOUR years, are
probably never going to see the inside of a jail cell that they will
call home.
Jennifer went on to say:
"What
we had here were two really stupid, inconsiderate people who defy any
reason or any
logic.
How could you treat a tiny child like they treated this little one, who
dearly love them,
is beyond anyone's reasonable comprehension. This is a tragic event,
ti's shocking for all
South Australians to see and hear the circumstances surrounding the
death of this little girl"
What is beyond ME, Jennifer,
is that you think this child LOVED
these people after it was said by someone who loved her and took very
good care of her, that she HATED her
mother. You're right though, there were really stupid, inconsiderate
people NOT looking out for
her, those included in that are the staff at Families SA.
Jennifer said that now the Government would allow for extra resources
to Parliaments Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committee to speed
up the investigation and that funding and staff had been increased for
protecting children, but she said that there is no "silver bullet" to
prevent abuse:
"There is no silver
bullet for stupidity, for idiocy, for people who have no regard, clearly
no love for a little
girl"
Once again i say, this can apply to YOU,
Jennifer and any other employee who never raised a finger to help keep
this precious little girl alive. Jennifer went on:
"There is no system in
the world that can guarantee you're not going to have some idiot
out there on any given
day doing something so inappropriate"
Jennifer, you are a special kind of IDIOT.
The system didn't even TRY to
fix this situation, they didn't visit the home, they didn't listen to
the many complaints over four years and they ignore the needs of this
child. Of course a system is not going to work properly if it's not RUN and USED properly. You don't wait until
child dies and then try to make excuses for what happened, you take the
child, talk to her, check out the situation THOROUGHLY and don't put her back
into a home where the adults are doing drugs and drinking.
Belinda Valentine, Chloe's grandmother, said she was not blaming the
Social Workers who had been dealing with Ashlee:
"We are not holding you
responsible, personally, but there's a flaw in the system. You can
only try so much when
your hands are tied"
I guess Belinda didn't really know that for over four years, complaints
came in and were ignored, that's not tied hands, that lazy workers who
want to get paid for NOT doing
their jobs.
Belinda said that she knew Ashlee had above average intelligence and
that she was a manipulative person who would put on a show for Families
SA:
"Ashlee could on them
in an instant. If they turned up unannounced, well you can't be on show
but that's not their
policy. She knew the system, she knew the cracks in the system and there
are a lot of people
like her"
The Education Department Deputy Chief Executive of Child Safety was
David Waterford and he claimed that Families SA played a very intense
roll in their involvement with Chloe and Ashlee and that they had
received at least 22 complaints about this child. Belinda wanted to
know how many complaints had to come in before a child would be taken
from a home for their own protection:
"Only 22, really? How
about only two or only five or may only 15 or 20? There were
22 according to them
and that wasn't enough"
Belinda said that if they felt they only had 22 complaints, their
record keeping was inaccurate and that they had been told over and over
that Ashlee was a drug addict:
"Ashlee never wanted
their support. She believed they were interfering right from the start.
Any monetary support,
she took it readily but it didn't flow through to Chloe. Realistically,
the
Social Worker was
attached to the wrong person, they should have been attached to Chloe.
They supported Ashlee,
supported Ashlee, supported Ashlee. Nobody was there for Chloe"
Chloe's father said that his daughter should have been removed from
that home a long time ago:
"They take kids from
people that don't deserve to have them removed and leave the kids
that do need to be
taken away, with their parents. 22 notifications is enough, I think"
Tom Valentine
Tom was upset that there had never been any drug or psychological
testing done on Ashlee saying:
"No,
that's taking away Ashlee's rights, but what about Chloe's rights.
Chloe loved Ashlee,
she
would do anything for Ashlee. It doesn't mean you don't fear someone
if you love them.
She
was frightened and there was nothing we could do about it"
Then came the discussions about how Chloe was forced to ride the
motorcycle over and over during a three day period and if she fell, she
was forced to get back on. Belinda said:
"We have a system
working to a certain degree, how can we make it
better. There are cracks
in the system. The
problem is there's no feedback from Families SA.
They are a nameless,
faceless agency.
Nothing can bring Chloe back, but we just hope that
the authorities will listen
more closely to people
who are close to these children. We're not doing
it out of spite or
vindictiveness, we're
doing this out of love and care. We need to stand
up and sa, where did
things go wrong.
Ultimately, children are the responsibility of the
whole community. Start asking
questions, start saying
that one child is one too many. 22 reports,
that's too many. People think
it's never going to
happen in their families. It does and it can"
Belinda said that Chloe had been a loving and caring child, though she
was shy around people she didn't know, she was a clown when she was
with her family and she didn't like anyone being sad, she probably
would have been someone very important:
"We go to have Chloe in
our life. We got to feel her love. We are
extremely lucky because if eve
there was an Angel on
Earth, she was it"
Belinda said that Ashlee could get life without parole and it wouldn't
bring Chloe back and that for her family, at least she was going to be
in for the term of what had been Chloe's life and she will be alone,
pretty much like Chloe had been.
The inquest was set to resume in December of 2014.
Thank you to Lisa for letting me know about the inquest.
This
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Death
occurred in Australia
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