Before foster dad Rick Thorburn murdered Tiahleigh Palmer, the 12-year-old girl in his care, the Queensland father had several run-ins with police.
Breaking and entering, theft and traffic offences including drink driving are just some of the offences Thorburn committed over a 20 year period from 1977 to 1997.
And yet despite all of this, he passed a ‘working with children’ check and was allowed to become Tiahleigh’s foster carer in 2014.
This is because he hadn’t been found guilty of committing any “serious” crimes, such as assault or sexual offences.
Tiahleigh’s tragic fate and her foster father’s life sentence for her murder, has prompted the Queensland Government to vow to review the foster care system and the requirements of foster care candidates.
And Queensland opposition leader Ros Bates thinks it can’t come soon enough, slamming the system that allowed Thorburn to care for children despite a well-documented criminal past.
“I don’t think if you have criminal history as long as your arm, even if it isn’t to do with child offences, that people like him should have ever been considered,” Bates told the Courier Mail.
“Tiahleigh Palmer was never missing. She was right where Child Safety put her, back with her eventual murderer.”
On A Current Affair on Friday she also criticised the decision to place Tiahleigh in a family with two teenage boys.
Tiahleigh's foster brother, Trent Thorburn, now 20, was found guilty of incest, perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice. He was released in January after serving 16 months in jail.
"It was an inappropriate placement. Why on earth would you put a prepubescent girl with two teenage boys?"
However, Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston disagrees with Bates. She told the Courier Mail although the foster care system needed changing, ruling out anyone with a criminal history would make finding adequate care for kids harder than it already is.
"It's easy to criticise but there aren't enough foster carers."
"We need to start looking at a character assessment."
She did add that Rick Thorburn's case did highlight "warning signs" that were not looked for, but now would be.
"This is Tiahleigh’s legacy."
Top Comments
The poor child, so unfair for little Tiahleigh. Given up by a 'mother' who prioritised drugs over her own flesh and blood and then abused by those entrusted with her care. The system needs a radical overhaul, not only for screening foster parents but also to ensure children of those incapable of taking care of them secure long term placement with capable and loving parents.
The fact she was placed with two teenage boys stood out to me also - and I love teenage boys to bits being that I have two of my own.
Another red flag should have been the fact that she was being used as a financial supplement to the family. I understand that it must be extremely hard to attract Foster families but surely they can look into financial circumstances and see pretty clearly some families motivations for taking on these roles.
The placement would have been a result of the severe shortage of foster parents. When there are children in care and no homes for them to go to, it’s going to happen. Red flags ARE raised if someone appears to be looking at foster care as an income source. This is because it's a completely unrealistic expectation. The reimbursement to foster carers only covers the cost of raising the child. I’d like to see a society where instead of praising a woman who has her fifth child, we praise people who choose to foster as a way of growing their families.
I expect to get backlash for this comment but someone has to say it, why is there so many kids in foster care? What type of parent are having their kids removed and taken into foster care, what is the common denominator? Are the numbers from a particularly dominant socioeconomic level? I am not an expert at all, I don't have any statistics. Who knows, can anyone who knows shed any light on this please?
It’s great you care enough to ask. The reasons parents are having their children removed are usually due to abuse and neglect caused to by addiction, family violence and mental health issues. It’s an increasing problem which is seeing more children come into care each year. Often it’s people who have experienced an entrenched cycle of economic disadvantage. It’s a very difficult cycle to break out of which is hard for most of us to understand. Existing foster carers are stretched to the limits as they are often asked to take on more children or to provide respite in emergencies. Due to this, more foster carers are leaving the system than new ones joining.
Thanks for answering Chris. I find anything at all to do with children heartbreaking when it goes wrong and it seems to me that the foster system just isn't working as it should. The cycle that needs to be broken is I imagine a snaking tentacle of other damaging cycles. The current system, that I can see, forms largely a band aid treatment and never really gets to the problem causing the wound. Again I imagine not all will agree with me but I strongly believe that bulk resources need to be directed to the "at risk" sector in the community and systems created that encourage a different path. Real doable alternatives to being parents especially at a very young age need to be presented. I can't imagine this will be a swift change, I assume it would most likely take more than one generation but from what I can see we just can't continue in this current direction. Surely having more children securely living in loving families, made up of at least one of their biological parents (or adoptive) is the ideal situation? And for those children whose circumstances make this just not possible that there are enough good quality people who are foster carers to provide them with healthy alternative homes. The nitty gritty answer to the problem might lie not in increasing foster carer numbers but in reducing the need for them.