Mental health madness: A letter below than needs action, not politician-speak

Gold Coast Bulletin journalist Robyn Wuth has written to Queensland Premier Anna Bligh asking her to address the mental health system after the brutal murder and rape of her cousin, Carmel Wuth. Why was a dangerous young loony housed in an old people's home? It must not happen again


I am Robyn Wuth. I have been a journalist for almost two decades. I have seen tragedy, certainly, but never before have I been touched by it. On Saturday night, my cousin Carmel Wuth was brutally and savagely killed. A man broke into her home, gagged her, beat her, stabbed her and raped her.

She was 77, frail and defenceless. If that were not horrific enough, Carmel was different  the family preferred to call her special.She had never had a boyfriend. Never been kissed. She was an innocent. Very much like a child. She was of this world, but not part of this world and for her to die so violently, so horribly, is a crime too heinous to contemplate.

And yet I must. We all must.

I imagine how terrified she must have been in her final moments. How frightened and bewildered, how utterly helpless.

I only pray it was quick. I suspect it was not.

We have been devastated by her slaughter. Shocked and struggling to understand  we are not the first to live through the pain of losing someone to an act of violence.

Her primary carer, Bev Kelly, yesterday had to identify Carmel's battered body - an act delayed because she was so badly beaten and brutalised.

Carmels murder is eerily familiar. I covered the murder of teenager Janaya Clarke almost a decade ago. Janaya was stabbed by a mental patient Claude Gabriel and as the story unfolded I forged a close bond with her mother, also Robyn.

I stood by her as she fought bureaucrats for justice, even as she was threatened with jail by righteous public servants who used the law to punish her for daring to speak out. They called her irresponsible, I called her brave.

Now, as a journalist, I find myself in a similar position, a Catch-22 of which even Joseph Heller could not have dreamed.

As a member of the family, I am not supposed to talk to the media.

If mental illness is a defence and the accused person never faces trial, I am supposed simply to contain my rage. I am supposed to respect his privacy. I want this man to have a fair trial, to have his day in court and for justice to be served.

I watch closely as it unfolds. A man has been charged, but what are the chances he will ever face trial? I suspect none. Already, the accused has been ordered by the courts to undergo an advanced mental health assessment in a secure facility in a Brisbane hospital.

And so it begins. Will the family be told? Will they bother to tell us the results? Will I be breaking the law to write about it? Am I breaking the law by writing this now. If so, who does that law protect? Not any of the normal, decent citizens of Queensland.

You might as well arrest me now for I have no intention of letting Carmel's killer slip quietly into the system. I have no intention of sitting idle. I want answers, my family deserves the truth.

The system has already got it wrong. We cannot let the system cover up its irresponsible mistakes and let Carmel's killer slip quietly into some twilight zone where normal, decent Queenslanders are kept deliberately in the dark.

How can I put my faith in a system that placed a strong 36-year-old man in a retirement village, among the elderly in the first place?

* A system that prefers to shove the mentally ill out the door and into the community.

* A system that closed the asylums years ago.

* A system that ludicrously relies on the mentally ill to self-medicate, without proper supervision and support.

Police were called to the Trinity Gardens units three times last week, called by residents terrified of the man living in their midst, who some were convinced was deranged.

His behaviour had become increasingly erratic. He had put knives under the doors of residents in what would be an ominous warning of what was to come.

Carmel was one of those residents, a knife put under her door in the dark of night. She was too frightened to make an official complaint.She paid with her life.

Health professionals were called  when I say health professionals, I don't mean a doctor. I mean a social worker and a support person who between them decided there was no risk.

They counselled him, told him to take his pills and went on their way.

They saw no reason for a medical assessment. They determined the course of action, with disastrous consequences.

They worked within the system.

Presumably, their actions followed the guidelines.

There's just one thing  the system is supposed to protect innocent people like Carmel.

Police raised the alarm, identified the risk and the system ignored the warning.

Who made that decision? How could a man so volatile be placed in a retirement village in the first place? Who decided that his rights were more important than Carmel's life? Had those faceless and nameless bureaucrats acted appropriately, had they heeded the warnings, Carmel would be alive. They have to live with that cold, hard fact.

My family is demanding answers and getting none.

They have tried to complain to Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Kerry Shine, to ask for help, only to be told all requests must be submitted in writing.

We will, but we resent having to do so.

We resent having to ask the Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg and Surfers Paradise MP John-Paul Langbroek to fight for justice for Carmel, but they have taken up our fight and we thank them for that.

We were disappointed that we had to ask.

We resent your audacity, Premier Bligh and that of your Health Minister Stephen Robertson, for defending such an appalling system.

For daring to say that nothing could have been done. You are both wrong, and you know it. The system is as much to blame for Carmel's death and I hold you, and it, in utter contempt.

I am tired of government platitudes and tired of excuses.

I have heard them before, but never have the words seemed so hollow, the promises so empty.

Time and time again we see cases where the mentally ill are involved in horrendous crimes of violence.

All these years, I have interviewed so many people whose lives have been touched by tragedy.

For the first time in my life, I understand.

The system is failing.

We have it wrong. How many lives must be lost before the situation is remedied? Nothing will bring Carmel Wuth back.

Nothing will make her exit from this world any gentler.

Carmel is gone, but maybe we can save someone else this pain.

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