Australia's guardians and public trustees are being weaponised under a veil of secrecy
Kayla portait wide ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
For four years, Kayla's life wasn't her own.
She couldn't choose where she lived, what to do with her own money, or who she could talk to.
Kayla portrait medium
But now, Kayla has managed to escape the system which controlled her.
She wants to tell her story of how an institution that's supposed to protect vulnerable people instead turned her into a victim.
Kayla portrait close ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
But it's illegal for us to share her real name or face.
Even sharing details about her, such as her hobbies or religious beliefs, is punishable with jail time.
Anyone can apply for the government to take control of someone's life.
Sometimes applications are made by doctors, carers, or concerned family members.
But they can also be made by complete strangers — and people looking to cause harm.
Claire looking through documents ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
Claire — not her real name — can't decide whether to cry or laugh at the absurdity of the situation she found herself in.
She's delving into the paper trail inking a timeline of her daughter's descent into "hell".
"Going through the documents, it brings it all back — it brings back the powerlessness that I felt to be able to protect Kayla," Claire says.
"It's like a horror story that someone's made up."
Kayla was born with a rare brain condition which can cause developmental delays and intellectual disability.
Claire has helped to take care of Kayla's support needs since she was young, including organising services and medication.
But a messy divorce and one misguided attempt to protect Kayla spiralled everything out of control.
Documents in Claire's living room ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
Tribunal documents in Claire's living room ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
"I had no idea that it would end up with all of Kayla's rights being stripped off her," she says.
"Kayla lost total control of her life, and I feel really responsible for that."
During the asset split with Claire's former husband, she says she was advised by her lawyer to apply for control of Kayla's assets through Western Australia's State Administrative Tribunal (SAT).
"There was $20,000 that belonged to Kayla that I'd saved for her," Claire says.
"I just wanted to protect her little nest egg."
Claire's application was successful, but the fallout of the couple's bitter separation led them back to the tribunal over, and over again.
Claire sifting through documents ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
"He [former husband] took us back there time, and time, and time again," Claire says.
The tribunal deemed Kayla incapable of making her own decisions, and put her under the care of the Public Advocate and the Public Trustee.
"I felt completely powerless, I couldn't protect her anymore," Claire says.
She felt the state care system was being "weaponised" against her and Kayla.
Descent into despair
First, the state took over decisions about where Kayla could live, and who she could live with.
Then, it took over her finances.
Finally, it took away her decisions about the services she could receive, including what support she could have for living with her disability, and legal representation.
Kayla covering face close ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
"Who the hell are these people? They don't know anything about my life," Kayla says, thinking back on her time under state care.
Kayla's support services, which her mother helped to set up over years, were removed and replaced.
In a statement, the Public Advocate Pauline Bagdonavicius said state guardians' decisions aim to build a person's capacity to live as independently as possible.
"Any changes are made in the best interests of the represented person," she says.
But a past tribunal hearing examining Kayla's experience heard otherwise.
"That was not in her best interests," a judge said.
A snippet of a State Administrative Tribunal hearing transcript. ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
The guardian forced Kayla to spend alternating weeks at her father's house. While there, Kayla would often call her mother.
"She was my security blanket, she was the person that I trusted, she understood my needs," Kayla says.
"I called her at 4am in tears being like, 'come get me now, I'm not safe'."
Kayla alleges her father's partner threw her phone into a river, and on another occasion yelled and hit her.
"I was woken up many times ... to stuff being thrown, to stuff being broken," she says.
Kayla's father denied the allegations in the State Administrative Tribunal, and said Claire was stoking tensions in his house by "actively telling [Kayla] she could do whatever she likes".
Part of a transcript of a tribunal hearing. ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
He told the tribunal Claire "wanted total control" over their daughter, that Claire wasn't a suitable carer, and that he believed it was in his daughter's best interests if the state controlled her life.
The Public Advocate says state guardians may make decisions about accommodation when there is conflict between parents.
"The delegated guardian is always working to balance views of the represented person and their family members in the best interests of the represented person," Ms Bagdonavicius says.
Claire going through documents ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
Claire repeatedly raised concerns with the guardian about Kayla's situation, and her vexed relationship with her father's partner.
"They kept sending her back. They kept saying 'no, the agreement is that Kayla goes and stays with her father [for] a week and that's what's going to happen'," Claire says.
It was only after Claire took Kayla to a police station to report the alleged abuse incidents that the guardian stopped enforcing the split living arrangement.
By then, Claire's relationship with Kayla's guardian had already deteriorated beyond repair.
"I could see Kayla's wellbeing declining rapidly, I could see things being imposed upon Kayla that I just couldn't live with," Claire says.
"I couldn't get anybody to listen ... and I grew to hate them."
Kayla looking up ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
Kayla's breath shakes as she recounts trying to tell her state guardian she didn't feel safe.
"I tried to, but they just dismissed me ... it was very demoralising, it was very upsetting for me," she says.
"It was like being in a locked box."
A chance meeting with one woman, who was willing to listen, changed everything.
High stakes
Several organisations which help people in state care have told the ABC they can't speak publicly out of fear of jeopardising future cases.
Maxine Drake is an advocate with Developmental Disability WA who has worked with families through hundreds of tribunal hearings.
Maxine Drake in her office ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
Ms Drake hesitates while debating whether to reveal one of her biggest concerns with the system: "I shouldn't ... yes, maybe I should," she says.
"People are making applications in a hostile view to try to impinge upon either the freedoms of the person or the freedoms of others around them."
"[They're] what might be called 'vexatious applications' ... I have absolutely seen circumstances where applications to SAT have been used as a hostile strategy to interfere with families."
Tribunals are intended to be less formal than a court. There's no bowing or standing to speak, no formalities like "your honour", and lawyers aren't required.
But, the stakes can be just as high.
Developmental Disability WA advocate Maxine Drake. ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
"I've seen people who've been voluble, talkative, clear outside the hearing room, and then completely unable to speak in the hearing room," Ms Drake says.
"There's very few circumstances where the state can intrude into our lives in this way."
Life-defining decisions — like the ones made for Kayla about her mental capacity, and who controlled her money or where she lived — can all be made in a tribunal.
Maxine Drake working on computer ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
Maxine Drake's desk ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
"They can be so anxious that they can't speak straight, and think straight, and act straight, and then that's how they look like they're not able to make decisions," Ms Drake says.
She believes far too many people are unnecessarily having their rights stripped away through the tribunal and state care systems.
"An order can take away a person's exercise of their own rights — they can, in a sense, encourage a learned helplessness," she says.
Ms Drake was instrumental in Kayla and her mother Claire's battle to claw out of state guardianship.
Kayla and Claire with birds ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
After years of wrestling in the tribunal, the state has relinquished control, and Kayla can now decide for herself where she lives, how she uses her own money, and who she talks to.
"They put me through so much stuff that wasn't fair ... when I came out of that tribunal hearing and they told me, I screamed," Kayla says.
"It feels like I'm free."
Kayla wants to share her story — to show her face, and use her own voice — but it's illegal to identify her.
Gag order
The guardianship and administration orders put on Kayla are similar to the conservatorship orders which US pop star Britney Spears was under for 13 years, which sparked the #FreeBritney movement.
Fans of Britney Spears began advocating for her conservatorship to be ended several years ago. ( ABC News: Bradley McLennan )
Britney Spears supporters demonstrate outside a hearing concerning the pop singer's conservatorship at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, Wednesday, July 14, 2021, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello) ( AP: Chris Pizzello )
The Free Britney movement has vowed to fight for other Americans who feel unreasonably constrained by their guardianships. ( ABC News: Bradley McLennan )
In Australia, about 50,000 people are under the control of state guardians and public trustees.
Across most of the country, journalists are prohibited from identifying people who are, or have been, under guardianship or administration.
Penalties include fines ranging from $5,000 to $35,000 and imprisonment.
Developmental Disability WA advocate Maxine Drake. ( ABC News: Cason Ho )
Maxine Drake says the confidentiality provisions are important in some cases, but blanket gag laws prevent the system being held to account.
"The confidentiality laws in this area are a real problem. They're a problem for the community because there's no accountability, there's no visibility in the system," she says.
"The confidentiality laws, they deny the person themselves from the justice of having their voice heard."
"Those people should not be gagged — those people are the best people to tell us where things didn't go right for them, they're the best ones to reflect on whether there were any benefits in the process for them."
A map of Australia. ( ABC News: Mark Evans )
The ABC contacted the state guardian in every state and territory. Some responded directly, and others through their state governments or departments.
A map of Australia with the Australian Capital Territory coloured green. ( ABC News: Mark Evans )
The Australian Capital Territory is the only jurisdiction where people under state guardianship can be identified and details of tribunal proceedings can be reported.
A map of Australia with the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Queensland coloured green. The Northern Territory is coloured yellowish-green. ( ABC News: Mark Evans )
Half the state and territories' guardians support the removal of blanket gag laws, or in the Northern Territory's case "sensible reform" that "should carefully consider the ongoing importance of protecting individual privacy".
A map of Australia with South Australia coloured orange and red. ( ABC News: Mark Evans )
In South Australia, people under guardianship can be identified but it's illegal to report on details of tribunal proceedings.
SA's guardian said its state's laws do not stop people from "speaking out about their experiences in the guardianship system more broadly".
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ABC News
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Victorian education department ignored multiple complaints about 'psychopathic rapist' principal
Warning: This story contains discussions of child sexual abuse and suicide The Victorian Education Department ignored multiple reports of child sexual abuse by a government school principal described by one survivor as a "psychopathic rapist", shuffling the man on to a series of new jobs even after one school banned him from its premises. Documents uncovered by the ABC show multiple allegations of child sexual abuse against former Oakleigh Technical School principal Jack Digney Thomas were not acted on by the department in the mid-1980s, even after the matter was referred to then-education minister Robert Fordham, who was deputy premier at the time in John Cain's Labor government. A series of 1983 letters obtained by the ABC indicate that a complaint about Thomas by a former student, lodged at the Oakleigh electoral office of local Labor MP Race Mathews, was referred first to Fordham and then to the director-general of the Victorian Education Department, Dr Norman Curry. A letter from Fordham on May 18, 1983, stated that Curry had claimed "there would not appear to be any evidence of illegal behaviour which would justify charges being laid", but that Thomas was soon to be interviewed. A subsequent letter on May 20, 1983, from Fordham to Mathews, claims that Curry and the department's "senior legal officer" interviewed both Thomas and the complainant but deemed that the complainant was "able to provide no corroborative evidence". The correspondence suggests the Victorian Education Department took no action against Thomas other than advising him to cease his "improper" correspondence with the complainant. Fordham's May 20 letter concluded: "The Director-General has provided me with a fuller report on the matter which can be made available if you wish." But in response to requests from the ABC, the Victorian Education Department said it no longer retained any reports or documents related to the investigation. Fordham told the ABC he could not recall the incident, nor any particular discussion of sexual abuse in schools during his time as education minister. Mathews and Curry are both deceased. Thomas, who died in 2012, has been described to the ABC by survivors of his alleged grooming and abuse as a rampant paedophile who manipulated, blackmailed and sexually abused male students for decades in schools all over Victoria. One survivor said Thomas's manipulation and abuse would push him "to the precipice of committing suicide at times", and said: "I look back on it now and I don't know how I survived." The ABC has discovered other documents that prove the Victorian Education Department was made further aware of Thomas's abuse of students in April 1986, when two Oakleigh Technical School teachers got themselves elected to the school council with the express intention of ousting Thomas for his abuse of students. One of the teachers told the ABC he was also utilised as an informant in a Victoria Police investigation of Thomas. Another said his frustration had boiled over after a senior officer of the technical teacher's union, to whom he reported Thomas's behaviour, told the teacher that Thomas "was too powerful", and that a senior executive at the Victorian Education Department was "scared" of Thomas due to his political connections. Oakleigh Technical School council meeting minutes obtained by the ABC show that in April 1986, the teachers confronted Thomas with unpaid bills from the nearby Turf Club Hotel and Chadstone's Red Carpet Motor Inn, venues at which, respectively, Thomas was known to groom and sexually abuse boys from the school. The minutes show that Thomas immediately stormed out of the meeting and resigned, citing a "vendetta" by the whistleblower teachers. A motion subsequently passed by the school council, which banned Thomas from re-entering the school's grounds, was immediately communicated to the Victorian Education Department. The motion read: "That the acting executive officer of the school council write a letter demanding the non-return of Mr J.D. Thomas to Oakleigh Technical School based on the grounds of the council's lack of confidence in him. This letter to be addressed to the Regional Director of Education of the South Central Region, W. Bainbridge, and copies be sent to Mr D. Lockhart, Principal Staffing Officer of Post Primary Schools and Mr. J. Betson, officer in charge of Human Resources branch." All three former Victorian Education Department staff who received the communications and attended some of the meetings are now deceased, but two former Oakleigh Technical School staff present at the meetings confirmed their tense atmosphere, the sense of scandal enveloping Thomas and the department's knowledge of the matters raised. No records exist of any disciplinary action being enforced by the department in the wake of the scandal. Department records and the school council minutes indicate that after Thomas's departure, the department advised the Oakleigh Technical School council to communicate to the school community that Thomas was relocating to Ballarat and had been appointed principal of North Ballarat Technical School — the first of a series of "relieving principal" jobs subsequently awarded to Thomas by the department. Thomas was moved by the department to Ballarat Technical School between July 1986 and 19 October 1986, then moved on to the Portland Technical School (20 October 1986 to 31 December 1986), Collingwood Technical School (1987) and Cranbourne Meadows Technical School (1988). In a newspaper article from May 1988, which detailed the decision of the Cranbourne Meadows Technical school council to end Thomas's tenure as relieving principal and replace him with a permanent appointment, Thomas was quoted as saying: "I've decided not to appeal — I'll accept the umpire's decision." The article, headlined Pupils Fight For Sir With Love… detailed an apparent student backlash against Thomas's removal. But several former teachers interviewed by the ABC suggested Thomas's removal came after a staffroom revolt led by a teacher aware of Thomas's past. Department records suggest that Thomas departed the school in October 1988 and retired. A spokesperson for the Victorian Education Department said the department retained no disciplinary records at all for Thomas. The ABC has heard multiple allegations of abuse by Thomas from decades apart and dating back to the 1960s, at the Mildura, Wodonga and Oakleigh Technical Schools. The allegations follow a similar pattern, with Thomas having targeted vulnerable boys, entrapping them with the promise of career opportunities and introductions to his powerful friends in the political world, sending them "love letters" and, in most cases, subjecting them to sexual assaults. One survivor told the ABC that he was raped by Thomas dozens of times in the principal's office of Oakleigh Technical School in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during after-school "appointments" the ABC has confirmed by obtaining Thomas's school diaries and appointment books of the time. The 1970s appointment books also appear to confirm Thomas's boasts to his victims of a close friendship with Victoria's then-premier, Rupert "Dick" Hamer. "Dinner with Dick in the Grand Hall", says one evening entry late in 1978, an apparent reference to Queen's Hall at the Victorian Parliament building on Melbourne's Spring Street. A year earlier, Hamer had been present at the unveiling of the school's $1.1 million horticulture annexe. Thomas's career as a teacher and principal of Victorian Education Department technical schools spanned 38 years, from 1951 to October 1988. For at least 15 years from the late 1960s, Thomas also toured the state giving sex education lectures. One survivor of Thomas's abuse told the ABC he was sometimes taken on Thomas's rural sex education "tours", during which he was sexually assaulted by Thomas at drive-in motels. In a 1981 letter published in The Age, Thomas explained the sex education role, writing: "I am not a humanist, but regard myself as humanitarian." Dozens of former teachers and students associated with Thomas across three decades told the ABC he was a revered educator who seemed to wield enormous power within the education sector, no more so than between 1974 and 1986, when his leadership of the Oakleigh Technical School's standard-setting horticulture program ranked him among the most important principals in the state. "Oakleigh Tech was hailed as a benchmark for blue-collar trades training and apprenticeships," one former student told the ABC. "Thomas fancied himself a trailblazer, constantly lobbying for funding and expansion of the school." On an alumni Facebook page, numerous glowing tributes can be found to Thomas's visionary leadership of the school and positive influence on many students. But it also contains unveiled references to Thomas's alleged sexual abuse of boys and eventual removal from the job. The ABC has discovered that rumours of Thomas's sexual abuse of boys had followed him to Oakleigh from previous postings at regional schools such as Mildura Technical School and Wodonga Technical School. From the latter, Thomas departed under a cloud in 1973. One former staff member who complained to Wodonga police about Thomas was told there was a "thick" file on him, but nothing that could be acted upon. To a later victim of his abuse, Thomas "told me there were some accusations" in Wodonga and that Thomas "had to leave", but boasted of having "got out of the car and pissed on the road, to say 'f*** you lot'" on his final journey out of the town. One former teacher told the ABC that upon Thomas's subsequent arrival at Oakleigh Technical School in 1974, her late husband, a technical teacher's union delegate at Oakleigh Technical School at the time, received a warning from his equivalent at Wodonga Technical School that Thomas would be trouble, and that Wodonga Tech staff were shocked he had immediately landed another principal job. "Garry" (not his real name), a former student at Oakleigh Technical School in the late 1970s and early 1980s, gave the ABC a shocking account of his entrapment and abuse by Jack Thomas across "five years of hell". Garry arrived at Oakleigh Technical School in the late 1970s as an overseas student with no support network, family or friends. Within days of his arrival, he says Thomas seized upon him as a kind of personal project. At first, Garry thought this was a blessing. Thomas arranged a part-time job for him at a nearby Coles supermarket and a place to live — the first of a series of Thomas-engineered lodgings that ensured Garry could always be located by Thomas. "I was in a foreign country. My family could not take me back, and I'd been told education was my only way out of poverty, so it was … Thomas to the rescue," says Garry. "He actually became my legal guardian, if you can believe it." At the beginning of Garry's second year at Oakleigh Technical School, he says things went quickly and disastrously wrong. He says Thomas promised him a sponsored place on the school's annual camping trip to central Australia. "Instead, I was collected at the airport by Thomas, who said the school trip was cancelled and he'd make it up to me with a few days in country Victoria," says Garry. On a weekly basis from there, Garry says he was taken by Thomas to dinner at the nearby Turf Club Hotel and then back to Thomas's headmaster's office, where he was raped — painful assaults that he felt powerless to prevent. Much other abuse occurred during school hours, after Thomas had locked two sets of doors leading to his office. "If I didn't want to do it, he would just erupt into this absolute tirade of screaming and shouting, and I would just die, because I thought the security guard at the school was going to hear it," says Garry. "I remember being terrified of it coming out, and Thomas knew that. And from there, he just completely took control of my life. "That's when the letters began — prolific psychological assessments of my behaviour, my likelihood of success, the screening of my friends. He vetted my friends to the point of running checks on them to reveal reasons why I shouldn't be associated with them if I wanted to succeed in life. "And every opportunity this bastard had to go away somewhere, I was dragged along to 'see the countryside'. There was no-one to turn to. Everyone seemed to trust and like him, as far as I could make out. I remember the innuendo when I'd be asked by school friends why I was always in the principal's office. I'd go and throw up. "Thomas was coercive and had a fierce temper. He took many photos of me, and along with photocopies of the long, explicit letters he would write me, they were kept in a locked drawer in his desk, with a note on top: 'to be destroyed in the event of my death'. He must have destroyed that file, but the mere thought of it kept me in tow and often paralysed me with fear for years. "It was a nightmare. The stress of it was just horrible." Garry says Thomas also entrapped him in an insidious blackmail scheme — the promise that one of Thomas's powerful political friends could pave the way to Garry gaining Australian citizenship and with it, a ticket to stability and success in life. But it was not until three years into Garry's ordeal that Thomas finally delivered. "He had Sir Phillip Lynch escalate my citizenship application in 1980," Garry says. "They'd been at university together. Thomas was very connected and proud of using those connections to raise money for the school. His tentacles went everywhere." Lynch died in 1984. Recently, Garry says he was shocked to read online rumours about Thomas's abuse of Oakleigh Technical School boys at Chadstone's Red Carpet Motor Inn, a budget motel near the school where Thomas often took Garry for abuse. "I never knew how to get out of it. I would try and it would always end up in a mess. It would push me to the precipice of committing suicide at times. But I just figured 'this is something I have to go through' to get an education. And he was my legal guardian until I was 18. I look back on it now and I don't know how I survived. "Thomas was incredibly cruel, a manipulator, dishonest, and clearly had those 'connections' to call on when he needed. He was a serial paedophile, basically, and a psychopath. A psychopathic rapist. "I'd hate to think of the number of lives he damaged. He damaged mine badly enough." After Garry finally made his escape from "five years in hell", he says Thomas sent Garry threatening letters for months and tried so often to track him down that Garry eventually fled interstate and then overseas. "He still had so much power over me, because he knew so many people who could affect my life," says Garry. In the late 1980s, Garry told his then-partner of the abuse and implored her to tell the police on his behalf. He says police were apparently already aware of Thomas, but Garry was left with the impression that statutes of limitation prevented further investigation. In alumni communities, false rumours spread of Thomas's apparent late-1980s suicide in the face of impending charges. In reality, Thomas would live another three decades, dying without a criminal record in 2012. In recent years, Garry says he's been shocked and angered by media reports of the extent of the broader child sexual abuse epidemic in Victorian government schools. "Clearly, there was an issue in Victoria at that time, and through other institutions too," Garry says. "But if Thomas was moved around, the education department has a lot to answer for. "What needs to be understood here is that there is no expiration date on the trauma of sexual abuse. Historical sexual offending by former teachers and principals in the Victorian government school system will be canvassed further in an upcoming $48-million truth-telling process, which flows from the Victorian government's 2024 board of inquiry into sexual abuse of schoolchildren at Beaumaris Primary and 23 other government schools. The final report of the Beaumaris inquiry revealed decades of glaring failures and a "culture that prioritised the reputation of the education system over the safety of children". In announcing the truth-telling process in June 2024, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan acknowledged the state's "serious and systematic" failure to protect children in government schools. "We failed to keep these children safe," Allan said at the announcement. "We failed to listen when they spoke out. We failed to act to ensure that it did not happen again. "What should have been a happy place became a place of horror for these victim-survivors." The truth-telling process, which will include the first systematic review of the Victorian Education Department's failings, will be open to survivors of sexual abuse at all Victorian government schools and is expected to conclude in 2026. Contact Russell Jackson at or if you require more secure communication, please choose an option on the confidential tips page.
