Someone’s daughter, someone’s son

They’re talking on the radio about a girl who was murdered. Yesterday her body was found in Princes Park, raped and killed. Police issued photos and identities were kept close as the city waited.

Today, a young man turned himself in, and was charged with murder. A small dam broke, as finally, her identity was revealed: a 22 year old, intelligent inner city woman living in North Carlton and beginning a life as a comedian. Tonight, stories are being told of a beautiful person. She had a warm heart, a shy reserve off stage and room-grabbing charisma under lights. This young woman was loved by many good people, people who will grieve for her, and set up funds (and contribute to them), and hold events in her name. Which is right.

I have two daughters. As I listen, tears come. I can hardly breathe.

*****

We don’t know anything about the man accused except what was said in court today, which is that he has Autism Spectrum Disorder, and is “socially regressive”, whatever that means.

He was only three years younger than her. And lived only 15km away, in Broadmeadows, a suburb that is a world apart.

*****

Broadmeadows is still one of the most disadvantaged postcodes in Australia. The 2015 report by Jesuit Social Services,  Dropping Off The Edge, forensically mapped postcode disadvantage in Australia. The report lists multiple indicators of disadvantage for each postcode. Broadmeadows ranks third for long-term unemployment, fourth for low education, thirteenth for criminal convictions and twelfth for domestic violence rates. Overall, it is in the top band of six of the most disadvantaged postcodes in Victoria, a situation which worsened from 2004 to 2007, as it slipped up the bands. Broadmeadows residents are ten times more likely to experience the most severe indicators of disadvantage than anywhere else.

My former partner did his PhD studying a group of young people in the housing commission area of Broadmeadows, Banksia Gardens. Over that time he became friends with a local community worker, and one evening they were walking one of the curling streets and heard feet thumping up behind them, as a group of big young men bore down. One smacked the community worker across the back, threw him to the ground and took his wallet. The other turned to my ex, who, before he ran, stopped and yelled “It’s ok! He’s from the community centre!”. The boys backed off, apologised, and handed back the wallet. “Sorry mate.”

Our cleaning lady lives in Banksia Gardens, in Broady. The public housing gave her a base from which to give her daughter stable schooling and to build a small business. She's a single mum too. I note that I should give her a call.

*****

My teenage daughter is playing the piano as I cook, and listen to stories on the radio. Every night she’s with me she practices on our keyboard, more often now without putting the headphones on. Right now, she’s learning the soundtrack to the movie The Piano, which she knows is my favourite. It's from a movie about a woman whose body was bought by a man.

My daughter jokingly refers to herself as “Aspie”. At 3, it was suggested that she had Asperger’s Syndrome, and ever since, every child health professional we have seen, either formally or socially, has been delighted by her intensity, her verbosity, and her grasp of very particular topics. While diagnosis can bring benefits, it can be a double-edged sword, and if she needs qualified support, she needs qualified support. Any professional worth their salt would know that a label is just that, and every child is different. But it has always been said. She has grappled with social skills, but has found a place in the world amongst other kids who embrace ideas, awkwardness, and unconventional things. 

Perhaps that’s what it is to be an inner city kid.

*****

I lived in Parkville and North Carlton for four years while I was doing my law degree. I used to jog around the park with a friend, both of us with the perfect musculature of a young women in their early twenties. We would meet at the old clinker brick toilet block at 6.30am and do a lap together. I can picture the landscape of the park perfectly in my mind, the dented long oval of the running track, the location of each of the distance points, counting breaths and footsteps, telling myself to make it to the next tree, the next marker, the bowling club, the stadium. I would walk or ride home alone.

The Dropping Off report doesn’t Parkville and Carlton North for comment. They are both in the “very advantaged” colour of light blue on the map. The numbers are available though, and the data set allows postcodes to be sorted by “average rank”, which is the average distance from the worst disadvantage according to each measure.

Out of around 600 postcodes (removing anomalies), Parkville ranks at 456. Carlton North is 581. Broadmeadows is number 1.

*****

The privilege of being a criminal lawyer is that you have to, as a matter of vocation and narrative, look behind the horrific actions of individuals and find the human within. If you lose the ability to do that, you lose the ability to persuade. Criminal lawyers are, every day, picking over the train wrecks of their clients' lives, identifying deep, horrific traumas, multiple attempts at redemption, and barriers everywhere they look. And where you are raised is everything. It affects how many times you're seen by police, asked questions, whether you're at risk of violence outside your house or in your school, the local facilities, and, importantly, the culture you inhale.

As a lawyer in the legal assistance sector, watching a young client being sucked down the quicksand of disadvantage is one of the most disheartening, grinding experiences you’ll be a part of. It’s watching lights slowly go off, one by one. And any lawyer who has worked in criminal law knows the sadness of every single case, the deep roots in trauma, cycles of disadvantage, brain injuries, illness and abandonment. It can take a deep toll. Or create a thick skin.

A client from Broadmeadows is one of the least likely people to emerge from the cycle. This is why I love my cleaning lady.

*****

We don’t know anything about this man/boy. I don’t know what his circumstances are, except his postcode, which can predict but not conclude.

I am also not saying that any of this is an explanation for what happened.

But I’m waiting for the fallout. As time passes, I am becoming more and more astonished that women writers, feminists as clear about their values as I am, and deep and complex thinkers are becoming so hung up on personal responsibility and concepts of good and evil as the entire explanation for men’s crime against women. This cause-and-effect deterrence model of crime and social control is a properly Dickensian idea, it is trotted out by reactionaries and vote-touters across the globe. And it does not work.

If anything were to happen to me at the hands of such a man, you can say “let him swing” all you like. But do my death the honour of at least trying to understand the complex and awful reasons why the poor kid might have done it. At least do me that dignity, for the sake of the other women out there who might go through this – the Jill Meaghers, the Anita Cobbys, the Truro victims, the Kananook murder. All of them.

The least we can do is try to understand. Even if it’s not for their sakes, but for ours.

Perhaps what we saw, written on this poor, lovely, amazing young woman’s body, was, in part, one of our city’s chasms. 

Perhaps not. I don’t know.

*****

After her piano practice, she says she’s going to do homework on the couch. I’m cooking dinner, and as I put on the rice I see her smirk at the screen and I wander up and look over her shoulder: she’s on social media. I remonstrate with her, and as happens with the teenage-parent tinder box, it escalates. Eventually she grabs her bag and says “I’m taking the tram to Dad’s”.

My heart drops through the floor and I grab her arm. “Let go”, she scowls.

“No, darling girl, I can’t let you go." I look at her eyes, my eyes. 

"Don’t you know what happened?”






**update: I am aware that the victim did not live a life of wealth and lived with her family in public housing. This is not a meditation on the difference between the individuals involved and I have made no assumptions about either of them.