Dear Senators,
My name is Maree Michel Giles, I am 50 years old, and I have lived away from Australia, my country of birth, since I was seventeen. I was born in Penrith, NSW on the 16th September, 1953.
I left Australia in 1971, because my life was made intolerable by the police and social services, who were determined to see me locked up forever.
I was 16 when they pursued me on my stepfather’s and mother’s instructions. I had left home and moved in with my boyfriend. Life at home had become unbearable, mainly because of my stepfather, and my mother and I were not getting on. It is my belief, that if they had not reported me as a runaway, the police and social services would never have known anything about me. In which case, I would be a very different person today.
I was finally found at my boyfriend’s rented accommodation in Manly, and arrested. This was 1970. My boyfriend was 18, but he was not taken in for questioning. At the time, I did not think about being over the age of consent, nor anything about the laws on these matters. I simply believed what I was told by the authorities: that I was a bad girl and needed locking up.
In hindsight, I know that this was not true.
The police sergeant who arrested me told his colleague, PC Riley, that he was going off-duty, and instructed her not to fingerprint me. As soon as he had left Manly police station, PC Riley treated me like a common criminal and took my fingerprints. She treated me with hatred and spite, and did everything she could to make me feel worthless and common. The verbal abuse was unbelievable.
After being formally charged with being “neglected and exposed to moral danger”, I was taken to Minda Remand Centre. A few weeks later I was taken to the Children’s Court in Sydney. My mother was there, but she was helpless to do anything to protect me from the court’s decision. It was decided by the judge that I should be sent to Parramatta Girls’ Training School for six to nine months, depending on my behaviour once incarcerated.
From that moment on, my life, my personality, my relationship with my mother, my self-esteem, my confidence, were destroyed.
The shock of being sentenced like a common criminal ripped apart the very core of my being to shreds.
The physical and emotional impact of that moment is one I will never forget. I was in a state of shock and frightened beyond description. I wet myself and could not stop shaking and crying.
I came from a middle-class background, I had at one point attended a private boarding school, St Catherine’s Girls’ School in Waverly, was well-educated, intelligent, decent, and not a “bad person”. I had always considered myself to be a Christian, and regularly attended church and Sunday school throughout my life.
I was simply unhappy living with my stepfather, who I had only known a few years, and spent little time with, as I was at boarding school when he first came into our lives. I found it very difficult to accept this stranger in our home, telling me what to do.
Because I was an only child, and my mother was a single working woman, after I was born my grandmother brought me up, while my mother ran her hairdressing business. When my grandmother became ill, I was sent to boarding school. She died in 1965, and my stepfather decided I did not need to attend her funeral. A few months later, he married my mother, and he decided I did not need to attend their wedding. I was at boarding school on both of these important occasions, and naturally felt extremely resentful. My grandmother and I were very close, and I was devastated by her death, and beside myself when I wasn’t even invited to say goodbye at her funeral.
When I met my boyfriend we fell in love, and I decided to leave home. No one has a right to question whether we knew what “being in love” meant. What mattered were our feelings, our choices and our rights. At that point I was living at home and attending the local high school.
My stepfather was so angry and my mother so worried, when I left home, that they reported me as “a runaway” to the police.
Of course, once I was arrested and taken away, I never saw my boyfriend again. He went into hiding because he was frightened of the police. This was an aspect of the entire episode that was never considered by anyone: my relationship with him was ruined.
After being sentenced by the court, I was taken to Parramatta Girls’ Home, where I was subjected to a humiliating, distressing, and painful internal examination by a doctor, who used heavy stainless steel instruments. I had never been examined internally prior to this, and was absolutely destroyed. They tested me for venereal disease, which was a shattering experience, and pregnancy. Lucky for me I was not pregnant, because I now know that girls who were pregnant in institutions like Parramatta Girls’ Home, were coerced into relinquishing their baby for what was then a thriving adoption market.
When I had been examined by the doctor, I was then frogmarched to the sewing room, where Matron proceeded to strip me further of my dignity and rights as a human being.
She confiscated all my clothes, all my belongings, then used a pair of large black shears to cut off my shoulder length hair. There was no care taken to style the hair, it was HACKED. I begged her not to cut it too short over my ears, as I have large ears that I hate to expose, they embarrass me terribly. She told me to shutup or I would be punished further, and gave me a short back and sides worthy of a male soldier.
I was issued with regulation clothing, a number (43), horrible long dresses made of rough material, clumpy shoes and disgusting bloomers and singlets. I was not given a bra. From that day on, when I had my period I had to ask for a pad every time I went to the toilet.
I was then taken to the shower block, situated down a set of steps in a dungeon-like room, with rows of shower cubicles. None of these had doors or screens or curtains.
I was then told to undress and stand under the shower. I was given a bar of soap to wash my hair and body, in full view of the other girls, and the staff. I was given about 30 seconds to wash myself. One of the staff members belted me with a length of hose across the thigh, for saying I hadn’t rinsed the soap from my hair properly, when told to get out from under the shower.
I was then given a light meal (disgusting) and taken to my dormitory. I was crying during all of this, but no one showed any sympathy. I felt crushed and frightened and I was shaking uncontrollably with fear.
We were locked up at night in the dormitory, with no access to the toilets. We were not permitted to speak at any time, except allocated times during the day. We were not allowed to turn over in bed at night. If we were caught talking, we were punished severely. We had to conduct our chores in silence with our eyes down. If a girl was caught glancing at another girl, she was punished.
The toilets had no doors either, and I found this aspect of life at Parramatta most upsetting, particularly during menstruation. This might be difficult for men to comprehend, but a woman likes her privacy in the toilet, because she is built differently to a man.
The food was absolutely revolting and we frequently found weevils.
The first Saturday I spent in Parramatta there was another shock for me.
Girls were made to work on Saturday mornings, mainly cleaning the premises. An officer ordered me to scrub a large section of the brick wall surrounding the institution, as if to impress upon me the fact that I was a prisoner. I spent four hours scrubbing the wall, and when I had finished she told me to start it all over again. My arms ached, she made me reach as high as I could stretch, my back throbbed, my hands were raw, and I felt so small and worthless, tears poured down my cheeks all day.
No one can imagine the inner anguish of a young girl locked way from her family and friends, simply for the crime of trying live her life with the person she loves.
I quickly realised that to survive, I needed to make myself almost invisible to the cruel officers. I kept to myself, worked hard, and built up points so that I could work my way up the dormitory system into Privilege Cottage. I was allowed to attend school, my teacher was Mrs McGrath. “School” being one classroom with about fifteen girls.
However, although I behaved myself, some of the officers managed to find fault, because they had a sadistic streak. I’m afraid it is a fact of life, that the sort of work they were doing attracts people who want to lord it over others in a vulnerable position.
One night, I was ordered from my bed, and made to scrub a small area of the Covered Way with a scrubbing brush. I was made to do this all night, in the same spot, looked over by an officer. I was terrified to complain or object, for fear of further punishment. By morning my knees were red raw and bleeding, as there was no cushion or cloth provided to protect my knees.
What did I do to deserve this punishment? I leaned my shoulder against the stone wall of the Chapel earlier that day, during a service, and an officer had noticed, and decided I was being disrespectful. I simply could not believe it.
The concrete path under the Covered Way was shiny and smooth, from years of being scrubbed by girls as a punishment. On one occasion, I saw two girls scrubbing face-to-face. They had been caught hugging. Many girls, especially those in Dormitory Three, which was the dormitory for all the really “bad girls”, disappeared for weeks, sometimes months, at a time, and when they returned I was shocked to see they were bruised or covered in welts from being beaten. Others were sent to Hay for three or four months, and came back thin and pale, as though they’d been half-starved. Like me, these girls were just kids, they were not “bad”, they were spirited and bright, and most came from terrible families where they were abused. Parramatta Girls’ Home was meant to protect them!
On another occasion, I was locked in one of the isolation cells for writing poetry and removing it from the classroom, and giving it to one of the other girls as a gift. The poetry was about life inside the institution, and how it made me feel. The officer who found it read it, and admitted it was an accurate description, then she tore it up in my face. When I was locked in the cell overnight, I was given a bucket and scrubbing brush, and made to scrub the walls and floors all night. When I stopped or slowed down, an officer standing outside turned off the lights. It was pitch black in that cell and I was terrified, so I started to scrub again, so she would turn on the light. There were rat droppings in the cell, and the mattress on the floor smelled of urine and vomit.
There were many other humiliations too numerous to mention, verbal put-downs, threats, standing for hours on end facing a wall for talking out of line. We were not allowed the simple privilege of having paper, pens or pencils, because girls used these last items to gauge their flesh with tattoos. We were allowed to write one letter a week, on Sundays, to immediate family. We were allowed visitors on Sundays, but only immediate family. My mother got special permission for my godfather to visit me.
When I was finally released after seven months, I knew within a few weeks of freedom, that PC Riley and social services were not going to leave me alone. My life was not my own.
A few months later, my mother and I decided that in order to avoid being sent back to Parramatta, for any minor offence, it was best that I left the country.
I was just seventeen when I left Australia on my own. I flew to Wellington, New Zealand, where I did not know a single soul. I was very nervous and afraid, and booked into the YMCA. I found a job in an office as a clerk. Soon after that, I studied psychiatric nursing at Porirua Hospital, another institution where cruelty was the norm. I couldn’t stand it and complained to the Head Matron. She said if I didn’t like it I should resign! So I did. Even those at the top protect others whose behaviour is questionable.
I then studied journalism.
I lived and worked in New Zealand for ten years, and although there were some good times, I carried with me the stigma of having been a prisoner at Parramatta Girls’ Home.
The experience at Parramatta Girls’ Home has caused me a lifetime of depression, low self-esteem, lack of confidence, the inability to trust people, and fear of authority, particularly the police and social services.
But worse than any of this, my fear of living in Australia forced me to live apart from my mother. I have not lived in Australia since 1971. I lost my desire to live in my own country, because it let me down so badly.
I wish I had known about the reunion of former inmates at Parramatta Girls’ Home last year, as I would have liked to attend and lay a few ghosts to rest.
However, the damage to my character is permanent, and my whole life has been affected in some way by this one traumatic event.
I have written a novel based on my experience there, it was published in 2001. It also tells a composite story of the experience of thousands of young unmarried Australian women, who had their baby taken from them illegally, for the adoption market.
I renamed Parramatta Girls’ Home in the book, and also changed the names of the officers and other people involved in my case. Now I wish I had used real names, because they deserve to be exposed for their cruelty.
My questions are:
Why was I charged with being “neglected and exposed to moral danger”, when I was over the age of consent?
Why was my boyfriend not charged, or at least interviewed by police?
Why was I sent to an institution amongst prostitutes, drug addicts and violent officers, where “moral danger” was far greater than any my loving boyfriend had shown me?
Was Parramatta Girls’ Home simply a smokescreen where institutional bullying took place under the guise of “protection”?
Far from being “protected” I was humiliated, frightened, demoralised, dehumanised, and mentally, emotionally and physically abused. I saw for the first time, young girls cutting their own flesh, girls being beaten by officers, girls having sexual encounters with other girls, girls who were depressed and afraid and destroyed.
And finally, why was I treated like a criminal, why was my dignity taken from me, why was I physically, mentally and emotionally abused?
I always talk about Australia with pride, in spite of my experience, because I want people to know it is a beautiful country full of opportunity and friendly, open people.
But there is a dark side to Australia, and there are many evil people living there.
The government needs to know about past secrets, in order to protect future generations from institutional bullying. It is so easy for these things to take place within closed walls, and the world either doesn’t care or don’t know.
For me, time has not been a healer. My time in Parramatta is crystal clear in my memory and the inner scars will never heal. My relationship with my mother is deeply affected by this experience, and although I have forgiven her, she has suffered from terrible guilt all these years, and had to live with the knowledge that her only child had to flee the country, in order to live her life freely without being victimised by the authorities.
I will never forgive the State for their mishandling of my case, for allowing an innocent young girl to be treated in a way that has destroyed her life.
An Inquiry will only serve to protect future generations. Those who have suffered will never properly heal, and nothing can compensate for my suffering nor that of my fellow inmates.
If the Senate Committee would like to read a copy of my book and use it as part of my submission, I can arrange to send a copy by post. Please let me know the address.
Or, Senators can read about the book on my publisher’s website: www.virago.co.uk Click on Meet and scroll down to my name, then click and browse.
Having browsed your web site, it occurred to me that Senators and other government staff involved in reading and assessing submissions, could easily become hardened to their content. It appears there were many, many incidents that are questionable, which took place in government institutions like Parramatta Girls’ Home. I only hope that Senators give their utmost attention to the details of submissions, and try to imagine the effect on a person’s character as a result of abuse and ill-treatment.
Empathy must be difficult to achieve when your own life has been sweet.
The crime against myself and other girls was committed by the government, and now it is being investigated by the government. It is hard to believe an honest and just conclusion will be reached.
You cannot blame me, or others, for being cynical.
Yours Sincerely,
Maree Giles.
London, England
