Megan’s children were just 11 and 13 when what they describe as excessive home visits by the police began.
In 2021, the brothers – who are Indigenous – had been bailed after being passengers in a stolen car. Over the next 20 months, the police visited their home to conduct bail checks more than 150 times. Often police visited in the middle of the night, or in the early hours of the morning when the children were asleep.
“They would knock on the door, bang on the windows with their torches, shine torches through the windows. It was relentless,” says Megan, who is using a pseudonym for legal reasons.
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The brothers, who are from regional New South Wales, are launching a case against the police in the federal court over the checks, alleging racial discrimination. The firm representing the brothers, the Justice and Equity Centre (JEC), claims the family are not alone.
“Stories like these are too common,” says Grace Gooley, a senior solicitor at the Justice and Equity Centre.
The JEC commissioned research which analysed police data and found Aboriginal children on bail were subject to home visits more often than non-Aboriginal children in the five years to March 2024. It also found Aboriginal children were 11.7% more likely to be checked and subjected to 42% more checks on average. They were also more than twice as likely to be the subject of “very frequent” checks, meaning more than 11 checks in 30 days.
