Two Aboriginal brothers, aged 11 and 13, were subjected to more than 150 police home checks over 20 months – often in the middle of the night – in behaviour they allege was racially discriminatory.
The boys from regional New South Wales were on bail for being passengers in a stolen car. They had no significant criminal history, and the court had not authorised home checks.
Despite this, their mother, Megan*, said police arrived at all hours.
“Hearing pounding on the door and seeing torches in the windows in the middle of the night is terrifying. And it was relentless,” she said. “We want police to understand what that felt like, but they don’t seem to be listening.”
The boys are now taking legal action against the police in the Federal Court, alleging racial discrimination.
Grace Gooley, Senior Solicitor at the Justice and Equity Centre (JEC), which is representing the family, said they believe the boys were targeted because they are Aboriginal.
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Earlier this year, an expert report commissioned by the JEC found NSW Police disproportionately target Aboriginal children and young people through “bail compliance checks”.
The report, authored by academics Don Weatherburn and Anna Ferrante and based on data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, showed Indigenous young people were 11.7 per cent more likely than non-Indigenous peers to be checked by police within the first 30 days of bail.
The likelihood of that pattern occurring by chance was less than one in a thousand.
