The Good, the Bad & the Inevitable by Estate of Barbara Holborow

Author:Estate of Barbara Holborow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia
Published: 2003-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Blind justice

Flyn was a child who should never have been born. His mother, Martha, was almost fifteen when she was cruelly pack-raped by five teenagers and, as a result, fell pregnant.

Against everyone’s advice, she refused an abortion and gave birth to Flyn. He was a very brown baby and only one member of the pack had been an Aborigine – so there was no doubt who the father was.

Martha lived in a rural town and although it was big enough so that everyone didn’t know everyone else’s business, it seemed to Martha that everyone knew hers. So at sixteen, she took her brown baby and came to Sydney. Luckily, she had sufficient commonsense to seek help from the Salvation Army, and then got a part-time job in a sandwich shop.

I first met them when Flyn was fourteen months old and it had become evident that Martha was more interested in the bright city lights than she was in raising a child. I was the duty solicitor at the time and could see that Martha wasn’t going to hang around, so I suggested we looked at long-term arrangements for this little boy.

And, somehow, after that I felt I became Flyn’s guardian, because the truth was – it seemed to me – I was the only person who really cared about what happened to this little fellow who should never have been born. And although I wasn’t allowed to meet his long-term foster parents, I made sure I was kept informed, and was told that they were very loving and caring and that Flyn was extremely happy.

Sadly, this happy state of affairs ended three years later when the foster mother was found to have cancer. Because of the treatment and its intensity, Flyn was whisked off straightaway to another set of foster parents, who weren’t so loving and caring. Five months later, he was back in court with a broken arm. The medical evidence was clear – it was no accident, but no-one was ever charged with breaking that little boy’s arm.

By the time I saw Flyn again, he was nine and had taken to running away. I was lucky we appeared before a sympathetic magistrate who understood when I told him I was unable to explain the running away but that, reading Flyn’s life, it seemed that everyone had been blind to his needs. He had gone through much of the first nine years of his life being unloved and uncared for.

No wonder I kept saying: ‘Flyn should never have been born’ – because this poor little fellow never had a chance from the second of his horrific conception.

Flyn kept on running away, but instead of ordering reports or talking to him to find out what Flyn himself would really like to happen to him, the next magistrate declared him to be uncontrollable and locked him up for six months. I wept when I heard that and I remember I wished to God that I’d been in a position the very first time I saw that little boy to have taken him home with me.

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