My appeal to the Qld Information Commissioner to access 196 pages of my brother’s patient records has been successful. I’m grateful to this office & Qld Department of Health for this outcome. After 44 years, its been cathartic, validating, disturbing but healing to finally have some answers to questions that have haunted me all that time.

On 14 June 1978 aged 17 my brother was admitted to Lowson House Mental Ward of Brisbane Hospital initially on a 3-week involuntary order under the Mental Health Act 1974. This was extended by a year & he was transferred to Wolston Park Mental Hospital. He was ultimately discharged into my care in December 1979, 18 months later. During that time, he endured unimaginable suffering, physical restraints, bashings, electric shock treatment initially twice a week, and a regime of powerful psychotropic medication that made him comatose & incontinent. I was a witness to how he was hollowed out reduced to a pitiful shell of his former self.

After an absconding attempt my brother aged just 18 was transferred to Pearce House within Wolston Park, a brutal locked ward for violent offenders on 20 August 1978. It was in this ward where he endured incessant beatings & sexual assault in shared shower rooms & dormitories. I complained at the time about the bruising on his back, face & around his neck, by staff bashing him. Some of these complaints were noted but denied. What’s not recorded is that the charge warden threatened to lock me up in Osler House – the female equivalent ward – if I continued to complain about my brother’s treatment. Aged just 16 – I was terrified into submission. Now I can finally let go of that petrified teenager, set her free, and ditch the survivor guilt that has plagued me for decades.

It’s never too late for justice. My brother deserves a posthumous apology. I’m acutely aware there are many others who were locked up in Wolston Park, who also deserve an apology for enduring the torture like conditions and should never have been there.

Please show your support for a Truth Commission into Wolston Park. Contact me, your MP or reach out to your influential networks.