Of all the finds during a Gate Pa police raid, the lone 12-year-old boy who emerged on to the doorstep was by far the most disturbing.
As our report today reveals, the boy was home alone when police raided the Gate Pa house yesterday at 6am. Witnesses told of more than 20 police, some of whom threw bricks at the house to goad the occupants to come out. The Armed Offenders Squad, reportedly with guns trained on the house, naturally expected adults to emerge. But when eventually a figure appeared on the balcony, it was a lone 12-year-boy, paying a heartbreaking price for the alleged drug offending going on in his home.
This makes me sick.
To state the thunderingly obvious: It is a parent or caregiver's job to protect a child from destructive forces such as the drug trade, from physical dangers such as a methamphetamine laboratory, and from emotional scarring such as that you might expect being the sole occupant of a house raided by the AOS.
What is wrong with some parents and caregivers? Why do they have so little regard for the children in their care?