\u201cAs a human being, as a dad, as Prime Minister, I\u2019m really sorry about what\u2019s happened there because I can only imagine what that family has gone through in what was an absolutely horrific set of circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we were all quite heartbroken about that story when we first heard about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether compensation was being considered, Luxon said Doocey would \u201cgive due consideration to all of those issues in due course\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the girl\u2019s family said the reviews had confirmed their \u201cworst fears\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we did what the state has done, we\u2019d be locked up. <\/p>\n
\u201cImagine how you would feel if your autistic daughter was handcuffed, physically restrained, held down by five people, and injected with anti-psychotic medication not once, but twice? <\/p>\n
\u201cThen being told she was injected for her own safety which is proven to be unlawful when the true facts finally come out over one year later? <\/p>\n
\u201cNo wh\u0101nau should ever have to learn that this is how their autistic child was treated at a time when she needed compassion, understanding, and support.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family said the incident had had an \u201cenduring and detrimental impact\u201d on the girl. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe still has traumatic flashbacks as she feels unsafe in her daily life when we have worked so hard to help her to be okay in a world not designed for her. <\/p>\n
\u201cMuch of that trust was shattered by what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family listed a series of requests, including a formal public apology from Luxon, Cabinet and the ministers responsible for health, mental health, disability issues, police and M\u0101ori\/Crown relations. <\/p>\n
They called for \u201caccountability\u201d from public health entities and executives in health and police.<\/p>\n
They sought an \u201cindependent, system-wide review on disabled people\u2019s experiences across government agencies, and reform to ensure autistic people were better protected by the Government\u201d. <\/p>\n
How did the incident happen? <\/p>\n
The 11-year-old girl, who is M\u0101ori and is referred to in the report as \u201cPerson A\u201d, was diagnosed with autism and described in the report as \u201cessentially non-verbal\u201d, using only a few words or phrases. She was known to leave her house and wander for up to several kilometres.<\/p>\n
The woman she was misidentified as was a 20-year-old M\u0101ori woman, referred to as \u201cPerson B\u201d. This woman was known to Waikato-based mental health services and had a history of treatment for psychosis, including intramuscular injection.<\/p>\n
In 2024, the woman was placed under a six-month compulsory treatment order and discharged to a supported accommodation service. She later went on leave and didn\u2019t return to the service or engage further with mental health services.<\/p>\n
The incident began early on March 9 last year when Hamilton police received a 111 call about a person seen walking in the middle of the road just before the Fairfield Bridge, which spans the Waikato River, and then climbing on the rails of the bridge.<\/p>\n
The description included that the person was a woman in her early 20s.<\/p>\n
The girl was the subject of the 111 call but could not be identified by police, who later handcuffed her as she became \u201cincreasingly distressed\u201d. The inquiry deemed that action was warranted, given police concerns about her fleeing or self-harming.<\/p>\n
Officers who responded to the callout floated the idea that the girl could be \u201cPerson B\u201d, but that suggestion was seemingly dismissed.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Officers] noted similarities, but none of them thought they were the same person,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
Police contacted the woman\u2019s accommodation service and emailed a photo of the girl. The report stated the officer had said the service staffer told them they were \u201cconfident\u201d the girl in the photo was in fact \u201cPerson B\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, the staffer told the inquiry they \u201crepeatedly told [the officer] they couldn\u2019t be certain they were the same person\u201d.<\/p>\n
This then led to the officer informing hospital staff treating the girl that there had been a \u201cpotential identification\u201d and provided the woman\u2019s details, which then prompted the girl to be detained at Waikato Hospital because of the woman\u2019s medical history.<\/p>\n
The inquiry described the police actions as a \u201csignificant contributing factor\u201d in misidentifying the girl because the officer didn\u2019t convey the doubts of fellow officers about her identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice Officer 1 thereby gave an unbalanced impression of the reliability of this nomination and, further, did not provide any details that would have allowed hospital staff to conduct any independent checks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girl was then given \u201cintramuscular medication under restraint\u201d without her consent, which was deemed in line with Person B\u2019s medical history.<\/p>\n
However, the inquiry found the injections were administered \u201cwithout lawful authority\u201d, because they had been given more than a month after the compulsory treatment order was made and without a second opinion as required under the Mental Health Act.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until after the injections that the girl was correctly identified and reunited with her mother.<\/p>\n
Both Health NZ and Ministry of Health mental health director Dr John Crawshaw have apologised over the incident and committed to address the inquiry\u2019s recommendations.<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs a human being, as a dad, as Prime Minister, I\u2019m really sorry about what\u2019s happened there because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[72211,74,534,43507,75132,112398,682,3595,16426,77631,1757,6868,97687,671,243062,296,101,16427,6722,117866,111,43,139,69,1118,16422,675,415,243063,763,312,13109,76351,540,102],"class_list":["post-490000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-11yo","tag-after","tag-amid","tag-apologises","tag-apologising","tag-autistic","tag-being","tag-by","tag-christopher","tag-damning","tag-drugs","tag-girl","tag-heartbroken","tag-incident","tag-injected","tag-into","tag-left","tag-luxon","tag-minister","tag-misidentified","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-pm","tag-police","tag-prime","tag-psychotropic","tag-reviews","tag-says","tag-several","tag-traumatic","tag-where","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}