It's taken 10 months but now finally some light can be shed on what really happened when the survivors of the Christmas Island boat tragedy – known as Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel (SIEV) 221 – were bundled back onto an aeroplane to Christmas Island after they had attended the funerals in Sydney of those who had perished.
The Government has always maintained it was acting on the best medical advice available to it. But documents obtained under freedom-of-information laws show that three days before the funerals, a Perth-based child psychiatrist Dr Gosia Wojnarowska recommended to the Department of Immigration it was not "in the best interests of the children to stay on the island".
We don't know exactly how many drowned on the morning of December 15, 2010 as huge seas smashed against the unforgiving razor rocks down by Flying Fish Cove.
Possibly as many as 50 perished - it was a miracle 41 survived at all.
Three children were orphaned that morning. For the next three months SIEV 221 became the focus of the bitterly fractured politics of border protection.
But it was news pictures principally that of the orphan boy Seena Akhlaqi weeping by the graveside with his grief stricken aunty which made the story real at last.
Why – immigration Minister Chris Bowen was asked - did he send the orphan back to an overcrowded detention centre on Christmas Island?
The reply was always the same: the Department was acting on medical advice that it was best to keep the group together on Christmas Island.
But now after 10 months of negotiating the release of medical reports under FOI is some sense of truth emerging.
The psychiatric reports, obtained by the ABC reveal that Dr Wojnarowska's blunt recommendation came on February 10, 2011 during a short visit to the island. She had become concerned that one of the SIEV 221 orphans was "self harming" needed treatment, and "more importantly" needed to have his situation stabilised because the "current environment (was) not conducive to his recovery".
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen defended his decision to return the group saying his advice was the SIEV 221 group should stay together on Christmas Island.
"When that advice changed and the grieving process was at a stage where they could be separated from each other and live on the mainland, that's what the department did".
The survivors of SIEV 221 did not leave Christmas Island until March 5, 2011.
In March last year the ABC sought disclosure under FOI laws of reports by two psychiatrists who visited the island, including departmental correspondence and ministerial briefings related to them. The documents were provided last week.
On January 5 a crisis response group Recovr arrived on the island to assess how to handle the SIEV 221 survivors.
They recommended that after the survivors had visited the disaster site at Flying Fish Cove they should be "quickly transferred off the island to the mainland" because "children survivors and orphans can be better assessed by child and adolescent psychiatric services."
A few days later a Perth psychiatrist Dr Stephen Fenner arrived on Christmas Island for a four day visit. It was his second visit to advise and support the busy mental health team dealing with a heavy work load and the unpredictability of boat arrivals which were bursting the detention facility at the seams.
"There are around 3,000 people in immigration detention on Christmas Island and there is a high prevalence of psychiatric disorder amongst them" he wrote in his report.
It is possible to discern the scale of the problems that confronted Dr Fenner when he arrived on Christmas Island through his report, which was sent through to the department on January 10.
Of the 30 adult patients he saw "four or five were psychotic (one acutely)" and another half dozen had a range of other disorders. Meantime he saw plenty of goodwill in the mental health team, the work ethic was "stronger than most workplaces" and the majority of staff were capable, some were "outstanding".
But he found them disorganised and they "often (don't) function as a team at all". He suggested the acquisition of a whiteboard to display the allocation of cases within the team.
It must have been a busy visit, but in between Dr Fenner found time to "briefly review" the cases of the eight children who survived the SIEV 221 tragedy.
The survivors should be "kept together" in natural family and support groupings. Dr Fenner said it was "very important" for the survivors to visit to the crash site as this would assist a normal grieving process. Their main anxieties related to the dead - as in the Muslim faith burial ought occur within 24 hours with washing and prayer rites to occur. The child survivors needed 'high quality care' including routine, family support, social networks, schooling and recreational activities, recommended Dr Fenner.
In reality none of these things could be provided on Christmas Island. The detention centres were packed. The construction camp where 850 unaccompanied children, women and families were held had originally been built to house the 350 workers who had built the main facility. There was a tennis court and a small undercover area for the 350 children detained there.
The local school couldn't take all the school-aged detainees, and they were banned from the oval and playground because the Cricket Club alleged the asylum seekers had vandalised it. Meanwhile some of the bodies were stored in a refrigerated shipping container which sat humming in the side driveway at the Christmas Island hospital. Other bodies were with the Perth Coroner. They would not be buried for another two months. Indeed the visit to the crash site did not occur until the day the SIEV 221 survivors were flown off the island.
Around 10am on March 5 a mini bus pulled into Tampa Drive above the cliffs at Flying Fish Cove. The dirt road had been renamed after the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa which had been refused permission to land with the 438 Afghan's it had rescued from a sinking boat by then prime minister John Howard in 2001.
The small group disembarked the mini bus, stayed awhile and then left for the airport.
In mid-January the department sought more advice from Dr Fenner. His opinion – offered on the January 30 was that the survivors "could now be managed in the mainstream facilities" but the "crucial issue" was they wouldn't want leave until the burials were sorted and they had visited the crash site. Once this was resolved they should be moved "off the island as soon as possible".
On February 10 a specialist Child and Adolescent psychiatrist flew up to the island from Perth to assess the situation. Dr Gosia Wojnarowska's advice didn't muck around. Straight away she emailed it is "not in my opinion in the best interests of the children to stay on the island."
Whilst her reports have been heavily redacted to protect patient privacy, a clue to her reasoning is contained in another report provided to the department a week later. One of the orphans "requires psychological treatment" and their situation needed to be "stabilised". According to Dr Wojnarowska "the current environment [was] not conducive to his recovery".
A ministerial brief provided to Chris Bowen provides further information. The orphan was "self harming" and arrangements were being made to physically examine the boy to "verify" the "alleged self harm" contained in the psychiatric report.
Shortly after Dr Wojnarowska's visit on February 13 some of the SIEV 221 survivors and were flown to Sydney for the funerals. Their group contained one of the three orphans, a boy Seena Akhlaqi.
The day after they were flown back to the Christmas Island detention centre.
The Immigration Minister Chris Bowen was repeatedly asked why he was sending the group – especially the orphan back to an overcrowded detention centre.
The Minister's department had provided a series of "talking points" to deal with this.
Question: "Why did you return this group to Christmas Island?"
Answer: "It was always the plan to return the group to Christmas Island."
Question: "Did the department change the advice they gave you in relation to the group being able to remain in Sydney?"
Answer: "From the time of the accident I have said that at an appropriate time the children would move into the community. That is what will happen."
In June last year the Minister elaborated on this in an interview on ABC Radio National's Background Briefing.
Well the psychiatrist's report I have seen indicates that it was appropriate to keep them on the island and then when that psychiatrist's report indicated it was time to move them onto the mainland, that's what happened.
I take the advice of my department and I take the advice based on various evidence, so that comes from various sources.
The Minister was asked if the department had been advised to take the children off the island as early as January, would he be concerned if he hadn't received that advice?
"Well of course I'd be concerned to make sure that I received all the evidence. But I have no evidence before me to suggest that that was the case."
Wendy Carlisle is an investigative reporter with ABC Radio National's Background Briefing.
