A cleaner claims they were told by staff to flush a foetus after they discovered it in a toilet at an independent Aboriginal school.
The cleaner, who did not want to be named, was working at Hymba Yumba Independent School (HYIS) in Springfield, southwest of Brisbane, on July 25, 2023.
The school, which has almost 300 students from Kindergarten to Year 12, receives about $9million in funding from the state and federal governments annually.
The worker said she was waiting for a group of girls – she believed to be in Year 6 to Year 8 – who were inside one of the toilet stalls to leave so she could clean the area.
However, once the girls left, the cleaner made a gruesome discovery – a suspected foetus inside the toilet.
‘I waited for them to come out … I walked in there [and] on the bottom of the toilet there was a foetus,’ she told NITV’s Living Black.
She immediately locked the cubicle and spoke with another cleaner who then agreed the discovery looked as though it was foetal tissue.
The pair went straight to a staff member and reported the shocking find.
A cleaner claims they were told by staff to flush a foetus after they discovered it in a toilet at an independent Aboriginal school
The worker said she was waiting for a group of girls – she believed to be in Year 6 to Year 8 – who were inside one of the toilet stalls to leave so she could clean the area (stock image)
However, the staff member claimed the women’s suspicions were wrong and that it was not human foetal tissue.
‘She took photos of it and [said] it wasn’t a foetus, but we were trying to tell her that it was, because it had legs [and] hands but she still turned around to us and told us it wasn’t,’ the cleaner said.
She said she was ‘scared and traumatised’ and told the staff member she would take the foetus out of the toilet so that they could conduct an investigation.
‘She gave us a toilet brush … lifted it up and just flushed it,’ the cleaner said.
The cleaner’s aunty, local Elder Theresa Tyson, had concerns for the student’s welfare and reported the incident to Queensland Police.
‘I was thinking all the time [about] how this child’s coping… She could have bled to death, or it could be a normal thing for her, getting sexually abused,’ Ms Tyson said.
The school claimed it reported the matter the very same day to police, with officers attending the school the next morning to investigate the incident.
HYIS claims police established that what was found was not a foetus ‘but a decidual cast’ – which is when the lining of a uterus sheds in one piece.
Police confirmed with Living Black that officers did in fact visit the school two days after the incident rather than the next morning as reported by the school.
‘Ipswich Child Protection Investigation Unit attended the school,’ QPS said in a statement.
‘At the time, no child was identified as being involved, and no offences were detected.’
Local Elder Theresa Tyson (pictured), who is the aunty of the cleaner, had concerns for the child’s welfare and reported the incident to Queensland Police Service
Police failed to interview the cleaners when they visited the school.
Queensland’s Child Protection Investigation Unit contacted the cleaners for an interview just this month – almost a year after the incident – only after the Living Black program questioned the handling of the investigation.
A former teacher at the school, who was there when the incident occurred, said she was advised by the nurse counsellor to try and subtly find the student involved.
However, on the morning the Child Protection Unit visited the school, HYIS school CEO Karla Brady put an end to staff investigations.
In an email to a colleague, Ms Brady said she wanted to speak to a ‘few girls’ to tell them that ‘the witch hunt needs to stop’.
Ms Brady added she wanted to ‘nip’ the issue immediately so that the ‘drama queens’ don’t make the incident bigger than what it was.
HYIS adamantly denies that what was found was human foetus tissue.
