Operator of the Inverell swimming pool said police were called on children who ‘refused to cease antisocial behaviour’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA mother says her six-year-old daughter is “traumatised” after she and other Aboriginal children were escorted from a country New South Wales pool by police after reports of “antisocial behaviour”.Inverell Aquatic Centre has been accused of discrimination after police were called to evict several Aboriginal families from the facility in northern NSW on Sunday, prompting Amnesty International to call for an investigation into a potential “violation of human rights”.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…Operator of the Inverell swimming pool said police were called on children who ‘refused to cease antisocial behaviour’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA mother says her six-year-old daughter is “traumatised” after she and other Aboriginal children were escorted from a country New South Wales pool by police after reports of “antisocial behaviour”.Inverell Aquatic Centre has been accused of discrimination after police were called to evict several Aboriginal families from the facility in northern NSW on Sunday, prompting Amnesty International to call for an investigation into a potential “violation of human rights”.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading…
A mother says her six-year-old daughter is “traumatised” after she and other Aboriginal children were escorted from a country New South Wales pool by police after reports of “antisocial behaviour”.
Inverell Aquatic Centre has been accused of discrimination after police were called to evict several Aboriginal families from the facility in northern NSW on Sunday, prompting Amnesty International to call for an investigation into a potential “violation of human rights”.
A spokesperson for the organisation that runs the centre, Belgravia Leisure, said it has a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination and police were called to evict a group of young people who “refused to cease antisocial behaviour” after multiple requests from pool staff.
But several parents told Guardian Australia they received no warnings before police told them and their children to leave.
Gomeroi woman Christa Schneider said she was “horrified” to arrive at the pool on Sunday afternoon to find her six-year-old daughter being escorted out by police, alongside her grandmother.
She said an officer told her they were being removed because her daughter was “not complying with rules”.
In a written complaint to the aquatic centre, Schneider said her daughter had been twice warned for “jumping from the edge of the pool” and was “chastised accordingly” by her grandmother, but had at no point been asked to leave before the police arrived.
The mother-of-three has called for a public apology.
“I feel this incident was handled very poorly,” Schneider wrote in the complaint.
“My six-year-old daughter is traumatised, she is scared to go back into Inverell, and especially the pool.
“This is discrimination towards innocent Indigenous children.”
The child’s 60-year-old grandmother, Frances Blacklock, said she “still has a little shake” in her body and has had trouble sleeping since the incident.
NSW police said officers from the New England police district were called to the aquatic centre after reports staff were having difficulties removing patrons who were refusing to leave.
“Police attended and spoke to the manager who identified a group of 20 people, including adults and children who were being unsafe, not following instructions and rude to staff,” a police spokesperson said in a statement.
“They had been asked to leave, however were refusing.
“Police spoke to the group who continued to be hostile, yelling and filming officers. They were issued a move on direction, which was complied with and escorted from the facility.”
The spokesperson for Belgravia Leisure strongly rejected any suggestion of discrimination.
“At no stage were any patrons asked to leave unless they were directly involved in antisocial behaviour,” they said.
Leah Brown, another mother who was made to leave along with her 11-year-old daughter, said she too received no prior request to leave the pool before she was approached by police.
“They’re little children. Isn’t there a better way to go about this instead of ringing the police?” she said.
The incident attracted broad attention after father-of-two Thomas Davis live-streamed footage to Facebook which showed police officers and children standing on the edge of the pool. On the video, he alleged police had “kicked all the black kids out of the pool”.
The Gamilaroi man said the incident is a symptom of broader attitudes towards local Aboriginal children, who he said are “the first ones to get blamed” for issues around the town.
Aboriginal young people account for almost a third of all NSW police searches and move-on directions, according to figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
Rodney Dillon, the First Nations rights adviser for Amnesty International, drew parallels with historic council bylaws which barred Aboriginal children from entering the pool in Moree and were overturned after the landmark Freedom Ride protest, which marked its 60th anniversary last month.
“This is where we’re back to today – the feeling that there’s a huge gap between blacks and whites in this country,” he said.