Fetal alcohol sickness rising

AUSTRALIA is drowning in a “massive epidemic” of fetal alcohol disorders, a scholar has told a judge.

The comments from Dr Janet Hammill were made as Ian Laurence Twaddle and Roy Joseph Gadd were sentenced for what Judge Paul Smith called a “deliberate and protracted” 2015 Toowoomba crime spree.

Gadd and Twaddle were arrested along with a third man after a stolen car they were in rammed a police car in Harlaxton.

They were also charged for an incident in November 2015 when a rock was thrown at a liquor store, and an estimated $1700 worth of liquor was stolen.

Dr Hamill, a University of Queensland medical ethnographer, had known Twaddle for 15 years.

She said fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) influenced his offending, and was affecting many other Australians.

“It’s a distinct brain disability, a lifetime problem, and it’s actually preventable,” Dr Hammill told Brisbane District Court.

“In Australia, we have a massive epidemic. It’s all related to the pre-birth situation and in some families it’s transgenerational.”

Outside court, Dr Hammill said the problem was huge in many indigenous regional Queensland communities but affected other ethnic groups too, nationwide.

“We’ve got 30 babies a day being born with exposure to alcohol.”

She said courts were being left to deal with the social costs.

Her comments in court prompted Judge Smith to ask: “How do we deal with it?”

She said there was a lack of “political will”. It was not simply a funding issue, but a matter of funding the right types of research.

Judge Smith accepted the role FASD played in the offending.

He said it impacted Twaddle’s brain function and “led easily to mischief.”

The syndrome, combined with drug use, was catastrophic.

Judge Smith told Twaddle: “You’re a generous person. You respect others. I’m sure you’re not like that when you’re using drugs, but often you are.”

Twaddle’s barrister David Jones outlined his 29 year-old client’s early years of neglect.

Twaddle’s mother drank during pregnancy and abandoned him when he was three months old.

An Aboriginal grandmother adopted him but she died ten years later, then Twaddle’s father died of suicide.

He was a drifter from the age of 10, hanging around drug-addled and drink-soaked subcultures.

His cousin in Rockhampton died from a drug overdose in 2015.

On Wednesday, Gadd was given 18 months jail and released on parole, having spent more than 130 days in custody.

Twaddle was sentenced to 4 years’ jail, He had spent 457 days in custody and could apply for parole immediately.