Josh’s texts reveal injury
Final messages to father before death on worksite
IAIN Park keeps going over the last exchange he had with his teenage son Josh Park-Fing, just four hours before he died.
He knows his son was trying to tell him something was wrong.
“I continually kept reading the messages and when you read the words, it’s like reading the Bible – it’s like reading the message (behind it),” Mr Park said.
The anguished father has released the final text message exchange between him and Mr Park-Fing, who died on April 19 last year in an incident on a Work for the Dole site at the Toowoomba Showgrounds.
The messages suggested the 18-year-old had injured his back the day before he died, but was made to work.
“But working for the Dole is shot (sic) because they over work u n if you hurt your back they say they’re not filling out any paperwork,” Mr Park-Fing told his father at 7.39am.
While Mr Park alluded to the texts in a report in The
Chronicle in April, he only released them to the media yesterday.
The revelation comes just days before an appearance from the Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland, NEATO Employment Services and Work for the Dole project supervisor Adrian Strachen in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court tomorrow was adjourned.
Charges were brought forward by the Queensland Office of Industrial Relations, which will allege the RASQ, NEATO and Mr Strachen failed in their duty
I don’t want to see it happen again, because it is going to happen again.
— Iain Park
of care.
Mr Park said he hoped to see justice served, but not only for his son.
“I don’t want to see it happen again, because it is going to happen again,” he said.
“I see a lot of issues with this system.”