BRIDGET FLACK

Image credit: AAP/JOEL CARRETT

 

Angela Pucci Love: 

I remember the day Bridget was born. She and I have been together, always. She was, you know, she lived with my husband and I through her teens, and our mum died when she was quite young. Um, I'm 12 years older, so we had a very, um, caregiver type relationship rather than a traditional sibling relationship. So I've always – be it she wanted to change schools, looking at schools, or she wanted to learn this instrument, or she wanted to go on this holiday or, um, what uni course etc. – I've always been part of it. We spent a lot of time together, so, you know, I've lost that. Um, so there's, I suppose there's two elements of life since then, there's the element of just the immense grief of not having someone you love so much in your life and that toll that that creates. But then there's been the other side of the, um, anger and the frustration and disappointment in, um, kind of how it all came out. And then, you know, the going through a coronial inquest, which we embraced because, not because we wanted to relive everything so often, which is what you have to do to go through a process like that, and publicly as well, but more because we feel this immense, I don't want to say anger. Anger’s not quite the word. Maybe frustration is better, but this absolute frustration at the injustice of it all. And this genuine desire that I don't want anyone to ever sit here and feel the way that I felt. 

 

Bridget had been seeking impatient, um, psychiatric care. And wasn't able to get it. Um, and so we had been trying very hard to get her some help. Um, so then, you know, daily, hourly, trying to sort something out for her. And then it was, yeah, that week that she just went for a walk and didn't come back. And so I suppose if you think about it objectively, it kind of wasn't surprising. Um, but at the time it was like, you know, how could this happen? Where's she gone? What's going on? Um, and I think, there were two things that happened at the same time for us. We had the people who I have grown up to believe are there to help and to do all the right things and do what you expect them to do, and my expectations were, “Help us. This is not this is not right.” Um, but then at the same time, there was a group of people who I had no, um, I suppose, personal connections to, no knowledge of most of the people, um, but this whole collective of a community who said, “well, we're here to help.” It was this tension between what I thought I knew and then something else coming out of it, because I still fundamentally believe, despite having hundreds and thousands of people who were concerned and wanting to do anything they could to help, um, I also knew that the people with the resources who should be helping weren't. Being police, search and rescue, whoever that may be. Um, so that was when I kind of, I suppose, went down the media path of just trying to make noise, to say this isn't right, and to get some actual help, because it's great that you've got hundreds of people volunteering to walk around. But number one, that's not their job and you don't know what situation you're putting someone in. And number two, there's people who are actually we're all paying to do this job and actually have resources that none of us have access to, who should be doing a better job of it. 

 

I very much had it in my head that a traditional funeral would not suit Bridget. Um, and I also was acutely aware that there was this huge amount of community members who had been on this journey with us be it: following the news stories, or out physically searching or, you know, anything, um, you know, calling if they had sightings or thought they had sightings. So, um, I needed to make sure that it was somewhere, um, that plenty of people could access if they wanted to – I wanted it to feel like a really inclusive space. I knew that a lot of people were struggling with different feelings. I knew that there were people who knew her, obviously, who were struggling with feelings, but I knew there were people that identified with her, had never met her, didn't know anyone she knew. And I knew that I wanted to create a space to give people that opportunity to come together. Um, so we had it in Darling Gardens, which obviously down the road from where I live. And Bridget lived with us in Abbotsford. So we've always been in this area. Um, and I think, I hope that it felt like a really safe and inclusive environment for everyone who wanted to be there. Um, I loved, you know, that her friends came together to play her music. Um, her work was involved by, you know, providing some tables and chairs. It just felt like a really beautiful … all parts of her life coming together to truly celebrate her, but also to give everyone else that moment of comfort and reflection as well. 

 

The outcome of the coronial inquest, you know, said it perfectly like there were grave failures in the response from Victoria Police. They hid behind a few things throughout the inquest, but ultimately they did not hear us. We said, “Here is a person who is vulnerable and who is at risk. They are at heightened risk of potential violence and discrimination in the community, and they are at risk of themselves– to themselves.” And none of that was heard. Didn’t care. Um, and so what we know now that with 99% certainty, that had Bridgett been found even three hours after she went for a walk, the outcome would have been the same. She would have passed. Having said that, though, did we need to live through 11 days of sheer hell? Did she have to be found by community members? Did it have to create so much unease and tension in the community? Um, no, I didn't, and it was because of that inadequate response. They all knew that Bridget was more likely to have harmed herself than to have been harmed by someone else. We had 11 days of people thinking there could be someone out there who's targeted a transgender – a young transgender woman. Um, because it happens. She passed December 2020. Um, I think they had an internal investigation in December 2021. Mind you, no one has ever contacted us. No one ever asked our opinion. No one ever asked. We still to this day, have never heard from anyone. No one said, “Oh, you know, we realise that this could have been better – or what do you think?” There had been no consultation I think I'm trying to say, which is bizarre to me. Um, and so they had this internal investigation, which to me says they potentially had an ’Oh Shit’ moment where like, “Oh, this might get a bit more traction still, let's cover ourselves.” I don't know, that's very, um, skeptical. But um, and so they did a thorough review and they've made some great recommendations. Um, but as the coroner said on the 29th of August 2024, not one of them had been implemented. And she was quite scathing in her thoughts on that, the fact that that hadn't happened yet, because some of them are really simple changes. There is no good reason for what we experienced. And so, um, there's also this fire in me now that I need to make – I need to make things happen. So we've got the recommendations from the coroner, we've got the recommendations from police. And so we went on this journey to get to this stage, but now we're very much – okay, but they're still just recommendations. So now the next step is, how do we make people be accountable and actually implement the recommendation?