Introducing - Who's to Blame?

"Who's to Blame" takes you into the heartbreaking story of Emma Lovell and her husband Lee. Emma was killed during a home invasion on Boxing Day in 2022.
Lee tells us about the events leading up to that terrible night and explores the impact on their family and the community around them.
The podcast goes beyond the headlines to tackle the bigger issue of youth crime. We sit down with the people who know it best -offenders, psychologists, program leaders, and police - to get real about what's driving these young people to commit such shocking acts and what can be done to stop it from happening again. and ask the question, Who's to blame? 

Episode one is out Monday, August 26th 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appoche production.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
There's growing community anger over Queensland's youth crime crisis after
a woman was held at knife point in her own
Teens have been arrested following a dangerous chase in a
stolen car.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Queensland's youth crime crisis has reached new highs this river
the arrest Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
A woman has been killed in a horrifying home invasion
in Brisbane's North.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
I think we both like rushed to the door and
opened up the bedroom door, and yeah, there was this
guy sort of standing right in front of the bedroom door.
And then you don't really think about what you're doing.
You act on impulse, I think, and you know, you
just sort of remember trying to get the one who's
immediately by the door like out of the house. And
there was a bit of a scuffle by the door, and.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Then forty one year old Emma Lovell was allegedly stabbed
while fighting off her attackers who broke into her property
at North Lakes.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
She was like this, you know, she'd moved a bit,
but she was on in front of me, like laying
on the floor with her back to me, you know,
you know, and it was a shop to like see
her there because it's like, you know, second ago, she
was like standing up standing in front of me there
and next thing she's lay on the floor and like,
I think I've got my phone in casey come back
with the phone, and you know, she was like the

(01:22):
mummy's bleeding.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
And they say that a scuffle broke out at the
front of the property and both that man and woman
have sustained injuries. The woman, Emma Lovell's injuries so severe
that specialist paramedics could not save her.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
For me working and coming from the police, there is
massive gaps in the system in relation to kids that
sit at the pinnacle of the system.

Speaker 5 (01:48):
Go and round the ball up and lock them up.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
Everybody hopes the government will do something about it.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Youth bar laws are the strongest in the nation.

Speaker 5 (01:56):
I just met a bad crowd. They gave me a
taste for it. The youngest was probably fourteen or fifteen.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Young people require a consolidated community effort and everyone plays
a role. Parents, gear givers services, neighbors, sporting clubs, groups,
random person walking down the street.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I suppose, yeah, community programs, but again it comes down
to like you know, you can't put on the government
and the wider community failings of a child. To a
certain extent, these kids making choices to do what they're doing.

Speaker 5 (02:33):
At this point, I was using ice. I would buy
bigger quantities of ice and sell it to friends of friends.
During the day, they'd lays around and smoke pot all day,
and then at night they go out and do what's
called a creep or a search.

Speaker 6 (02:47):
Enemy of I think what a good youth justice program
can be lived experience has a cool factor that kids
want to engage with as his inspirational factor of that
person who's may one time and this is what he's done.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Until people get locked up and have some sort of
consequence the action, nothing is going to change because at
the moment people see that they can rob a cart,
maybe get locked up, but they'll be out tomorrow for it,
or there's some way of putting a consequence to what
they're doing. I don't think this is ever going to change.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
The challenge at the moment here in Queensland and the
gap that I identify, young person commits offense, Young person
goes to court for the offense. But that process between
committing the offense and going to court is months, and
during that period of time, that's when the majority of
offending takes place. I've been caught, so I'll just go
all out, and the seriousness of offenses rises, the.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Grass on the ground, on the brown behind your back.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Who's to blame, my honest opinion, not the police, not
government services, not the young people. I go back to
our puzzle piece analogy. You know, I think everyone plays
a role.

Speaker 6 (04:04):
Everyone is to blame, and no one's to blame because
every day there's an opportunity for an adult to see
a young person in a different light and provide them
with that pathway to being a good human. And every
day there's a choice of that young person to be
a good human and to feel like they have an opportunity.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
I just think that the community values have changed a lot,
you know. It's where we're so accustomed these days to
seeing a young person in need and stepping back as
opposed to stepping forward. A lot of the issues that
could be affected proactively with a lot of young people

(04:42):
were identified many years ago before they stabbed people, before
they broke into a home, before they broke into a car.
But we turned our blind eye. We turned the blind
eye when they were at school and got suspended for
the first time. We turned the blind eye when we
saw the neighbors arguing and yelling and just thought that
it wasn't our business. We turned the blind eye where
we saw the kid walking down the street with no

(05:03):
shoes on and just thought, oh, oh, that's horrible. I'll
tell my friends at dinner tonight.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
You're almost going to get people commit crimes. I don't
think you're ever going to get away from that. But like,
if you can just help people from a younger age,
you know, like maybe they can be identified or whatever,
then maybe they can help be supported and you know,
guide did better.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Like we've got a boy sitting here in the studio.
I mean he's here because you know, two days ago
his house was shot up. He's got nowhere to go.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
It's such a complex issue, Like it's not just a
one size fits all, like responds to answer, I understand
people need help, but I also can't get away from
people being locked up. If you're murdering people, you just think,
in my view, and I've never changed that, you've got
to be punished for that.

Speaker 5 (05:42):
So who's to blame?

Speaker 3 (05:45):
A youth crime crisis Coming Monday, August twenty six,