The State Coroner’s decision was set aside on February 24 this year after the Finks
employed Palmos Legal and took steps to show the finding contained errors,
including a reference to Cohen suffering “misophonia”.
The Finks say that there was no evidence upon which the coroner could have
drawn the conclusion he had misophonia, a condition where some sounds trigger
unreasonable reactions.
The family question why the school never alerted them to Cohen’s deteriorating
mental condition in the days leading up to his death, despite those in charge being
aware he had been seeing a private psychologist for depression every fortnight.
It was only via FOI last year that the Finks learned a school psychologist directed
student services almost a year before Cohen’s death to put him on a Student At
Educational Risk (SAER) list “ASAP”, but it was never done.
“We didn’t even know that the student education risk list existed until after Cohen
died,” Mrs Fink said.
“When we made the complaint to the department, they justified it as an
Cohen Fink at school before he took his life in 2019.
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administrative error [at the school] due to people in fill in positions. And that was
it.”