LEIGH Swift and Yvonne Mudford fear the time is coming when the Aboriginal girl they have raised will be taken from them.

The idea plagues them. Mr Swift, 56, the Tennant Creek fire chief, and Ms Mudford, 46, who works for the Health Department, have fallen in love with Mikala, aged four. She is at preschool, getting to know her colours and numbers.

When she was six months old, Mikala's parents, who live across the road, asked the white couple to babysit the child when they went drinking, which was four nights a week.

Mikala was put in the care of her aunt.

The aunt asked Mr Swift and Ms Mudford to look after Mikala for a few nights. When they arrived to collect her from an Alice Springs address, they found the front yard covered with crime scene tape from a homicide the night before.

They later tried to return Mikala to the care of her aunt, but Ms Mudford said Mikala "kicked and screamed and it was just horrible. I said to the mum, 'We can't keep doing this. It's too hard for everyone."'

Mikala's mother asked Mr Swift and Ms Mudford to "grow her up".

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Late last year, the birth mother wanted to reclaim Mikala.

They now fear Mikala will end up with her relatives, or any Aboriginal family, despite the stability they have given her.

They would gladly adopt or foster Mikala, and took hope from NT Chief Minister Adam Giles' recent comments that seriously neglected children should be adopted.

NT Child Commissioner, Howard Bath, has said the law should be changed so the child's well-being is considered ahead of cultural issues.

"I don't think she's got a culture to lose," says Ms Mudford. "How do a family that are continually drunk pass on an oral culture in a true and faithful manner?

"I think she needs to know her family, but at this point in time they're not able to look after her because of the drinking and the violence in the home."

Mr Swift's 50-plus age prevents him from adopting. He has extended his posting in Tennant Creek just to be with Mikala.

"I want her to grow up in society where she won't have the outcomes of her family, which is alcoholism, abuse, jails. It's the grog," says Mr Swift.

He says he'd be happy for Mikala to go back home, if home was safe. "I honestly don't think it's going to happen," he says. "That's what we've asked for - commit to the child for three months, off the grog. They can't do that.

"We'll go broken hearted, and she'll grow up like a sister, handed around the family.

We'd like to adopt her, but it won't happen because of my age, and because we're white."

paul.toohey@news.com.au

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