Teachers knew Bradyn Dillon to contribute to a safe and welcoming classroom and playground at his primary school, an inquest into the nine year old's death heard on Monday.
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He was extremely polite and courteous, and thought that one of his strengths was that he was awesome at being a friend.
But the irony for Bradyn, said counsel assisting the Coroner, Rebecca Curran, was that his community was unable to ensure he had a safe home environment.
"His father had isolated and abused him," she said.
The boy's last months were marked by beatings at the hands of his father Graham Dillon, before a final beating and blow to the head killed him in February 2016.
Dillon, 41, is serving more than 36 years in jail for the murder.
At sentencing last year, Justice John Burns said the man's despicable conduct toward his son could be "aptly described as torture".
Dillon used his fists, lit cigarettes and belts to beat the boy repeatedly.
On the day Bradyn died, February 15, 2016, Dillon told the boy to bend over a marble coffee table while he beat him with a belt.
He kicked Bradyn in the abdomen, and then landed another flurry of blows, before the boy fell unconscious.
He never woke up.
There is no question over who killed Bradyn.
But in those months he had fallen from the radar of territory authorities.
Over the coming days a coronial inquest, headed by Coroner Margaret Hunter, will examine how the boy became so isolated and how he became so vulnerable before his death.
Barrister Joe Kellaway, who represents ACT health, education and child protection, said Bradyn's death had been devastating to those involved.
The boy was murdered after child protective services closed his file and after he was unenrolled from school.
Dillon had manipulated the system, Mr Kellaway told the ACT Coroner's Court, and managed to effectively imprison Bradyn in his own home.
He said the question was how Bradyn became a "missing person" while still living in the ACT before his death.
Dillon had unenrolled Bradyn from his primary school four months before his death, telling the school they were moving to NSW.
Mr Kellaway said that had been accepted at face value.
"Bradyn had been slipped by a lie into a vacuum," Mr Kellaway said, adding that the inquest would hear how that gap had been filled.
Bradyn was the subject of multiple reports by multiple people over a number of months, including his mother and step-mother, and by those at his schools, who noted bruises to his face, non-attendance and concerns about his lunch.
Various authorities had interacted with Bradyn, including ACT health, education, police, as well as territory and Victorian child protection services.
The inquest will consider how was it that those interactions were discontinued.
It will examine the adequacy of the response from police and various agencies, and what they knew of the risks or should have known.
The question of what responsibility members of the public have to report serious abuse, when as in this case neighbours did observe significant injuries, will also be considered.
The inquest continues.
