Trial sites to test health response to public drunkenness announced: Day family respond

Today, the Andrews Government announced that the City of Yarra, Shepperton, Dandenong and Castlemaine will be the trial site locations where the public health response to public drunkenness will be tested.

The Castlemaine police station is where proud Yorta Yorta mother and grandmother, Tanya Day, fell and hit her head after being arrested and locked in a police cell for being drunk in a public place after falling asleep on a train. She died in December 2017 from the injuries she sustained while locked in the police cell.

The decriminalisation of public drunkenness was first recommended by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody 30 years ago. Following extensive advocacy by Tanya Day’s family, the Andrews Government committed to decriminalising the offence of being ‘drunk in a public place’ in August 2019 at the outset of the coronial inquest into their mother’s death.

The laws will come into effect in November 2022 after the Expert Reference Group, consisting of Aboriginal health and legal organisations, and a former Assistant Commissioner of Victoria Police, recommended a two-year implementation period for the reforms.

In response to the trial sites announcement, the Day family said:

Our mum’s case shows that police cells are unsafe places, and that’s why no person should ever be locked up in a police cell for being drunk in a public place.

The trial sites are an opportunity to test the long overdue public health response to public drunkenness. And it should not involve police. Police shouldn’t play any role in a public health response, given that whenever police have broad powers it opens the way for discriminatory policing, too often experienced by Aboriginal people like our mum.

For these reforms to work, there must be a full transition away from the current criminal law approach to a genuine and best practice public health one that does not involve police.

Circumstances of Tanya Day’s death:

Tanya was a proud Yorta Yorta woman and much-loved sister, mother, grandmother and advocate.

In December 2017, Tanya fell asleep on a V/Line train on her way to Melbourne. Despite causing no disturbance, she was arrested for being drunk in a public place in circumstances where the Coroner found that the police should have taken her to hospital or sought urgent medical advice.

While locked up in a concrete police cell at the Castlemaine police station, Tanya fell and hit her head on the wall of the cell. The Coroner found that the checks the police officers conducted on Tanya while she was in the cell were inadequate and that the police officers had failed to take proper care for Tanya’s safety, security, health and welfare as required by the Victoria Police guidelines.

The Coroner found that Tanya’s death was preventable and had the checks been conducted by the police in accordance with the relevant requirements, Tanya’s deterioration may well have been identified and treated appropriately earlier.

The Coroner referred two police officers to the Director of Public Prosecutions and recommended that public drunkenness laws be repealed.

A copy of the Coroner’s findings in the inquest into Tanya Day’s death in police custody is available on the Coroners Court website here.

A copy of the Expert Reference Group’s report – Seeing the Clear Light of Day – is available on the Department of Justice and Community Safety’s website here.

Media contact:
Michelle Bennett, Engagement Director: 0485 864 320