Justice for Tanya Day
Tanya Day was a proud Yorta Yorta woman and much-loved sister, mother, grandmother and community advocate. In December 2017, she fell asleep on a train from Echuca to Melbourne. A train conductor woke her up and, despite her doing nothing, deemed her unruly and triggered a series of events which culminated in the police arresting Tanya.
Rather than taking Tanya to a hospital, she was locked up in a concrete cell for being drunk in public. Tanya fell and hit her head on a number of occasions, but the police officers responsible for her care failed to properly check on her. She lay injured on the floor for three hours. When the police finally entered her cell, they called 000 but told a self-serving, untrue story about how she fell. Tanya later died from a brain haemorrhage.
The Human Rights Law Centre represented the Day family in the coronial inquest into Tanya’s death. Throughout the inquest, the family’s legal team cross-examined over 30 witnesses over three weeks on whether systemic racism played a role in Tanya’s death.
In a landmark decision, the Coroner referred the Victoria Police officers involved in Tanya’s death to the DPP for criminal investigation, on the basis that “an indictable offence may have been committed”. In a decision that speaks volumes about police impunity, the DPP notified the Day family that they will not be prosecuting the police officers involved in Tanya’s death.
At the time of Tanya’s arrest, Aboriginal women were 10 times more likely for being drunk in public than non-Indigenous women. The decriminalisation of public intoxication was first recommended by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody over 30 years ago. Following extensive advocacy by the Day family, the Andrews government committed to decriminalisation in August 2019 at the outset of the coronial inquest into Aunty Tanya’s death.
Tanya Day’s family hold a smoking ceremony before the inquest into their mum’s death in police custody. Credit: Charandev Singh
The Andrews government disappointingly delayed these long overdue reforms and the rollout of a state-wide public health response by 12 months to November 2023. We continue to work with the Day family to ensure the Victorian government upholds this commitment to deliver a best practice, Aboriginal-led public health response without further delay.
“Public drunkenness laws have always been dangerous and discriminatory, and that’s why the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommended that they be repealed three decades ago. As our mum’s case shows, police cells are unsafe places. No person should ever be locked up just for being drunk in public.”
- Aunty Tanya Day’s family