The Human Rights Law Centre is representing the family of Yorta Yorta woman, Ms Tanya Day, in the coronial inquest into her death.
Ms Day’s children – Belinda Stevens, Warren Stevens, Kimberly Watson and Apryl Watson – are determined to ensure the coronial process will deliver some justice for their mother, who was also a proud grandmother and respected member of the Victorian Aboriginal community.
Facts of the case
On 22 December 2017, Ms Day died after sustaining a serious head injury in a police cell. She was only 55 years old.
On 5 December 2017, Ms Day arrived at the Echuca train station and bought a ticket to Melbourne. She never made it to her destination. During the journey, Ms Day was approached by a ticket inspector from V/Line. He said Ms Day was being “unruly”, lying with her feet blocking the aisle way. There are conflicting reports about this, with other passengers saying that they did not observe anything abnormal. The ticket inspector called the police, Ms Day was ejected from the train and was arrested for being drunk in a public place.
Ms Day was taken to Castlemaine police station and detained in a police cell. Despite the requirement that she be physically checked every 30 minutes, this did not happen.
The CCTV footage shows that at around 5:00pm Ms Day fell and hit her head on a concrete wall of the police cell.
When a physical check takes place at 8:03 pm, police notice a dark, oval-shaped bruise on Ms Day’s forehead. An ambulance is called and attends the police station. Ms Day was then taken by ambulance to Bendigo hospital. A scan revealed a massive bleed on Ms Day’s brain and she was flown by helicopter to St Vincent’s Hospital in Melbourne, where she underwent emergency surgery. Ms Day died seventeen days later.
Timeline of the case
The first directions hearing for the inquest was on 6 December 2018. During this, Coroner English said she would make a recommendation that the Victorian Government abolish the offence of public drunkenness.
The second directions hearing was on 19 March 2019. Following that hearing, all the parties filed submissions on whether systemic racism should be included within the scope of the inquest.
The third directions hearing was on 30 April 2019. During this proceeding the Coroner heard submissions from Ms Day’s family and interested parties regarding the scope of the inquest and whether it should include a consideration of the role of systemic racism as a contributing factor to the circumstances and cause of Ms Day’s death.
On 25 June 2019 the Coroner published her decision on the scope of the inquest ruling that she “will allow witnesses to be questioned as to whether racism played a part of their decision making, including Ms Day’s treatment, options considered, their motivations and potential unintended effects of their decision making.” The Coroner will also allow an expert report on systemic racism to be included in the material and will allow witnesses to be asked to produce relevant “policies, procedures and training.”
The substantive coronial inquest commenced on 26 August 2019 and ran over a number of weeks. Victoria Police, V/Line and Ambulance Victoria were all represented.
The inquest heard final arguments in November 2019. The family have also called for an end to police investigating police, and have continued to demand justice and accountability at each and every turn of the process.
Context and reform
Victoria’s Summary Offences Act 1966 lists a number of offences that the police can charge a person with for being drunk while in a public place. Notably, section 13 of that Act provides that “any person found drunk in a public place shall be guilty of an offence”. Police have broad powers and may draw the conclusion that a person is drunk if their speech, co-ordination, balance or behaviour is affected and the police believe this is because the person has been drinking alcohol. The police are not required to breath test people before arresting and detaining them.
Abolishing the offence of public drunkenness was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, made almost 30 years ago. Recommendation 79 clearly stated that, in jurisdictions where drunkenness has not been decriminalised, governments should legislate to abolish the offence of public drunkenness.
Ms Day’s uncle, the late Mr Harrison Day, had his death examined by that Royal Commission. Mr Day died in custody in 1982 from an epileptic fit in an Echuca police cell after he was arrested for an unpaid $10 fine for public drunkenness.
The recommendation that the offence of public drunkenness be repealed has been repeated on numerous occasions in multiple reports, including the Victorian Parliament’s 2005 Implementation Review of the Recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and 2001 Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee’s Inquiry into Public Drunkenness.
On the 28th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, over 80 Aboriginal, health, human rights, housing, legal and women’s organisations signed an open letter calling on Premier Daniel Andrews to repeal the offence of public drunkenness. A copy of that open letter is available here.
On 22 August, in the week before the formal inquest is set to commence, the Andrews Government announced that it will abolish the offence of public drunkenness and replace it with a public health response.
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