Thursday, January 14, 2010

Justice in Queensland?

Ms. Anna Bligh,
Premier of Queensland
ThePremier@premiers.qld.gov.au

Dear Premier,

We refer to the reports below for your information.

Why Aborigines are so discriminated in Queensland?

We wait for your reply soon.

Yours respectfully,

Eddie Hwang
President
Unity Party WA
UnityPartyWA@westnet.com.au
www.unitywa.org
Ph/Fax: 61 893681884
Date: 21-Nov-200.
Environmental Friendly - Save the trees - Use Email.
Can you afford to give Telstra/Bigpond try?

Police case on death in custody rejected
Michael McKenna - The Australian - November 21, 2009 12:00AM
QUEENSLAND'S anti-corruption watchdog said yesterday it had rejected a two-year police probe into the mishandling of the investigation of the 2004 death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee.

Releasing a report into policing in Queensland's indigenous communities, Crime and Misconduct Commission chairman Robert Needham said his investigators were forced to go back to "ground zero" in the case, after last year receiving a 266-page police report into the tainted investigation.

Mr Needham, who is stepping down from the CMC next month, said he hoped the long-overdue report might be released in the first quarter of next year, although it might still be delayed.

Earlier this week, The Australian revealed the CMC would accuse police of "protecting their own" in the case and recommend disciplinary action against officers involved in the investigation

The report was ordered in 2006 after Deputy State Coroner Christine Clements slammed the death-in-custody investigation as lacking "transparency, objectivity and independence".

Police Ethical Standards Command was asked for a report into the initial investigation, to be reviewed by the CMC.
Mr Needham said yesterday the report was "not going to be complimentary" of police, but he could not yet detail his findings.

"In effect, what we have done is we have gone back to ground zero and gone right to the primary documents, right to every interview that has ever been had with all the relevant officers, to the evidence of the coronial inquiry and gone back to every single thing in great detail," he said.

Mr Needham also took some blame, saying the report should have been out earlier this year.

Mr Needham made the comments as the coronial inquest into Doomadgee's death was yesterday reopened at a directions hearing in Townsville.

The report was ordered in 2006 after Deputy State Coroner Christine Clements slammed the death-in-custody investigation as lacking "transparency, objectivity and independence".
Police Ethical Standards Command was asked for a report into the initial investigation, to be reviewed by the CMC.

Mr Needham said yesterday the report was "not going to be complimentary" of police, but he could not yet detail his findings.

"In effect, what we have done is we have gone back to ground zero and gone right to the primary documents, right to every interview that has ever been had with all the relevant officers, to the evidence of the coronial inquiry and gone back to every single thing in great detail," he said.

Mr Needham also took some blame, saying the report should have been out earlier this year.

Mr Needham made the comments as the coronial inquest into Doomadgee's death was yesterday reopened at a directions hearing in Townsville.

Mr MacSporran should reconsider.


Michael McKenna - The Australian - November 20, 2009 12:00AM
THE Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission report into the police mishandling of the investigation of the 2004 death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee may not be finalised for another six months.

As family and friends gathered yesterday on Palm Island, off Townsville, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Doomadgee's watchhouse death, concerns were raised about the decision of Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Commissioner Alan MacSporran to represent Queensland police at today's reopening of the coronial inquest into the case.

Mr MacSporran, who is charged with overseeing complaints about the CMC -- and who has access to all of its files -- will appear for the Queensland Police Service at the inquest's directions hearing in Townsville.

The lawyer for the Doomadgee family, Andrew Boe, said given the history of the death-in-custody investigation -- condemned in 2006 by Deputy Coroner Christine Clements -- Mr MacSporran should reconsider.

"It is clear that the police interests will continue to pursue their own agenda, whilst all that the family seek is what they have sought for the last five years: transparency, integrity and accountability; and some finality," Mr Boe said.
"I would have thought that to avoid any perceptions of impropriety, he should reconsider taking sides on the field in this inquest after sitting in the umpire's chair generally on matters involving the CMC and police service to date.

"If what he seeks is an involvement in the issues on Palm Island, he might fearlessly discharge his statutory obligations instead."

The Queensland Police Service said it was a matter for Mr MacSporran, who did not return calls yesterday from The Australian. On Wednesday, he denied any conflict of interest, saying: "I have not been asked to investigate any matters in respect of this issue, so I have no conflict."

A CMC spokeswoman said last night the report into the police death-in-custody investigation would be handed to police for comment next month and it may take months to be finalised.

Asked if the report could be made public early next year, the CMC spokeswoman said it was not possible to speculate that it would be finalised by then.

"It usually takes six weeks to respond, but we also have to make allowances for Christmas and New Year, as well as further challenges and legal issues," she said.

The CMC report is expected to recommend disciplinary action against senior officers, who investigated the death in custody, and slam the subsequent police review as an example of police "protecting their own".

The long-overdue report was ordered in 2006 after Ms Clements, in her coronial findings, castigated the police death-in-custody investigation as lacking "transparency, objectivity and independence".

Doomadgee was arrested on Palm Island on November 19, 2004, for disorderly conduct. He had sworn at a police liaison officer in a back street.

Less than an hour later, he was dead in a cell.

An autopsy revealed Doomadgee had four broken ribs and his liver had been cleaved in two. He had bled to death. Doctors said in evidence it would have been "most painful".

A week later, Palm Islanders were told his death had been caused by an accident when he and arresting officer Sergeant Chris Hurley scuffled and fell on the police station floor.

Five years on, Doomadgee death investigators facing discipline
Michael McKenna and Tony Koch - The Australian - November 19, 2009 12:00AM
SENIOR officers who investigated the 2004 death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee are expected to face disciplinary action following a damning Crime and Misconduct Commission report that accuses Queensland police of "protecting their own".

On the fifth anniversary of Doomadgee's watchhouse death, which sparked riots in the Aboriginal community off Townsville, the yet-to-be finalised CMC report has condemned police handling of the initial investigation and rejected the findings of an internal police review into their handling of the case.

The long-overdue report was ordered in 2006 after Deputy State Coroner Christine Clements slammed the death-in-custody investigation as lacking "transparency, objectivity and independence".

Police handed a 266-page report to the CMC last year recommending only "managerial guidance" of the four police investigators - two of whom were friends of Palm Island senior sergeant Chris Hurley, who was charged and acquitted in 2007 of Doomadgee's manslaughter.

In an explosive revelation, Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Commissioner Alan MacSporran confirmed yesterday he had accepted a brief to represent the Queensland Police Service at the second coronial inquest into Doomadgee's death, to be held in February.
Mr MacSporran will appear for the QPS at tomorrow's inquest directions hearings in Townsville.

Neither he nor the parliamentary crime and misconduct committee have initiated any action in response to the repeated public complaints about delays in investigating Doomadgee's death.

Mr MacSporran yesterday denied any conflict of interest in representing the QPS. "I have not been asked to investigate any matters in respect of this issue, so I have no conflict," he said.

Indigenous leaders and lawyers have accused the CMC and police of double standards over the five-year wait, with rioters jailed within months of the violence, and officers who stared down the mob given bravery awards last year.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service chief executive Shane Duffy said Queensland's indigenous community had waited too long for the investigation to be finalised. "Why the delay if there is nothing to hide and nothing to fear?" Mr Duffy asked.

During the first inquest, Ms Clements was told the Townsville Regional Crime Co-ordinator Warren Webber had appointed two of Sergeant Hurley's friends - Palm Island detective Darren Robinson and Townsville-based detective Raymond Kitching - to investigate Doomadgee's death.

The detectives were picked up at the Palm Island airport by Sergeant Hurley, and then shared a meal and beers with the officer at his home on the night of Doomadgee's death, on November 19.

The inquest was told that the officers had failed to secure the scene where the injury that claimed Doomadgee's life occurred, and that the officers were involved in off-the-record discussions with Sergeant Hurley during their six-day investigation.

Another internal investigation into the case - specifically dealing with the $102,955 ex-gratia payment Sergeant Hurley received for property lost in the riots that followed Doomadgee's death, and an insurance claim he lodged for property valued at a third of that amount - is ongoing.

Silence and delay over cell death shame far north
Two- speed justice exists in Queensland
COMMENT: Tony Koch - The Australian - November 19, 2009 12:00AM
ANYONE who doubts that two- speed justice exists in Queensland need only consider the much delayed Crime and Misconduct Commission investigation into the death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee.

On October 30, 2006, former Beattie government minister Merri Rose met her former press secretary in the Brisbane City mall and asked him to deliver a threat to premier Peter Beattie that certain allegedly embarrassing information would be made public if she was not given a plum job.

The message was relayed, the Crime and Misconduct Commission chairman, Bob Needham, was informed the same day and an investigation began. On November 9, 2006, Rose was charged with extortion -- to which she pleaded guilty and was jailed.

So it took the CMC -- the state's anti-corruption watchdog organisation -- 10 days to receive the complaint, complete the investigation and lay charges.

Compare that response with the case of Doomadgee, who was arrested on Palm Island on November 19, 2004, for disorderly conduct. He had sworn at a police liaison officer in a back street. Less than an hour later, he was dead in a cell, having sustained horrific injuries including four broken ribs and with his liver cleaved in two.

The appallingly inadequate investigation by police into the death in custody spoke volumes about the Queensland Police Service's lack of professionalism. It was so demonstrably woeful that the CMC undertook an inquiry into the investigation. But five years have elapsed since the death of the Aboriginal man and that inquiry has not been finalised.

The revelation that the parliamentary officer with the statutory responsibility to oversee CMC investigations and refer any official complaints he receives to that committee is to leave his position and act for the Queensland Police Service at the second inquest into Mulrunji's death is another incredible event in this sad saga.

Alan MacSporran SC yesterday said he had not received any formal complaint about the time taken for the CMC investigation so had not seen any need to take any action.

They are weasel words as there has been trenchant criticism in all media, but particularly The Australian, for more than two years about the delays.

The failure to gain closure on Doomadgee's death is attributable to the complete absence of political leadership -- particularly that of former police minister (and former Aboriginal affairs minister) Judy Spence, who had ministerial responsibility for most of the period since the death.

She applauded the quick justice meted out to the Palm Islanders who rioted a week after Doomadgee's death and burned police buildings. But she went missing when it came to standing up for Aboriginal people when it was clear to all that police had acted inappropriately time and again.

The long-awaited CMC investigation has open to it only two possible findings with regard to the police investigation into the violent death in custody of Doomadgee.

They are that the police were involved in a shameless cover-up, or that these senior officers were grossly inefficient.

Your call, Mr Needham.

Palm Island death in custody case to be re-examined
Joel Gibson Indigenous Affairs Reporter - June 17, 2009
AS ONE high-profile inquest into an Aboriginal death in custody finished, another began and a third was reopened yesterday, prompting fears of a trend.

Queensland's Court of Appeal ordered a new coroner be appointed to re-examine the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in the Palm Island watchhouse in 2004, raising the prospect that a previous finding implicating a senior police officer could be overturned.

Doomadgee's death led to rioting on Palm Island when an autopsy showed he had suffered four broken ribs and a ruptured liver after being arrested for public nuisance.

The deputy state coroner Christine Clements found Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley responsible in 2006, but he was acquitted of manslaughter and assault in the criminal trial that followed and has since fought to have the coronial finding overturned.

He had a win late last year when the District Court ordered the inquest reopened.

Doomadgee's family and the Palm Island Aboriginal Council then went to the Court of Appeal, which found yesterday that even though the District Court ruling was flawed, the inquest should still be reopened.

The Doomadgee family's lawyer, Andrew Boe, welcomed the outcome, saying they were hopeful a transparent and precise examination of the evidence would settle the matter.

But Sam Watson, an Aboriginal activist, told the ABC the family would now have to endure the entire process again because police were "trying to rewrite history".

Meanwhile, an inquest began in Katherine into the apparent suicide of an Arnhem Land man, 22, whose death was blamed on the Northern Territory intervention.

The man escaped police custody and was found dead with a gun last August after being arrested for consorting with his 15-year-old girlfriend.

Glen Dooley, the principal legal officer of the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, said at the time that the intervention had criminalised consensual relationships.

"Cases are now seen as being the same as those involving pedophiles and sexual predators," he said.

However, the Northern Territory Coroner, Greg Cavanagh, said yesterday that the inquest would not become a de facto royal commission into the success of the intervention.

The inquest continues as indigenous communities digest the recommendations of a West Australian coroner last week that criminal charges be considered over the death of a man named Ward, a Warburton elder who died of heat exhaustion in the back of a prison van.

Professor Larissa Behrendt, from the University of Technology, Sydney, said the geographical spread of the inquests offered little reassurance that criminal justice systems had improved around Australia.

"We still see deaths in custody now that were similar to cases that were investigated by the royal commission," she said.

The 1989 royal commission on Aboriginal deaths in custody found that the high number of indigenous deaths occurred because "too many Aboriginal people are in custody too often".

Latest figures suggest indigenous people are now 13 times more likely to be in custody than non-indigenous people

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