Dhu family set to demand answers from Premier
The family of a Pilbara indigenous woman who died while in police custody are expecting the Premier to answer a list of questions about her death tomorrow.
Deaths In Custody Watch Committee chairman and family spokesman Marc Newhouse said the family would use the meeting to ask when an inquest would take place.
“The Premier and Attorney-General will probably both say they don’t have any jurisdiction or power to intervene,” he said.
“But we understand that the police have submitted what they needed to submit to the coroner and the hold-up was the health campus, however, according to the health campus they have supplied the necessary materials.”
The meeting comes more than eight months after Ms Dhu, whose first name is not used for cultural reasons, died on August 4 last year, three days after being jailed in the South Hedland watch house over unpaid fines of $1000.
Colin Barnett, who has travelled to Port Hedland to meet with the family, was not in attendance when Ms Dhu’s grandmother, mother and siblings, visited the South Hedland Police Station and the Hedland Health Campus today.
Mr Newhouse said Mr Barnett declined the family’s request to join them for the visits.
He said Ms Dhu’s Geraldton-based grandmother Carol Roe, mother Della Roe and siblings had found the day “extremely emotional”.
He said they were particularly distressed about being denied the opportunity to lay flowers outside the cell Ms Dhu spent her final hours in.
“The assistant commissioner issued a directive that they were not to be given access to the cell because it is an operational unit…and because of the inquest,” Mr Newhouse said.
“From what we have heard today and from other similar circumstances, it is very clear to us that all government departments that have cause to have contact with a person in custody, they need to have Aboriginal and cultural protocols for that area for when someone dies in custody.
“The directive that the family was not to be given access, it is a bit over the top…they just wanted to pay their respects – I can’t see how that could prejudice the inquest.”
Mr Newhouse said during a meeting with WA Country Health Service staff and a doctor who attempted to resuscitate Ms Dhu, her family were told she arrived without a pulse.
He said it was not clear if this had occurred within the lock-up or during transit to the hospital.
“The family has a lot of questions about how it happened, why it happened and who was involved…they did answer some of these,” he said.
“These will be subject to the coronial inquest, but generally coronial inquests take up to two years…which is not ideal, the whole coronial system needs to be reviewed.”
A WACHS spokesman confirmed the family had visited the health campus but would not be commenting the “private visit”.
An independent documentary maker has been following the family since Ms Dhu’s death.
