WA death in custody

By Pip Hinman

"The death in custody of a 22-year-old man [on April 24] is further proof of the total disregard to implement all of the Royal Commission recommendations into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody by the Court government in Western Australia", said Ray Jackson from the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee.

The man was found in his cell at about 7pm, hanging from his bed sheet, which was strung from a light fixture. He had been in custody at the C.W. Campbell Remand Centre at Canning Vale in south Perth for four weeks and was not due to appear in court until this month.

"The fact that the deceased had been in custody for a full month without being charged adds further questions to the Australian so-called justice system", Jackson said. "Innocent until proven guilty has no merit here; the ultimate price has been paid — that of a young man's life."

Nationwide, this year five people have died in custody, and since May 1989 there have been 91 Aboriginal deaths in custody. The latest death in custody in WA brings that state's total, since May 1, 1989, to 17. Jackson said that the offences of those in custody have been relatively minor in comparison to the senselessness of lives lost and grief inflicted on their families.

WA attorney general Peter Foss has not commented on the circumstances surrounding the latest death.

From GLW issue 230