Kathy Newnam, Darwin
In an unprecedented move, Letty Scott has brought private criminal charges against three NT prison officers — Barry Medley, Michael Lawson and Harold Robertson — for the assault and murder of her husband Douglas Scott on July 5, 1985. A fourth guard believed to be involved in the assault has since died.
Douglas was 26 years old and was being held on remand in Berrimah Prison on a charge of indecent language. The remand warrant under which he was being held was for 60 days — four times the legal limit at the time.
Letty has fought for the truth about her husband's death for almost 20 years and has battled a consistent cover-up by the NT government, police and the prison system.
Letty believes that this cover-up extended into the 1991 Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody, which found that Douglas hung himself. Letty has brought charges of conspiring to pervert the course of justice against Geoffrey Barbaro and Mick Dodson, the lawyers assisting the commission in the NT.
It is alleged that Barbaro failed to disclose to the royal commission information received from Jeffrey Bindai, who was in an adjoining cell on the night of Douglas' death. The charges hold that Dodson was aware of this information and ensured that the witness was not brought before the royal commission.
In a statement sworn in 1996, Bindai stated that he saw four men going into Douglas' cell, after which he heard Douglas shouting for help. Bindai said that one of the prison officers told him "if you don't be quiet you will be next". This concurs with a statement from Bindai's cell-mate Laurie Percy, whose affidavit states they were forced to clean Douglas' blood from the floors, walls, inside the toilet and around the toilet.
Letty has also appealed for the photos of her husband (printed here) to be published to "put it in the court of public opinion". These photos provide crucial evidence of a cover-up of Douglas murder.
The mark that can be seen on Douglas' neck in the police photo number 19 shows an injury inconsistent with hanging. This injury was not recorded by the doctor in charge of the original autopsy, Dr Kevin Lee.
Lee and the Darwin Police CIB officer in charge of the crime scene, Detective Sergeant Michael Stevens have been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice for their failure to record this injury.
Lee stated that he believes the injury to be "an artefact, being a combination of shadowing and the normal anatomy of that area". This finding is contradicted by the reports of eight leading forensic doctors who have confirmed the injury is there, and that it is inconsistent with injuries that would have been sustained by the hanging depicted in the NT police photos.
These forensic experts have all come forward to help Letty Scott in her quest for justice. According to Dr Guy Nathan Rutty, the injury "cannot be a natural skin crease and lighting artefact". Professor Jorgen Thomsen, MD concluded: "It is not consistent with hanging — such as depicted." Professor Tohru Ohshima reported that "this finding is a ligature mark: the ligature mark runs almost horizontally, meaning that the running pattern is much different from that of the ligature mark by hanging".
Also disputed by Dr Lee is the existence of what appears to be cotton wool in Douglas' left ear (in police photo number 5). In a sworn statement, Lee denies that there is any "white material visible in the ... left ear".
A forensic report initiated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation in the United States in 2000 and prepared by some of the world's leading forensic experts also found that, based on the height of Douglas' cell, it would have been impossible for him to tie the sheet around the ceiling grate by standing on the floor. Given that the photograph does not show a stool near or below him, the report ruled the use of a stool as unlikely.
A stool appears in some of the police photos but not others, which has led the committee to raise concerns about the "unexplained difference in articles located within the crime scene".
Numerous forensic reports have also backed Letty's fight for an exhumation and re-autopsy of Douglas' body. Legal counsel Daniel Taylor told the ABC on November 6: "These doctors are qualified, and they've done exhumations up to 30 years later, and they want to look at all the remains, they want to look at the bones, they want to look at the cartilages, and examine to find out whether there's any fractures in the hyoid bone, which according to them, to the doctors, would be irrefutable evidence of homicide."
Letty repeated her demand for an exhumation in a letter to NT attorney-general Peter Toyne in early November. She wrote: "Our Indigenous people are dying and crying and burying our dead as our sons and husbands and daughters all are found hanging in police and prison cells across Australia. You put a stamp ... suicide — onto the hundreds of deaths in custody. Yet your white officers are gloating and laughing for getting away with murder. We are going to scream till these officers are brought to account for Douglas' murder."
Letty has appealed for all supporters of justice to be at the court hearing at 10am on January 11, 2005, at the Darwin Magistrates Court.
[For more information visit: <http://lettyscott.tripod.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 1, 2004.
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