Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was absolutely shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 2: absolutely really coming.
Speaker 1: Blood on his clothing. The day after the alleged a
Speaker 1: top on a show a mud bank and it fits
Speaker 1: through a river.
Speaker 2: Basically, I think most of the people are used to me,
Speaker 2: there are good people.
Speaker 1: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 1: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 2: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 2: our justice system and ask who are the victims.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Maguire and I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate
Speaker 1: for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this
Speaker 1: series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing
Speaker 1: content that might upset some listeners.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Curtain the podcast. Over the last weekend, my
Speaker 2: co host and I spent more than forty eight hours
Speaker 2: pouring over new information, new documents, and new evidence relating
Speaker 2: to the conviction of Kevin Curtin Henry. And there's a
Speaker 2: lot of very important information in there. And while we've
Speaker 2: gone through it, and we've found out a great deal
Speaker 2: of new things, certainly things that help point to Kevin
Speaker 2: Henry's innocence and also confirm many of the things we've
Speaker 2: discussed in this podcast. We haven't had a chance to
Speaker 2: go over it just enough yet to be able to
Speaker 2: broadcast it to the public. And of course, also you'd
Speaker 2: understand that because some of this information is going to
Speaker 2: be very useful for Kevin Henry in terms of presenting
Speaker 2: it to the parole board and presenting it for his pardon,
Speaker 2: we have to be quite careful what we make public
Speaker 2: at this stage. We will do so in coming weeks.
Speaker 2: So this week I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 2: about what's been going on in the past week or
Speaker 2: two in terms of Aboriginal and to Astraight Islander people
Speaker 2: in custody in Australia. We've seen three reports come out
Speaker 2: in the last few weeks detailing horrific conditions for Aboriginal
Speaker 2: in Torostraight Islanders in prison, and that includes people with
Speaker 2: disabilities and juveniles. We've also had further debts in custody
Speaker 2: that are unexplained and where police action has been completely inappropriate,
Speaker 2: and we've had some new reporting on exactly what is
Speaker 2: happening in Western Australia in the youth detention facility there.
Speaker 2: So this week I thought it was really important that
Speaker 2: we bring those issues further out into the open and
Speaker 2: explain them more. These are things that all really relate
Speaker 2: to what we're trying to do with Curtin, which is
Speaker 2: not only expose the innocence of Kevin Henry and the
Speaker 2: flawed system that's seen him in prison for twenty six years,
Speaker 2: but why this continues to happen. Many people may understand
Speaker 2: why things went so horribly wrong in nineteen ninety one
Speaker 2: and nineteen ninety two when Kevin was arrested and then
Speaker 2: placed on trial. That was the height of the Fitzgerald
Speaker 2: Days in Queensland. Police corruption was rampant, and we know
Speaker 2: from what we've exposed in this podcast so far, there
Speaker 2: is very serious questions to be answered about the police
Speaker 2: actions involved in the arrest and imprisonment of Kevin Henry,
Speaker 2: and we do have some more information on that for
Speaker 2: you in the coming weeks. But unfortunately in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: these issues still will continue. Just this week, we've heard
Speaker 2: about a juvenile in Western Australian detention who's been held
Speaker 2: in solitary confinement for the last three hundred and two days. Now,
Speaker 2: almost every international law that relates to solitary confinement rights
Speaker 2: of the child, as well as world's best practice in
Speaker 2: terms of how best to deal with children in detention,
Speaker 2: absolutely goes against the use of any kind of solitary
Speaker 2: confinement or these sort of harsh punishment methods. They are
Speaker 2: breaches of basic human rights. But for a child to
Speaker 2: be imprisoned in solitary confinement for three hundred and two
Speaker 2: days is absolutely disgraceful. And again, Western Australia has had
Speaker 2: more than its fair share of problems. As many people
Speaker 2: will know, mister an Aboriginal elder died while in a
Speaker 2: prison van in Western Australia. His death was brutal and horrific,
Speaker 2: and yet no one is in prison as a result.
Speaker 2: We also know about what happened to missed You, dying
Speaker 2: in custody for unpaid fines. We know the way the
Speaker 2: police treated her was absolutely appalling, serious crimes against humanity,
Speaker 2: and not a single officer charged or imprisoned over her death.
Speaker 2: And from that same state we now have a young
Speaker 2: boy in prison in what the government is trying to
Speaker 2: claim is an intensive support unit, but is really solitary confinement.
Speaker 2: And this young boy has been stripped of many rights
Speaker 2: that detainees should have. That includes deprivation of family contact
Speaker 2: and education. How is this child supposed to rehabilitate without
Speaker 2: education and family contact? Excessive use of force and disproportionate restraints. Now,
Speaker 2: this is exactly what we saw going on in Dondale
Speaker 2: in the Northern Territory. We've all seen the pictures and
Speaker 2: videos of what was done to Dylan Volla and the
Speaker 2: other boys in Dondale and that resulted in a royal commission.
Speaker 2: The fact that it's going on in Western Australia and
Speaker 2: more obviously in every other state in this country means
Speaker 2: we need a Royal commission not only into juvenile justice,
Speaker 2: but into the entire prison system. And I'll give more
Speaker 2: evidence for that as the podcast goes along. This child
Speaker 2: has also been subjected to degrading treatment in a war situation.
Speaker 2: If Australia was handling prisoners of war, these would be
Speaker 2: crimes against the Geneva Convention. And yet this is being
Speaker 2: done to a young child in detention in Western Australia.
Speaker 2: There's also been a serious lack of medical treatment for
Speaker 2: this child, including psychological care. And one thing that we
Speaker 2: do know about solitary confinement is that it absolutely worsens
Speaker 2: a person's medical and quite obviously psychological condition at a
Speaker 2: very very fast rate. Peer reviewed reports and journals have
Speaker 2: shown that in as little as forty eight hours a
Speaker 2: drastic impact on someone's psychological wellbeing can take place. And
Speaker 2: this is with adults who are not suffering any mental
Speaker 2: health issues at the time. So for a child who
Speaker 2: may have these, and we believe they do, to be
Speaker 2: in solitary confinement for three hundred and two days nearly
Speaker 2: a full year, is absolutely disgraceful and the West Australian
Speaker 2: government needs to fix this asap and WA Corrections must
Speaker 2: release this young boy into the general population of the
Speaker 2: prison immediately. Now. Just as disturbing in Western Australia is
Speaker 2: some further information that's come out about the Banksy Hill
Speaker 2: Juvenile Detention Center, and there's been a study and it
Speaker 2: was done by a medical institute by a number of
Speaker 2: leading professors in the field, and it has been published
Speaker 2: in the peer reviewed medical journal BMJ Open, which is
Speaker 2: also then peer reviewed by the largest database of medical
Speaker 2: journals on the planet. And this is what this peer
Speaker 2: reviewed science has found about West Australia's Banks Hill Juvet
Speaker 2: Nile Detention Center. That nine out of the ten young
Speaker 2: people assessed were suffering at least one form of severe
Speaker 2: brain impairment. That's ninety percent of the children have at
Speaker 2: least one form of severe brain impairment. The medical term
Speaker 2: is a neurodevelopmental impairment and it's on the severe end
Speaker 2: of the scale. Now, to compound that, sixty five percent
Speaker 2: of these young people, these are all people under the
Speaker 2: age of eighteen, had three or more forms of these
Speaker 2: severe brain impairments. Sixty five percent, twenty three percent had
Speaker 2: five or more severe brain impairments. Now, this is not
Speaker 2: kids just making things up. This is not just small
Speaker 2: issues that these children are facing. They were assessed by
Speaker 2: medical professors whose work was then peer reviewed by other
Speaker 2: highly qualified medical professionals before it was allowed to be
Speaker 2: published first in this journal BMJ Open and then more
Speaker 2: widely around the globe. And it's the sort of work
Speaker 2: that is accepted by the Surgeon General in the United
Speaker 2: States as being absolute fact. Now it should come as
Speaker 2: no surprise, sadly that seventy four percent of these children
Speaker 2: are Aboriginal males. Despite being only two percent of the population,
Speaker 2: seventy four percent of Aboriginal males have these disabilities, and
Speaker 2: rather than being cared for, are in prison. One of
Speaker 2: the other issues which we've spoken about previously in this
Speaker 2: podcast is the issue of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder or
Speaker 2: faz D. And there's been a number of experts who
Speaker 2: Amy's spoken to and written about over the years, and
Speaker 2: I'll provide some links to their works that have been
Speaker 2: saying this for decades, that a large number of those
Speaker 2: in custody, especially children, but adults as well, are suffering
Speaker 2: from faz D. These young people never had a chance.
Speaker 2: They need medical care, not imprisonment. Now, I want to
Speaker 2: remind you that again, seventy four percent of these young
Speaker 2: people with these severe brain injuries and brain impairments that
Speaker 2: are in custody are between the ages of ten and
Speaker 2: seventeen years old. Ten and seventeen, These are children. Now,
Speaker 2: this is the highest incidence of FASD ever discovered in
Speaker 2: a population in the world. These are young people who
Speaker 2: need a great deal of not only medical care, but
Speaker 2: family and psychological support and of course educational support. Is
Speaker 2: it any wonder that they're in prison when they haven't
Speaker 2: been provided these things. But here's what's most startling is
Speaker 2: that the vast bulk of these children had never been
Speaker 2: properly medically assessed. That means the children themselves and their
Speaker 2: parents had no idea their children were suffering these conditions,
Speaker 2: and the State of Western Australia has decided, rather than
Speaker 2: provide them with the care they need, where they should
Speaker 2: be in their communities, with their families, in school and
Speaker 2: being looked after, they're being locked in jail. Now we
Speaker 2: can understand why children suffering such severe medical conditions would
Speaker 2: often act out, and perhaps it's inappropriate social behavior small theft.
Speaker 2: These are not children who have committed major crimes. The
Speaker 2: young people suffering neurodevelopment impairments that are very very serious,
Speaker 2: and yet they are being held in a juvenile detention
Speaker 2: center that quite frankly resembles a maximum security prison. And
Speaker 2: what these medical professionals are recommending is that these young
Speaker 2: people should not be in prison, that what they really
Speaker 2: need is, as I've just said, the support and care
Speaker 2: of their community and the government. The professors were heavily
Speaker 2: critical of almost every department, from health, Education, Justice, child
Speaker 2: protection and everyone who intervenes in these children's lives. These
Speaker 2: are the departments and the people who work for them
Speaker 2: who are supposed to help these children, but instead they
Speaker 2: throw them in jail, and they throw seventy four percent
Speaker 2: of them are young Aboriginal boys between ten and seventeen.
Speaker 2: This is an absolutely racist policy by the Western Australian
Speaker 2: government and it targets Aboriginal children who need medical care
Speaker 2: and not imprisonment. And once again we need people to
Speaker 2: step up and call on the Western Australian government to
Speaker 2: release these children, and not only just release them, but
Speaker 2: to ensure that they undo the damage that they've done
Speaker 2: to these young people. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Speaker 2: If that wasn't bad enough, international organization Human Rights Watch
Speaker 2: released a new report less than two weeks ago, and
Speaker 2: it deals with prisoners in Australia who have a disability,
Speaker 2: and this is adult prisoners, male and female, right around
Speaker 2: the country and they spoke to one hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: six former and current prisoners with disabilities from fourteen prisons
Speaker 2: around Australia. Of those one hundred and thirty six they
Speaker 2: spoke to, forty one reported experiencing physical violence at the
Speaker 2: hands of not only fellow prisoners but also staff, and
Speaker 2: thirty two described being sexually assaulted by either fellow prisoners
Speaker 2: or staff. Now, this is around twenty percent of those
Speaker 2: disabled prisoners who were sexually assaulted in prison. Again, a
Speaker 2: lot of these people were, no surprise, Aboriginal people. Once again,
Speaker 2: the racist system in this country where the incarceration rates
Speaker 2: of Aboriginal people are criminally high. And as we've discussed
Speaker 2: previously on this podcast, there's a lot of reasons for that,
Speaker 2: and I won't go into them right now because we
Speaker 2: have been over them before. But clearly, when you incarcerate
Speaker 2: Aboriginal people at a criminal level, when courts, police and
Speaker 2: governments are not only just failing Aboriginal people but locking
Speaker 2: them up either innocent people, people with mental health conditions, disabilities,
Speaker 2: people are being failed by legal centers and legal practices
Speaker 2: who are not defending them in an appropriate manner nor
Speaker 2: anywhere near the level that should be required of a
Speaker 2: proper defense. And here we have disabled people not just
Speaker 2: slipping through the cracks and finding themselves in prison where
Speaker 2: for the most part they're being incarcerated for quite minor crimes.
Speaker 2: They are now being on top of the disability they
Speaker 2: also already face on top of being in prison for
Speaker 2: often trivial matters, now they are being physically and sexually abused,
Speaker 2: both by fellow inmates and worse by staff. A senior
Speaker 2: nurse assigned to a prison told Human Rights Watch that
Speaker 2: six of the eight current prison careers in their facility
Speaker 2: will convicted sex offenders. So these are people assigned to
Speaker 2: look after disabled people in the prison, sex offenders who
Speaker 2: are then going on to perpetrate sex crimes inside prison,
Speaker 2: and they are targeting vulnerable people like those with disabilities.
Speaker 2: What we also learned from this report is because prisons
Speaker 2: often aren't equipped to deal with those who are suffering
Speaker 2: with disabilities. Let's remember that the broader society and broader
Speaker 2: community is not doing a good job at all in
Speaker 2: assisting those with disabilities. That's why we needed the NDS,
Speaker 2: And sadly, the rollout of the NDIS has been full
Speaker 2: of problems and the horror stories continue for those suffering
Speaker 2: with disabilities and their families. And yet we're finding Aboriginal
Speaker 2: peace people with disabilities, and people from the general community
Speaker 2: with disabilities in jail. And what this report showed is
Speaker 2: that the inability of prisons to care for these people
Speaker 2: adequately meant that up to thirty percent of the disabled
Speaker 2: prisoners reported having been placed in solitary confinement for a
Speaker 2: considerable period of time, and nearly all of those who
Speaker 2: were spoken to by Human Rights Watch had been placed
Speaker 2: in solitary confinement at some point during their incarceration. Now,
Speaker 2: what has occurred with a number of these people who
Speaker 2: spoke to Human Rights Watch is, in addition to their disability,
Speaker 2: they've come out of prison with new conditions, most notably
Speaker 2: post traumatic stress disorder, and many are still suffering severe
Speaker 2: bouts of anxiety, depression, flashbacks, and a whole range of
Speaker 2: mental illnesses that they now have to deal with on
Speaker 2: top of their current disability. Post Traumatic stress disorder is
Speaker 2: something that is developed generally in a response, as the
Speaker 2: name would suggest, to a very traumatic incident. We know
Speaker 2: this occurs when people return from war, people who have
Speaker 2: been sexually assaulted, those who have been physically assaulted, women
Speaker 2: who have been continually abused via family violence, and young
Speaker 2: children who suffer the same. And this is being done
Speaker 2: to vulnerable people by the state in prisons. A prisoner
Speaker 2: reported this to Human Rights Watch about the particular prison
Speaker 2: they were in and Human Rights Watch was able to
Speaker 2: say speak to a senior psychologist who was in charge
Speaker 2: of dealing with this person. This senior psychologist conceded that
Speaker 2: the prison and the prison staff often struggled to deal
Speaker 2: with people with disabilities, and that the custodial staff hadn't
Speaker 2: been trained and weren't equipped to deal with both complex
Speaker 2: mental health issues and other disability behaviors. And so what
Speaker 2: ends up happening is solitary confinement becomes the last resort,
Speaker 2: and this contributes to severe harm to these prisoners. Once again,
Speaker 2: we have governments asleep at the wheel, totally ignoring what
Speaker 2: is being done to prisoners who were disabled, an aboriginal torrestrate, islander, men,
Speaker 2: women and children who are over incarcerated and being abused
Speaker 2: inside prison. The very people who are supposed to uphold
Speaker 2: the laws and watch those who are supposedly criminals are
Speaker 2: committing heinous crimes against some of society's most vulnerable people.
Speaker 2: If ever, there was a case for a royal commission,
Speaker 2: what we've spoken about in this podcast so far today
Speaker 2: lays that out very clearly, as our listeners will know
Speaker 2: when we've spoken about this on the podcast before. But
Speaker 2: of course, many of you know this already because it
Speaker 2: is such a big issue in the Indigenous community. Is
Speaker 2: that we already have had a Royal commission into Black
Speaker 2: deaths in custody that also looked at the treatment of
Speaker 2: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prison. And sadly,
Speaker 2: as we call for a new Royal commission into the
Speaker 2: way all our prisons are run, we have to report
Speaker 2: that in the last few weeks there's been further deaths
Speaker 2: in custody. In Townsville, a young man who was being
Speaker 2: detained in his thirties by police became unconscious, as the
Speaker 2: police would say, after he was taken into custody. And
Speaker 2: this was very shortly after he'd been taken into custody,
Speaker 2: and sadly, any attempt at the hospital to save this
Speaker 2: man's life were unsuccessful and he passed away. How does
Speaker 2: someone come into contact with police and then in mere
Speaker 2: seconds be unconscious and then die from those injuries, and
Speaker 2: yet not a single one of these police officers have
Speaker 2: been charged, even with assault. People don't just drop dead
Speaker 2: for no reason. This man died in the hands of
Speaker 2: police in mere moments. Once again, all we've had is
Speaker 2: a commitment that there'll be a coronial inquest. Well, there's
Speaker 2: been coronial inquests into virtually every one of the four
Speaker 2: hundred deaths in custody that Aboriginal in Torrestrate Islander people
Speaker 2: have suffered in the last twenty five years, and not
Speaker 2: a single police officer has been charged and convicted. Are
Speaker 2: we seriously meant to believe that Aboriginal people simply just
Speaker 2: dropped dead for no reason? Now, this wasn't the only
Speaker 2: death in custody. Three days apart from the incident in Townsville,
Speaker 2: a young Aboriginal man was being chased by police. This
Speaker 2: was a young man known to police who was suffering
Speaker 2: from health and mental health issues. Despite knowing this, the
Speaker 2: police kicked a door in and chased the young man.
Speaker 2: He fell from the thirteenth floor of a multi story
Speaker 2: building and tragically passed away. This once again highlights the
Speaker 2: police's total inability and failure to deal with issues such
Speaker 2: as mental health and disability, and their complete lack of
Speaker 2: regard for the life of Aboriginal entres Strait Islander people's.
Speaker 2: If this was anyone else, a mental health team would
Speaker 2: have been assigned to take care of the incident, but
Speaker 2: instead the police kicked in the door. They acted like
Speaker 2: a swat team. This was not a murderer they were
Speaker 2: going after. This was not someone who had committed a
Speaker 2: series of bank robberies. This was a young Aboriginal man
Speaker 2: who was no doubt suffering issues and it is believed
Speaker 2: had been taking illicit substances that would of course caused
Speaker 2: him to panic even further. And yet, rather than handle
Speaker 2: this in the delicate manner police are supposed to protect
Speaker 2: and serve the community, they chased this man to his death.
Speaker 2: Just three days Apart from police having an Aboriginal man
Speaker 2: die in their hands, how did he just die? Why
Speaker 2: was this young man chased to his death? And there's
Speaker 2: been other debts in custody in the last two weeks
Speaker 2: that for cultural reasons, we won't discuss in this episode.
Speaker 2: But again it highlights what's going on in this country.
Speaker 2: And yet we hear nothing from the ministers responsible. The
Speaker 2: Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scully, and gave a lengthy
Speaker 2: interview to the ABC just two days ago, these issues
Speaker 2: were not touched on once. He spent the first half
Speaker 2: of that lengthy interview speaking to the nation talking about
Speaker 2: the leadership of his own political party, and he was
Speaker 2: backing Barnaby Joyce, who has now been sacked, who is
Speaker 2: now facing claims of sexual misconduct, above and beyond everything
Speaker 2: else he's been caught up in. Now these are just
Speaker 2: allegations at this stage we have to stress. But why
Speaker 2: is the Minister for Indigenous Affairs spending half of a
Speaker 2: national address that's nearly thirty minutes long defending someone in
Speaker 2: a position of power accused of these things and not
Speaker 2: speaking out about the consistent and constant death of Aboriginal
Speaker 2: people for absolutely no reason at the hands of police
Speaker 2: and correctional officers, The abuse of Aboriginal and Torrestrait Island
Speaker 2: to people in prison with disabilities, the abuse of Aboriginal
Speaker 2: and Tostras Made Islander children as young as ten who
Speaker 2: are being placed in solitary confinement, and the sexual and
Speaker 2: physical assault of Aboriginal and Terrestraight Islander children in prison.
Speaker 2: This demands a royal commission. But more than that, it
Speaker 2: demands swift action. Any day a child, an innocent person,
Speaker 2: a vulnerable person is in prison one day more than
Speaker 2: they need to be, is damaging their life forever. And
Speaker 2: for those who have passed away, they cannot be brought back.
Speaker 2: Next week could very well bring more deaths in custody,
Speaker 2: and yet these will be needless deaths. They won't happen
Speaker 2: to anyone but Aboriginal and Terrestraight Islander people. And yet
Speaker 2: those in charge of the welfare of Aboriginal Interrostraate Islander
Speaker 2: people around this country remain deathly silent. Next week we'll
Speaker 2: have more damning evidence against those involved in putting Kevin
Speaker 2: Henry falsely behind bars, an innocent man. But until that time,
Speaker 2: I ask you all to reflect on exactly what's going
Speaker 2: on in this country and why the media and politicians
Speaker 2: are not doing their job in fixing these issues immediately.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to help us continue our work, please
Speaker 2: consider supporting us through Patreon, which is on our website
Speaker 2: at www dot Curtin the Podcast dot com, and you
Speaker 2: can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at Curtin
Speaker 2: the Podcast