Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 2: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 3: It was absolutely shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 3: absolutely really.
Speaker 2: Heaalous blood on his clothing the day after the alleged
Speaker 2: at top on.
Speaker 4: A shallow mud bank, and it fits Roy River.
Speaker 1: Basically.
Speaker 3: I think most of the people are used to me
Speaker 3: are good people.
Speaker 4: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 4: 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. I'm
Speaker 2: Amy Maguire and I'm.
Speaker 4: Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service.
Speaker 4: And a warning, this series contains the names of deceased
Speaker 4: peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Speaker 5: Hello and welcome to Curtain, the podcast. We're recording this
Speaker 5: episode today in the midst of some very sad news
Speaker 5: that's coming out of Western Australia and in the town
Speaker 5: of Gerlton. This morning, it was announced that an Aboriginal
Speaker 5: woman was killed by police. She'd actually been shot by
Speaker 5: a police officer, and an investigation has already begun, but already,
Speaker 5: in some of the media reporting has relied very heavily
Speaker 5: on the police version of events and in some ways
Speaker 5: has already set them up to absolve them of any
Speaker 5: potential wrongdoing. So we're talking today about the way the
Speaker 5: justice system treats Aboriginal women specifically, and it's a topic
Speaker 5: that we've broached several times over the course of this
Speaker 5: podcast because of the way that Linda, the victim in
Speaker 5: this case, was treated, But we feel we need to
Speaker 5: go into it in more depth because just this year,
Speaker 5: there's been a number of cases that really shows just
Speaker 5: how Aboriginal women are dehumanized in the eyes of the
Speaker 5: law and in the eyes of the media, which so
Speaker 5: heavily relies on them for their reporting, in which then
Speaker 5: represents and which then carries that message to the rest
Speaker 5: of the public. So our heart goes out to the
Speaker 5: woman's family over in Wa today, because we've obviously seen
Speaker 5: through Mardin and my own work, just how it impacts
Speaker 5: the family, just how these injustices can tear.
Speaker 6: Apart even a community.
Speaker 5: And I note that this Aboriginal woman who's passed away
Speaker 5: had a seven year old son as well, So our
Speaker 5: thoughts going out to not only her family, but the
Speaker 5: community in Geraldton and all the extended communities across WA
Speaker 5: and maybe even nationally that she may have been a
Speaker 5: part of. Today, we're going to begin by taking you
Speaker 5: back twenty nine years to another case that is close
Speaker 5: to both of our hearts, and it's in relation to
Speaker 5: an Aboriginal girl named Colleen Walker. Colleen was last seen
Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety one year before Linda death, down in
Speaker 5: the mid North Coast community of Barraval and specifically on
Speaker 5: the Mission. She was the first of the three Bowerville
Speaker 5: children to have gone missing around that time. Over the
Speaker 5: next few months, Evelyn Greenups would go missing and later
Speaker 5: be found dead she was only three years old, and
Speaker 5: then Clinton Speedy Dureau was later found murdered as well.
Speaker 5: And all of these cases have been tied together. But
Speaker 5: we're going to talk specifically about Colleen today because just
Speaker 5: earlier this month it was the twenty ninth anniversary of
Speaker 5: her disappearance, and Colleen has never been found, and I
Speaker 5: know that that has been a cause of real grief
Speaker 5: and distress to her family who have never been able
Speaker 5: to lay her to rest Martin. When we read about
Speaker 5: the Barraval case, it becomes very obvious that the police
Speaker 5: perspective on Colleen as an Aboriginal woman had very much
Speaker 5: colored the way they conducted their instigation. To begin with,
Speaker 5: they basically claim that she'd gone walk about, and they
Speaker 5: even questioned her mother, Muriel, about whether she was even
Speaker 5: her daughter because Colin was fair skinned. This is quite
Speaker 5: a common thing to happen to Aboriginal women, and I
Speaker 5: think so. I think it really shows the police conduct
Speaker 5: towards Colleen's family at that time. It shows how often
Speaker 5: the issue of aboriginality and gender really combined to prejudice
Speaker 5: the way the police approached these cases.
Speaker 6: Can you tell me a little bit about that. How does.
Speaker 5: I mean back at that time? Was that a very
Speaker 5: common common thing to happen In your opinion?
Speaker 3: I think it was incredibly common then, and unfortunately it's
Speaker 3: still common now. When Colin's family in the past week
Speaker 3: have been discussing the fact that it's been twenty nine years,
Speaker 3: one thing I've gone and done is just have a
Speaker 3: look at the way the police report missing persons, but
Speaker 3: particularly young women. We have to remember that Colleen was
Speaker 3: a child she was just sixteen years old at the time,
Speaker 3: and so normally the police reaction is very swift when
Speaker 3: a child goes missing, and a lot of people will say, well,
Speaker 3: if Colleen was on the North Shore or somewhere like that.
Speaker 3: And there's a number of cases. I won't name them
Speaker 3: because it's unfair to the children, but there was obviously
Speaker 3: a very high profile case a few years ago on
Speaker 3: the North Shore where a young woman went missing for
Speaker 3: less than twenty four hours that gained enormous media attention.
Speaker 3: But just in the past few weeks there's been cases
Speaker 3: in both Queensland and New South Wales of children fifteen,
Speaker 3: sixteen and seventeen. Young girls the same age as Colleen
Speaker 3: was when she went missing. They'refrom a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.
Speaker 1: One young woman was from an.
Speaker 3: Asian background, another from an African background, and the police
Speaker 3: immediately was supportive of the family, have covered social media
Speaker 3: with missing persons information, have called for the public to
Speaker 3: provide information that would lead to their whereabouts. So there's
Speaker 3: been no questioning in any of those cases about the
Speaker 3: family and their involvement, or whether the child is really theirs,
Speaker 3: whether the child is really missing. In fact, or just
Speaker 3: gone walk about, as the police claimed with Colleen. So
Speaker 3: it's something that still goes on to this day and
Speaker 3: is very specific to.
Speaker 1: Aboriginal people and Aboriginal families.
Speaker 3: No other community is treated in this way, and I
Speaker 3: think we have to be very clear about that. There
Speaker 3: is a reason why when we talk about debts in custody,
Speaker 3: the unsolved murders of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander women, why
Speaker 3: the numbers are so stark compared to any other group
Speaker 3: in society, and it is because of the way Aboriginal
Speaker 3: women are treated exclusively compared to anyone else.
Speaker 5: Madam, could you imagine, I mean, this seemed to be
Speaker 5: quite It's been said quite a few times, both from
Speaker 5: the police who actually reinvestigated the original investigation, but also
Speaker 5: it's been said in the media by supportive politicians that
Speaker 5: this was quite an open and shutcase. So I can
Speaker 5: imagine that if the police had taken Colleen's case seriously
Speaker 5: at the time, you know, she may have been found already.
Speaker 5: Right now, the passage of time has not only compounded
Speaker 5: the family's grief, but it has also really prohibited another
Speaker 5: getting this case back in court. And as I understand
Speaker 5: that Colleen's case has never actually been taken to court
Speaker 5: because her body has never been found. Do you think
Speaker 5: things could have been different if Colleen had been treated
Speaker 5: in the right way or her case had been taken seriously?
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I think if the family had been being believed from
Speaker 3: the outset, I think, unfortunately, Colleen's body would have been found.
Speaker 3: I say unfortunately because I think she would have already
Speaker 3: been killed by the time the family were aware she
Speaker 3: was missing, as was the case with the other children.
Speaker 3: But it would have given the police a much greater
Speaker 3: chance of solving the crime and catching the.
Speaker 1: Person who.
Speaker 3: Clearly has committed the other murders, and it would have
Speaker 3: prevented those other murders that took place a period of
Speaker 3: time after. What we know about Colleen's case is, even
Speaker 3: though her body was never found, her clothes were found
Speaker 3: in the nanbucka river weighted down. Now, that is a
Speaker 3: deliberate act. This is not an accident. Someone has taken
Speaker 3: considerable measure to do this. This is someone who knows
Speaker 3: what they're doing, and I think it's obvious given the
Speaker 3: follow up murders as well. Now, there's a TV show
Speaker 3: that most people probably know called First forty eight about
Speaker 3: the first forty eight hours after a murder's taken place.
Speaker 1: Many TV shows, and I would.
Speaker 3: Say the fast majority bear no resemblance to how police
Speaker 3: investigations work in the real world, but that one does
Speaker 3: because it follows real police and those first forty eight
Speaker 3: hours are crucial. In that time, the police did nothing
Speaker 3: for Colleen. They did nothing for days, weeks, months, years,
Speaker 3: and it is absolutely their responsibility and their fail those
Speaker 3: initial investigating officers that this has not been solved, and
Speaker 3: that they could have prevented the murder of Clinton and Evelyn,
Speaker 3: and that the real killer, who's never been brought to justice,
Speaker 3: could have long been serving a life sentence. In fact,
Speaker 3: as you mentioned earlier, it's been twenty nine years. That
Speaker 3: person should have been in prison for that twenty nine
Speaker 3: years and still be there today.
Speaker 1: But because.
Speaker 3: Colleen was Aboriginal and her family were, that person remains free.
Speaker 1: And it's only because she was Aboriginal.
Speaker 5: And you mentioned about the fact that no other group
Speaker 5: in Australia is ever treated like this. We have a
Speaker 5: lot of international listeners and I think it's important to
Speaker 5: note to them that you know.
Speaker 6: This is not just the police who thinks this.
Speaker 5: This is a society that has been largely set up
Speaker 5: on the dehumanization of Aboriginal women.
Speaker 6: And so this is a really long.
Speaker 5: There's been a really long history of Aboriginal women through
Speaker 5: the generations basically being treated as disposable, and I think
Speaker 5: that's what led into the way the police treated Colleen's
Speaker 5: family that day.
Speaker 6: There's this.
Speaker 5: Belief and assumption that's never really challenged that Aboriginal women
Speaker 5: are worthless, almost and I think that's why we see
Speaker 5: so many cases and we're going to talk a bit
Speaker 5: today where Aboriginal women are the victim of violence, not
Speaker 5: only violence interpersonal violence, but also state sanctioned violence, and
Speaker 5: it's never be met by outrage at all. And if Colleen,
Speaker 5: Colleen's case had been taken seriously by the police, but
Speaker 5: also the media at the time, because straight away the
Speaker 5: Barable families were out protesting Innbearable and Bearable at the
Speaker 5: time was a racist place. I mean, it's still a
Speaker 5: racist place, had a long history of segregation. But they
Speaker 5: were protesting from the very get go because they knew
Speaker 5: straight away that something had happened to their kids. It's
Speaker 5: instead the police were investigating them for child abuse when
Speaker 5: the families actually knew that something really dodgy and horrendous
Speaker 5: had gone on, but even then, the media and the
Speaker 5: rest of Australia didn't rise up for these kids. And
Speaker 5: I think that goes back to the value that's so
Speaker 5: often placed on Aboriginal women by society, and over in
Speaker 5: Canada particularly, they've had a national inquiry into missing a
Speaker 5: murdered Aboriginal women because it's been a huge issue over
Speaker 5: that there and it's gone on for so long. Whether
Speaker 5: there's been so many cases of missing a murdered Aboriginal
Speaker 5: women that have never been properly looked into, and in
Speaker 5: fact the police have been been involved in some of
Speaker 5: those cases. But the reason that that has been opened
Speaker 5: up as an issue is because of the long history
Speaker 5: of advocacy from Aboriginal women and the families of these women.
Speaker 5: I think in Australia, I think we have potentially a
Speaker 5: similar a similar case over here, only we have lower
Speaker 5: numbers of Aboriginal women, like we have a lot or population,
Speaker 5: and there's never been proper statistics into it at all,
Speaker 5: or there's not appropriate homicide statistics even currently, and a
Speaker 5: lot of discourses around family violence, so we don't have
Speaker 5: that same situation where we're actually looking into it properly
Speaker 5: as in Canada.
Speaker 6: But I just wanted to provide that.
Speaker 5: Context, particularly not only for our international listeners but also
Speaker 5: our Australian listeners who can't get their head around how
Speaker 5: this being a woman, but being an Aboriginal woman could
Speaker 5: lead to such a devaluation of life in the eyes
Speaker 5: of the law.
Speaker 3: I think, just briefly to touch on and add to what
Speaker 3: you've said, is that we've seen in the last few
Speaker 3: years a number of murders of non Indigenous women where
Speaker 3: media coverage rightfully has been blanket coverage. We've seen a
Speaker 3: lot large amount of interest from politicians, from the community sector,
Speaker 3: the health sector, and right across society, but particularly the
Speaker 3: media has covered these cases with great sympathy, empathy and compassion,
Speaker 3: as they should.
Speaker 1: But as Amy and I are aware, just in.
Speaker 3: The course of investigating what happened to Linda, we know
Speaker 3: of a number of cases of Aboriginal women being murdered
Speaker 3: that are still unsolved to this day. There was another
Speaker 3: case in Rockhampton before Linda was murdered, where the body
Speaker 3: was placed in the river. There was an Aboriginal woman
Speaker 3: murdered on the Queensland New South Wales border that remains unsolved,
Speaker 3: and Australia dotted with these cases to receive none of
Speaker 3: the media attention, none of the public support, no politician
Speaker 3: ever comes out to support the families. And what you
Speaker 3: end up with these decades of suffering and trauma for
Speaker 3: the families and never any justice whatsoever. And it's strictly
Speaker 3: because the women who were the victims of these horrific
Speaker 3: crimes were Aboriginal and their killers go free, and there
Speaker 3: seems to be no concern whatsoever to amend the way
Speaker 3: we think about these cases in the first place, and
Speaker 3: that begins with how we value the humanity of aberigem
Speaker 3: and women.
Speaker 5: And I just also wanted to add on to that, Martin.
Speaker 5: I mean talking about Linda's case, but also Colleen's case,
Speaker 5: which occurred only the year before, only probably a few months.
Speaker 6: Before Linda died.
Speaker 5: So this was a time when there was a Royal
Speaker 5: commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody and the commission was
Speaker 5: very much focused. I mean there was nine to nine cases,
Speaker 5: about eleven of them were Aboriginal women who died in custody,
Speaker 5: but the commission was very much focused on Aboriginal men,
Speaker 5: and they didn't really look into the role of gender
Speaker 5: or the very specific or the very specific forms of
Speaker 5: violence that were perpetrated against Aboriginal women because of gender
Speaker 5: and race colliding.
Speaker 6: But around that time, a lot of.
Speaker 5: Aboriginal women, like Judy Atkinson and Body Robertson were actually
Speaker 5: talking about the fact that there was a problem around
Speaker 5: violence against Aberagin women.
Speaker 6: A lot of Aboriginal women were.
Speaker 5: Dying and there was no justice and there was no
Speaker 5: protection to prevent it.
Speaker 6: And yet we never heard about these cases.
Speaker 5: And I think that was very true of Linda and Colleen,
Speaker 5: because we didn't hear about Linda or Colleen in nine
Speaker 5: ninety or nine ninety one. I mean Linda's Linda's Linda's
Speaker 5: picture was on the front page the day after she
Speaker 5: was found, but then it slowly retreated to the back pages.
Speaker 5: And as we know, the murder was apparently solved in
Speaker 5: a week and they got the wrong person, and so
Speaker 5: the police hadn't even cared enough to investigate it. Meanwhile,
Speaker 5: there was a national wide focus on destin custody, which
Speaker 5: I'm not I'm not putting the two isshes, I'm not
Speaker 5: comparing the two isshes in any way or or saying
Speaker 5: that they shouldn't have been that focus, but the fact
Speaker 5: that there wasn't a specific focus, particularly on the unique
Speaker 5: experiences of Aboriginal women, not just in relation to interpersonal violence,
Speaker 5: the violence perpetrated against them, but also violence in the
Speaker 5: state system and the way the police approaches victims of
Speaker 5: homicide who are Aboriginal. I think it just speaks volumes
Speaker 5: about how Aboriginal women are continually disregarded in so many
Speaker 5: nationwide debates which have which have really led to this
Speaker 5: situation where we don't really know the full scale of
Speaker 5: the situation other than anecdotes that we know from our
Speaker 5: own experiences in communities all across the country.
Speaker 3: And I think that that leads into the fact that
Speaker 3: we are talking about a number of cases that occurred
Speaker 3: nearly thirty years ago, but back when that Layal Commission
Speaker 3: was taking place. But one of the truly shocking things
Speaker 3: is that not only was it a missed opportunity at
Speaker 3: the time, as you say, to look at the very
Speaker 3: specific types of violence and injustice average and the women faced.
Speaker 3: But people have to get it out of their minds
Speaker 3: that this is something that stopped, as we know with
Speaker 3: Miss du her death wasn't just a result of police action,
Speaker 3: it was also the health department, and she'd.
Speaker 1: Been the victim of domestic violence.
Speaker 3: In the case of Miss Maher in New South Wales,
Speaker 3: I think there's been a great deal of bad reporting
Speaker 3: on exactly what happened and why she died, And one
Speaker 3: of the reasons that led to her death in custody
Speaker 3: was the fact that she was wrongly.
Speaker 1: Reported to be HIV positive.
Speaker 3: She in fact had had a test that had returned
Speaker 3: HIV negative, but was reported to the police who were
Speaker 3: detaining her for being intoxicated in public, which is something
Speaker 3: that should never occur. And so this misinformation about an
Speaker 3: Aboriginal woman must have come from a health department and
Speaker 3: then was relayed and simply assumed even though it was
Speaker 3: inaccurate by the police. Now, not only does that suggest
Speaker 3: that the police handle Aboriginal women very differently, but so
Speaker 3: too does the health department, and all her humanity was
Speaker 3: stripped aside. If she had been indeed HIV positive, which
Speaker 3: she wasn't, then it should which is what the police assumed.
Speaker 3: Then her health should have been placed at an even
Speaker 3: greater importance. This is a serious health condition, but instead
Speaker 3: it was used as a way to reduce her humanity
Speaker 3: even further to the point that they simply let her
Speaker 3: die in one of their cells and did nothing to
Speaker 3: ever get help for her at any point. I think
Speaker 3: what we see is that nothing's changed in this thirty years.
Speaker 1: It's thirty years since the.
Speaker 3: Royal Commission, twenty nine years since Colleen went missing, and
Speaker 3: nothing's changed. So where the Royal Commission, I think we
Speaker 3: have to accept failed was in any understanding of the
Speaker 3: way society as well as the justice system.
Speaker 1: Has failed Aboriginal women.
Speaker 3: And as you rightly pointed out, there was Aboriginal women
Speaker 3: at the time and long before that were pointing this out.
Speaker 3: And I think if we're going to get to the
Speaker 3: bottom of this, we don't need a Royal Commission. We
Speaker 3: need a truth and justice commission that is led by
Speaker 3: Aboriginal women who have the experiences to get to the
Speaker 3: bottom of this, because truthfully, they already know the answers.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to come back to Rebecca Mar's case.
Speaker 5: So Rebecca Mar had actually been picked up off the
Speaker 5: street in cessnock Down near Newcastle, and she passed away
Speaker 5: in the police watchhouse and it took a while for
Speaker 5: the actual details of her death to come out in
Speaker 5: the media. I actually don't think it would have come
Speaker 5: out without press releases from the Aboriginal Legal Service down there.
Speaker 5: But at the time there was a very specific narrative
Speaker 5: that preempted any investigation into her death. And it's why
Speaker 5: we're only hearing really now what actually went on, and
Speaker 5: that was because of an inquest. But there was a
Speaker 5: narrative about the fact that the Custody and Notification Service
Speaker 5: should have been called, even though at the time, because
Speaker 5: she hadn't been charged with anything, they probably wouldn't have
Speaker 5: called it anyway, even if they had called the CNS.
Speaker 5: In your South Wales, how did that narrative actually dominate
Speaker 5: and I guess overpower the really other crucial issues that
Speaker 5: led to Rebecca's Mars death.
Speaker 7: In your opinion, well, I think what we saw the
Speaker 7: most well known aspect of Miss Marr's death was an
Speaker 7: editorial given on the project by Wali Dai, and it
Speaker 7: largely revolved around things like the CNS and how that.
Speaker 1: Could have prevented Miss Marr's death.
Speaker 3: The Custody Notification Service could not have prevented Miss Marr's death,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately that editorial on the project was allowed to
Speaker 3: dictate the way the case was analyzed without any information.
Speaker 3: It was done largely based on information that was in
Speaker 3: our accurate and.
Speaker 1: Wrong provided by the police.
Speaker 3: There's also been some misreporting recent Aboriginal people in New
Speaker 3: South Wales cannot be arrested for being intoxicated. Well, the
Speaker 3: recent coronial inquest set that straight and this is what
Speaker 3: the coroner had to say on that matter. Rebecca was
Speaker 3: detained to the Maitland Police station as an intoxicated person
Speaker 3: persuayant to Section two six y four of the LPRA.
Speaker 3: We need to stop having reporters in major media outlets
Speaker 3: reporting that people can't be taken into police custody because
Speaker 3: of intoxication in New South Wales.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened to Miss.
Speaker 3: Marr Now, the other issue that we need to know
Speaker 3: here is that Miss Marl was not intoxicated with alcohol,
Speaker 3: which is the reason that she was kicked up in
Speaker 3: the first place by police. Intoxication does not trigger a
Speaker 3: custody notification call, so it wouldn't have prevented her death.
Speaker 3: But let's say even if the law was updated to
Speaker 3: include the fact that a person taken into police cassidy
Speaker 3: because of intoxication triggered that call. By the time anyone
Speaker 3: got to that police station, miss marr was already on
Speaker 3: the way to die. She was already dying, and that
Speaker 3: has been proven by the inquest. A phone call to
Speaker 3: a lawyer does not save a person who is in
Speaker 3: immediate danger. In our cells, the narrative we should be
Speaker 3: pushing is not for an expansion of calling telephone numbers.
Speaker 3: It should be for police to leave Aboriginal people alone.
Speaker 3: Miss maher was either so unwell that she needed to
Speaker 3: be in a hospital, or she'd committed no crime at
Speaker 3: all and should be left to do what she wanted
Speaker 3: to do. She was a free person who had not
Speaker 3: committed a crime. Now, one of the issues was that
Speaker 3: police assumed she failed to report to police, which was
Speaker 3: mandatory at the time, based on some conditions Miss Marl
Speaker 3: was under she'd gone out of her way to report
Speaker 3: to police at another police station so that she didn't
Speaker 3: miss the reporting time. So this is someone who has
Speaker 3: not broken a law, who's gone out of their way
Speaker 3: to conform with some absurd rules about reporting to police,
Speaker 3: who was sick at the time, who wasn't intoxicated on alcohol,
Speaker 3: and yet the solution is somehow given to us that
Speaker 3: the way to prevent her death is to call a
Speaker 3: telephone number.
Speaker 1: This is a lethal solution to propose, and it was.
Speaker 3: Found by the coroner that it would not have prevented
Speaker 3: her death, and it's not a solution that should be
Speaker 3: cooked forward by anyone. The police if they're going to intervene.
Speaker 3: If they're going to intervene, should either be required to
Speaker 3: call an ambulance if the person is so unwell that
Speaker 3: intervention is required, or the person should simply be left alone.
Speaker 3: That is the state for every other person in Australia
Speaker 3: or not Indigenous people.
Speaker 1: It should be the same for Aboriginal people.
Speaker 5: And Martin, I think we've seen exactly how dangerous the
Speaker 5: police can be to Aboriginal women with the fact that
Speaker 5: today we've had another black death in custody, so I
Speaker 5: think it's very It shows the way Aboriginal women are
Speaker 5: treated almost as criminals, even for just walking down the
Speaker 5: street minding your own business.
Speaker 6: Rebecca mar was criminalized.
Speaker 5: I think that really brings us to the other case
Speaker 5: we're going to talk about today, and it's another case
Speaker 5: of an Aboriginal woman being treated as a criminal when
Speaker 5: she was really defending herself. And that's the case of
Speaker 5: Jody Gore. And not many people know about this case.
Speaker 5: In fact, it wasn't well known at all until the
Speaker 5: West Australian newspaper actually have put it on its front
Speaker 5: page over the past month and they've been running a
Speaker 5: long series of features to their credit on the front
Speaker 5: page calling for justice for Jodi.
Speaker 6: And Jody Gore is.
Speaker 5: An Aboriginal woman from Kuninara and she was in a
Speaker 5: long term relationship, an abusive relationship with another man. She
Speaker 5: actually had left him, but she was still involved with
Speaker 5: him because he had mental health issues and so she
Speaker 5: would occasionally help him, but she didn't want to be
Speaker 5: with him anymore because of this history of DV And
Speaker 5: in twenty fifteen, she found herself at a party in
Speaker 5: Cuninara and the deceased was there as well well. There
Speaker 5: was an both of them were drinking and there was
Speaker 5: an altercation and Jody obviously felt very fearful of what
Speaker 5: was going to happen because he had actually punched her.
Speaker 5: So this was actually witnessed by people at the party
Speaker 5: that he assaulted her right in front of them. Jody
Speaker 5: actually went and got a knife to defend herself and
Speaker 5: it resulted in the man's death. Now when she actually
Speaker 5: she was actually charged for this by the DPP, even
Speaker 5: though there's a long, long research into battered women's syndrome
Speaker 5: that was never put into court. So first of all,
Speaker 5: she's been charged by the DPP, even though you know
Speaker 5: we've seen in the case of Colleen and other cases,
Speaker 5: particularly in w A, where perpetrators of murders against aberige
Speaker 5: and women aren't even charged and when they do, they
Speaker 5: might go to the court for manslaughter. So first she's charged,
Speaker 5: but then she goes to court and she's convicted. And
Speaker 5: not only is she convicted, she's given a life sentence
Speaker 5: with a twelve year non parole period. And the really
Speaker 5: horrendous thing about this case is that Jodie Gore is
Speaker 5: currently a sick woman. She's on dialysis. She was also
Speaker 5: caring for her three nieces, so she was a kinship carer.
Speaker 5: So not only was she taken away from those kids
Speaker 5: who needed her, but she's put in jail when she's
Speaker 5: very sick and she currently does a dialysis three.
Speaker 6: Times a week. She's down in Perth.
Speaker 5: She's a long way from her country in Kanninara, and
Speaker 5: not only that the judge even acknowledged that because she
Speaker 5: has a twelve year non parole period, it's effectively a
Speaker 5: death sentence. She'll effectively die in prison for defending herself
Speaker 5: against violence which they had been a long history of.
Speaker 5: This brings up comparisons with the Robin Kina case in
Speaker 5: Queensland which happened in nineteen eighty eight, in which Robin
Speaker 5: Keina was convicted and sentenced for defending herself against an
Speaker 5: abusive non Indigenous partner, and it's shown she had a
Speaker 5: huge pattern of abuse against her, really really horrendous abuse
Speaker 5: she was defending herself against, and the juries hadn't even
Speaker 5: heard it. In fact, her als lawyer hadn't heard it.
Speaker 5: Her non indigenous als.
Speaker 6: Lawyer hadn't brought it up in court.
Speaker 5: In this case, Jodiger actually was able to go on
Speaker 5: the defense witness stand. She was only one of two
Speaker 5: witnesses who were there to defend herself. There was actually
Speaker 5: a psychiatrist report that showed that she was a victim
Speaker 5: and had post traumatic stress and had been victim to
Speaker 5: this long history of abuse.
Speaker 6: It was never brought up in.
Speaker 5: Court and the psychiatrist was never called to act as
Speaker 5: a defense witness, but particularly the fact that she got
Speaker 5: a life sentence with a non parole period of twelve years,
Speaker 5: which is effectively a death sentence. She was given the
Speaker 5: death penalty shows just how excessive the sentence was and
Speaker 5: shows just how Aboriginal women as victims of violence are
Speaker 5: treated in this society. And she's currently over in jail
Speaker 5: right now. There's an appeal that Stuer to be lodged.
Speaker 5: She had an appeal in twenty seventeen which was dismissed
Speaker 5: straight away, even though if you read the appeal it's
Speaker 5: actually absolutely disgusting.
Speaker 6: But it really.
Speaker 5: Shows how men get away with violence against Aboriginal women.
Speaker 5: And yet when an Aboriginal woman is up to showing
Speaker 5: how she defended herself, she is not interpreted as defending herself.
Speaker 5: She's interpreted as being an angry black woman who acted
Speaker 5: out of anger in a drunken brawl, and that's how
Speaker 5: the media reported it.
Speaker 6: So I'm.
Speaker 5: I'm just very angry the fact that this case is
Speaker 5: only coming out really now.
Speaker 6: I'm happy that.
Speaker 5: The West Australian government have actually West Australian newspaper have
Speaker 5: actually pushed this so hard.
Speaker 6: It's actually a very rare.
Speaker 5: Example of brilliant campaigning journalism from a mainstream media outlet
Speaker 5: for an Aboriginal woman. But I'm really just flabbergasted that
Speaker 5: it hasn't created the shockwaves that it should.
Speaker 6: Around the country.
Speaker 5: And I don't really know why why that has happened
Speaker 5: that there aren't shockwaves. Can I ask what your thoughts
Speaker 5: are on Jody Gore's case, and I guess what really
Speaker 5: has to happen? Do you think in order? Because I think,
Speaker 5: I mean, I think she was an innocent woman. I
Speaker 5: think she's another case of a wrongful conviction, just like Kevin.
Speaker 3: Really, I think to best understand Jodie Gore's case and
Speaker 3: the situation she found herself in, anytime we talk about
Speaker 3: what's happened to Jody, we need to have in the
Speaker 3: back of our mind everything we've just spoken about and
Speaker 3: the way.
Speaker 1: Average and women have been treated.
Speaker 3: By society, by the law, by the health departments, by government,
Speaker 3: and that all would have been in JODI's mind throughout
Speaker 3: her life, this understanding that her life wasn't valued, so
Speaker 3: who was going to protect her unless she protected herself. Now,
Speaker 3: the other thing we have to understand is the way
Speaker 3: the police presented this case.
Speaker 1: To the core.
Speaker 3: Was as if this was some random violent stabbing at
Speaker 3: a party by people who were intoxicated. Twenty years earlier,
Speaker 3: this same man had slashed Jodie with a knife.
Speaker 1: A few years later.
Speaker 3: After that, he'd attacked her with scissors, and she still
Speaker 3: bears the mark on her chest from that.
Speaker 1: She'd been to hospital a number of times, but even.
Speaker 3: Emergency staff understood that she had mostly treated her own wounds.
Speaker 3: This man had also attacked her with a broomstick in
Speaker 3: years earlier. He'd beaten her so badly in another attack
Speaker 3: that she still has a dent in her cheek from
Speaker 3: the beating he gave her with his fists. This man
Speaker 3: was so psychotic and dangerous that he chased her with
Speaker 3: a hammer while screaming and reading passages from the Bible.
Speaker 3: On another occasion, he used a rod to beat her
Speaker 3: an iron rod.
Speaker 1: The other issue we have to raise here is that
Speaker 1: the police claimed Jodie went and got a knife or
Speaker 1: she did. It was a small vegetable knife that you
Speaker 1: would commonly see any mother.
Speaker 3: Use to chop up an apple or an orange or
Speaker 3: something similar for children, and as Amy mentioned, she had
Speaker 3: three of her nieces in her care, so This is
Speaker 3: a woman who has undergone twenty years of abuse, never
Speaker 3: with the police intervening, no one protecting her at all.
Speaker 3: Her body is riddled with the scars of the abuse.
Speaker 3: Would anyone in their right mind not be fearful of
Speaker 3: a person who chases them down the street with a hammer,
Speaker 3: reading and screaming verses from the Bible? And yet no
Speaker 3: one intervened, not the police, not health authorities to take
Speaker 3: this man into custody to address his sy cases. She
Speaker 3: underwent considerable and endless beatings for twenty years. She didn't
Speaker 3: murder this man. She protected herself after twenty years because
Speaker 3: no one else would. The reason this man was still
Speaker 3: in her life is that Jodie was such a good person.
Speaker 3: She was still caring for this man in the sense
Speaker 3: that she.
Speaker 1: Was providing him with some level.
Speaker 3: Of financial and emotional support as well as support because
Speaker 3: he had serious mental illness.
Speaker 1: Where was the health system? Again?
Speaker 3: Like Linda, like Colleen, like many of the victims, this
Speaker 3: case takes place in a regional, rural, or remote setting
Speaker 3: where Aboriginal women are clearly most vulnerable, because not only
Speaker 3: are the police getting away but doing nothing, the government,
Speaker 3: the health services, every intervention that she that have taken
Speaker 3: place for Jodi twenty years ago was absent, and so
Speaker 3: I think the only just solution is that Jodie is
Speaker 3: released tomorrow. Now we add into the fact as Amy
Speaker 3: mentioned that she is seriously unwell and the court acknowledged
Speaker 3: that she would almost certainly die in prison. How is
Speaker 3: this acceptable that a person who has been so failed
Speaker 3: by society that they have to defend themselves with a knife.
Speaker 3: Do people really believe a woman who has been abused
Speaker 3: for twenty years actually wants to kill anyone? She was
Speaker 3: doing the last and only thing that was left to her.
Speaker 3: It's not her fault, it's the Australian society's fault. It's
Speaker 3: the police's fault, it's the media's fault, it's the health
Speaker 3: service's fault. And every single person, non Indigenous person who
Speaker 3: has ignored what has happened to Aboriginal women in their
Speaker 3: lives time is culpable in this case. And so anything
Speaker 3: short of people not doing as much as they can
Speaker 3: to help her is simply unacceptable. And I would say
Speaker 3: that the only just thing if we want to talk
Speaker 3: about justice, is that she is released tomorrow. Now we
Speaker 3: know that won't take place so to facilitate her release,
Speaker 3: people are going to have to finally do what they
Speaker 3: never did for Linda, what they never did for Colleen,
Speaker 3: what they failed to do for Miss Due, what they
Speaker 3: certainly failed to do for Miss Mahr even when it
Speaker 3: was brought to the public attention, which is to demand
Speaker 3: that those in power, who, with a stroke of their
Speaker 3: pen can change the course of Jody's life, do so,
Speaker 3: and do so immediately. Anything less is the murder of
Speaker 3: an Aboriginal woman, another death in custody that is absolutely preventable.
Speaker 3: Jody is alive today, but for how much.
Speaker 1: Longer we don't know.
Speaker 3: Whether she's released really comes down to how much the
Speaker 3: Australian community cares, and we will soon find out whether
Speaker 3: people simply talk a good game or are willing to
Speaker 3: actually do something to prevent a very preventable death in
Speaker 3: custody and.
Speaker 6: In something up.
Speaker 5: I just want to let our listeners know that we'll
Speaker 5: be bringing you regular installments of kurd In the Podcast
Speaker 5: over and over the coming months, every fortnight, so please
Speaker 5: tune in. That was the latest episode of curd In
Speaker 5: the Podcast.