Fresh light on custody death
09.03.2010
By: TONY KOCH
The saga of Mulrunji Doomadgee's death in a Palm Island cell has reached its last chapter
AFTER five years of legal action following the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee in a police cell on Palm Island, the sensational new testimony by a crucial witness yesterday was the last thing many onlookers were expecting.
The wheels of justice have ground on slowly since November 19, 2004. Just when it appeared the circumstances of Doomadgee's death would remain clouded in doubt, the statement of cellmate Roy Bramwell -- who now says he saw a police officer with his knee on the prisoner's chest and punching him, aided by a convex mirror mounted on the wall -- may throw new light on a sorry saga.
Yesterday, deputy Chief Magistrate Brian Hine began the third coronial inquest into the death of Doomadgee, arrested by Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley on charges of using obscene and insulting language in a back street on Palm Island, off Townsville.
The action in court this week follows an application by Hurley to have struck from the record a previous coroner's finding that he was responsible for the death.
Hurley's legal team sought the order after a Supreme Court jury in Townsville on June 20, 2007 found him not guilty of Doomadgee's manslaughter.
Bramwell's revised statement, made to the Crime and Misconduct Commission as long ago as October 2006, had not been available to the prosecutors.
On September 27, 2006 deputy coroner Christine Clements had released the findings from the inquest she conducted into the death. These included that Hurley had caused the fatal injuries when he repeatedly punched Doomadgee after they entered the Palm Island police station. As the autopsy revealed, Doomadgee suffered bruising to the face, four broken ribs, a ruptured portal vein and his liver was so damaged it was cleaved almost in two.
Clements identified the one failing that has been most responsible for the delayed justice: the inefficient and ``friendly'' investigation carried out by police immediately after Doomadgee was found dead in the cell.
The investigating team flew in from Townsville on the afternoon of the death -- November 19, 2004 -- and were picked up at the Palm Island airport by Hurley, who was the sergeant in charge on the island. Hurley drove the three police to his house, cooked them dinner and shared several beers with them. The death cell was never declared a crime scene and Hurley continued to work on the island for the next few days.
Clements wrote that some of the investigating officers were ``wilfully blind'' and that Hurley's treatment of Doomadgee was ``callous and deficient''.
She found that Hurley was responsible for Hurley's death and that Doomadgee had died as a result of excessive force.
``I find that Senior Sergeant Hurley hit Mulrunji whilst he was on the floor a number of times in direct response to himself having been hit in the jaw and then falling to the floor,'' she said.
``I conclude that these actions of Senior Sergeant Hurley caused the fatal injuries.''
Hine's task is to examine the ``mechanism of death immediately before Doomadgee died and the immediate circumstances leading up to the infliction of the fatal injury: precisely `how' he died''.
The findings by Clements were referred to the then Queensland director of public prosecutions, Leanne Clare, who has since been appointed a district court judge.
On December 14, 2006, Clare told the Doomadgee family that there was not enough evidence to convict Hurley of any offence and the Crime and Misconduct Commission said he would not even face disciplinary action.
But on December 23, 2006, The Australian reported that a detailed examination of Clements's findings had revealed that she had made her findings of the cause of death on an incorrect premise: that Doomadgee died from punches allegedly administered by Hurley and witnessed by Bramwell, who was in the police station at the time under arrest for assaults on two women. As was pointed out in The Australian, the clear evidence was that the fatal injuries were caused by a ``compression'': a huge weight from above being exerted on the deceased's abdomen, so great that it forced the soft flesh of his liver on to his spinal cord, causing it to rupture, and he quickly bled to death.
In arriving at the conclusion that punches caused the injuries, Clements gave little weight to, or rejected, the crucial and undisputed medical opinions provided to the inquest, and accepted the evidence of witness Bramwell, which was not considered reliable.
An independent review of the evidence was ordered by then premier Peter Beattie, who appointed former NSW chief justice Laurence Street, who found that there was sufficient evidence to put Hurley on trial for manslaughter. Palm Islanders, including the Doomadgee family, are desperate to have closure on the issue, but they are equally concerned that justice be done, and that it appear to be done.
Hurley's problem in convincing the inquest that he was not responsible requires him to explain why he changed his version of events once.
As he was the only person who laid a hand on Doomadgee, the only one who came into any degree of violent physical contact, Hurley must convince Hine that the appalling injuries which brought about the death of Doomadgee were sustained through ``an unfortunate accident''.
Hurley is scheduled to give evidence on Thursday in Townsville. One way or another, the events of this week seem likely to form the final chapter in this sorry saga that has appalled and polarised north Queensland since 2004.
An eloquent description of the events at the heart of the story was provided by Peter Callaghan SC, counsel for the Doomadgee family in his submissions to Clements: ``Mulrunji was killed on November 19, 2004. As he left the house he told (his de facto wife) Tracey Twaddle that the water was hot if she wanted a cup of tea. As he walked along the streets of Palm Island he told friends that he was going fishing and offered to bring some fish back for them.
``He was, in the eyes of those who saw him during his final hours, `very happy'. A short time later he was left, for over 30 minutes, writhing in pain and calling for help as he bled to death [in] a police cell. ``Since Mulrunji's death his family have marvelled at the resources which have been mobilised to protect Hurley from scrutiny. Then there was the question of previous complaints about Hurley. Attempts to learn more abut these complaints were met with fierce resistance. The Police Commissioner himself [Bob Atkinson] asserted that any examination of these complaints was irrelevant.
``Indeed the commissioner insisted that records relating to complaints made previously about Hurley ought not even be seen, by anyone. When it was ruled by the coroner that legal representatives should at least be allowed to look at the records of these complaints, the commissioner took the matter to the Supreme Court.
``That challenge was unsuccessful. Hurley then took a further challenge to the Supreme Court seeking to prohibit the use in the inquest of any such material. The Supreme Court would not allow Hurley to remain in such a cocoon . . . It was always clear to Mulrunji's family that their brother's death could not be understood without an understanding of the forces which were at work on Hurley and those which he brought to bear upon Palm Island.
``They remain bemused at the time and resources the Queensland Police Service has devoted to keeping this information from the public, when the same service could not bring itself to convey the news of their brother's death as soon as it happened. But they are grateful that now, at last, there is evidence before the court to facilitate that understanding.''
