DEATH IN CUSTODY NEWSLETTER
January 1994
Barry Turbane
The inquest on Barry Turbane (21) who was ..found hanged.. at the
Arthur Gorrie Remand
will continue at
10.00am on ..February 7 ...
at Court 20,
Central Courts Building
179 North Quay
Brisbane.
Barry was suspended by three socks attached to the ceiling of his cell.
Prison authorities were told that this young man was suicidal
yet he was not given
*immediate family visits
*bail
*adequate care
as outlined in the recommendations of the ..Royal Commission..
into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Barry was the third of five deaths at Arthur Gorrie.
The Arthur Gorrie Remand and Reception Centre is run by American
owned Australasian Correctional Management (ACM).
In 1993 five of the nine Queensland gaol deaths occurred in a private prison.
In the nineties there have been thirty-four prison deaths in Queensland.
Since the Royal Commission cut off date of May 31, 1989, nationally,
there have been ..twenty)nine Aboriginal prison deaths, eight of them in
Queensland.
Death in custody families ask that you attend the inquest and draw
public attention to the ongoing plight of prisoners incarcerated
in Australian gaols.
NSW prison deaths
In the nineties there have been.. sixty-seven.. deaths in
Corrective Services custody of these..thirty-seven were self-inflicted.
In 1993 there were twenty)three prison deaths and of these eleven were
self-inflicted. This is probably the highest annual total ever,
but certainly the highest since 1977.
Death of a parent
On November 14th 1987
because of.. failure to complete.. a Community Service Order,
Bernard McGrath (20) was arrested late at night and taken to the
Kalgoorlie lockup.
Bernie was worried and very upset.
There was no one to comfort or support him.
He was put in the cells and later found suspended by
a towel attached to bars in a doorway.
Although a fellow detainee was charged with his murder there was an
acquittal and subsequently the coroner Ivan Brown made a finding of
suicide.
The parents, Ted and Betty McGrath, always believed their son was
..murdered.. and worked hard to expose the facts regarding the death.
Ted McGrath spoke out, not only for his own boy, but so that other
people's sons and daughters would not suffer the same fate.
It is with great respect that the unexpected death of Ted, from cancer,
is reported.
Death in custody families sympathise with Betty McGrath and her family
in this further sad loss.
Death in 1994D
There have been five custodial deaths in 1994.
Private prison death
Michael McNeil (17) died at the Arthur Gorrie Remand and Reception Centre
at Wacol in Queensland on November 5, 1992.
Michael was the first death in a private prison in Australia.
Just over a week before he died he filled in a prisoner request form,
asking urgently to speak to someone.
On November 2, he got a reply which virtually just brushed aside his concerns.
The fact that he had an urgent need to talk was completely discounted.
On the day that he died he approached two separate officers asking what
would happen to him, where was he going to be sent. He was truly afraid.
Each of these officers also brushed him aside.
In mid)afternoon, he asked to be locked in his cell. This was done.
Michael placed a blanket over the viewing window in his cell door
strictly against regulations ..but nothing was done to remove it.
He was worried, he believed that his head was going to be kicked in,
he was thought that he might be raped, he'd been called a "suck-on"
(which meant he was too friendly with the warders).
While he was in the cell, he wrote a letter to his girl-friend
expressing how sad and stressed and depressed he felt.
He refused his evening meal, he'd tossed in his job as a kitchenhand
and this is a job that all prisoners liked because it gives them quite a
lot of privileges.
This in itself was a sign that all was not well with Michael.
Some other prisoners got alarmed. One of them climbed up to peer in a
high window and saw Michael hanging from a sheet attached to a bar in
front of set of louvres.
The prisoners raised the alarm.
There were considerable delays in obtaining ambulance attention for Michael.
On leaving the prison the ambulances were again delayed
because they were not allowed to depart until the officers were armed.
So that Michael could not be taken to hospital until firearms were issued.
At the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, Michael was found to be dead
On the night that Michael died it is alleged that there were other
serious attempts at suicide.
One boy was openly weeping in front of prison officers while he
attempted to hang himself. The prison officers did nothing.
The sergeant who had been called to investigate Michael's death was also
present and he admitted in cross)examination by Terry O'Gorman (counsel
for Michael's mother) that he too had done nothing.
The weeping lad was rescued by other teenage inmates.
The events of the night deeply upset the young prisoners and they felt a
great need to talk things over amongst themselves to help them calm down
before being locked up for the night. They asked to be allowed to talk.
Without warning , the boys were gassed with.. mace.. and dragged into their
cells.
Subsequently, they were stripped of their clothes and their bedding.
It was a cold night and they all felt very cold.
Some of the inmates tried to warm themselves with a hot shower.
The water was turned off. They had nothing but toilet paper to
keep themselves warm.
Nicholas Searcy
January 4, seven years ago, as a result of an incarceration of seventeen
days for a traffic offence,
the life of Murdoch honours student and graduate researcher,
Nicholas Searcy (25) came to an untimely end.
This newsletter was and is, inspired by his suffering and death.