The injured woman could be your Mother, sister, partner ...

A woman is lying semiconcious and half-naked, bleeding from two facial wounds in a public street. (October 3, 2001)

The injured woman could be your Mother, sister, partner …

Police attend.

A call comes through on their radio and the Police leave.

The woman is left, in the "care" of the man who assaulted her.

Later another Police unit arrives.

The woman is now unconscious and later dies.

Bloodstains on the street

PARIAH members attended the Coroner's inquest on October 21, 2002.

The inquest was very sketchy on detail and media reporting on this incident has been almost nonexistent.

Bloodstains on the street (DNA-tested as the victim's) and two facial gashes made the initial Police testimony that the victim had only an abrasion on her elbow, less than credible.

It was suggested in one submission that the Police were "hiding evidence" and that evidence had been "suppressed" in relation to the bloodstains in the street.

The inquest proceedings will not be available in print until 2003, so we do not know if the lack of an ambulance, or why the woman's attacker was not arrested, have been raised as issues.

Human decency should override any procedural imperative, real or imagined.

Magistrate Cavanagh referred to the victim as an "unfortunate woman".

We concur with his description.

The woman was unfortunate enough to be an Aboriginal person living in the Northern Territory.

NT News -- September 21 2002

POLICE SAY SORRY OVER
DEATH OF WOMAN

By BOB WATT -- Court Reporter

A senior police officer apologized publicly yesterday to the family of a woman who died after being beaten during a suburban “domestic”.

Assistant commissioner Doug Smith made the apology on behalf of the Northern Territory Police following criticism in Darwin Coroners Court over police handling of the incident.

“I’d like to express my deepest regret over the way the incident unfolded and sincerely apologize to the family of the deceased,” he said.

Mr Smith said he had spoken to the family personally.

The court has been told police took 23 minutes to respond to a first call on October 3 last year from a house in Brolga St, Wanguri.

The unit which responded was there for only a few minutes and about to take the woman into custody, but left to attend a job in the city.

The court heard the woman was left in the care of the man who assaulted her.

When a second unit attended about 20  minutes later, they found the woman unconscious.

During the final day of evidence at the coronial hearing, yesterday, a lawyer called for the most senior police officer in the first unit which attended to be charged with a criminal offence.

Former police officers (then constables) Dean Goldstein and Steven Cook, who gave evidence at the first day of the inquest on Thursday, were the officers in that unit.

NT Aboriginal Justice Advocacy Committee executive officer Chris Howse, one of the counsel appearing at the inquest, said Mr Goldstein should be charged with doing a dangerous act.

“There is evidence to suggest that police bungled this whole investigation and ought to have charged officer Goldstein,” he said.

“If the police Administration Act has been flouted, we have at least a failure to place the woman in protective custody.”

Mr Howse told the Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh he would be entitled to say police mishandled the investigation.

Mr Cavanagh said that under the Coroner’s Act, if he believed a crime had been committed he could ask the Director of Public Prosecutions to look into it.

Mr Howse said: “If there is sufficient evidence, that is precisely what I will be asking Your Worship to do.”

Mr Cavanagh adjourned the inquest for final submissions by counsel on October 21.

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