Quentin Dempster turns the spotlight on prison death cover-up

When will the NSW Labor government wake up? Prison deaths, and the failure to provide reasonable medical care to ill or geriatric prisoners, could cost it votes and destroy any faint hope it may have of re-election.

The scandal had registered only in scattered newspaper articles and the occasional blog. But last night, Quentin Dempster's NSW Stateline program on ABC television gave a disturbing report on the NSW Coroner's Court findings on the 2007 prison suicide of Adam Shipley (the subject of my previous post, on Thursday).

Stateline reporter Philippa McDonald interviewed Bill Beale, the department's former principal investigator, who had told the Coroner's Court that systemic failures in the management of inmates at risk contributed to the death of Shipley, who had a history of mental illness and self-harm.

Beale had resigned in disgust after his boss binned his report and substituted something much more bland – not the first time it had happened.

However, Stateline did not examine the broader questions of deaths in custory.

Grumpy Old Journo is the only commentator to have directly connected Shipley's death with other reports – the death of Mary Anne Roberts, who should have been in a nursing home, and the NSW Government's “couldn't give a stuff” response to the possibility Charlotte Lindstrom may die of acute anorexia – to conclude that in NSW, a prison sentence may well be a death sentence.

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Historically, there's never been much public support for prison reform – it's been left to Quakers and the like. In Australia, our politicians are too frightened of “shock jock” radio thugs to speak up for reform.

But there is some support, and usually it's to be found in people who vote Labor because they believe it's the party with socially progressive policies.

However, the times they are a'changing. If Labor loses those voters, its re-election chances will move from “almost none” to “absolutely zilch”.

And Labor is losing those voters, as shown by Greens candidate Adele Carles's convincing win in the West Australian by-election for Fremantle on May 16. Admittedly, the old working-class port suburbs of Fremantle have gentrified over the past few decades – but that's no different from many electorates in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and other old industrial or port cities.

As this Crikey report said:

. . . Carles’s win underscores the point that the Greens’ encroachment into inner-city and bohemian enclaves is continuing to gather pace, posing a serious long-term threat to what had traditionally been Labor’s strongholds.

A number of seats in Sydney and Melbourne are likely to fall when the tide goes out on the ageing state Labor governments, which seems particularly imminent in the case of New South Wales.

As I said, prison reform is not a hot issue. But with more media exposure, and possibly a campaign through GetUp!, it could become so, and the NSW Labor could lose even more support from those of us who want to vote for a socially progressive party.

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Perhaps the Stateline report will force the NSW Government to act. Philippa McDonald reported:

. . .the Corrective Services Minister is now under intense pressure to overhaul the treatment of vulnerable prisoners and the way his department conducts its investigations.

And Quentin Dempster concluded:

And last night, the NSW Government promised to ensure all government agencies respond to coronial recommendations in the future. Under new guidelines, government departments like Corrective Services will have to act within six months. Victoria recently introduced legislation to
make that happen. Despite numerous requests from Stateline over the past week, the Corrective Services Minister, the Attorney-General and the Corrective Services commissioner all declined to be interviewed about the Shipley case

The Corrective Services Minister, may I remind you again, is former NSW unions boss John Robertson, who brought the NSW Government to its knees when he helped organise a hooting, howling, jeering mob to shout down the then NSW Treasurer over plans to privatise electricity generation.

The images of Labor policy-making were even more damaging than the "36 faceless men" photo which harmed Labor so badly in the 1963 Federal elections.

After his having brought NSW Labor to its knees, it will be ironic if Robertson now administers the coup de grace with his handling of the prisons portfolio.

The Stateline transcript may be read here. This newspaper report tells of Beale's evidence to the Coroner's Court.

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John Robertson decides: We'll risk her life

This post should be read in conjunction with the previous post.

Today's Sydney Morning Herald reports that the NSW Minister for Corrective Services, John Robertson, has ruled that the seriously ill Charlotte Lindstrom must remain in a NSW prison until she gives evidence against her former fiance in two drug trials. Read the report here.

Robertson said she could not be considered for repatriation to Sweden until she had fulfilled her obligations to give evidence in the trials.

In the Herald report, he made no reference to expert medical evidence that her anorexia is so severe she is at risk of death, or to opinions that the stress of testifying could kill her.

The Minister's decision might, just, be justified if he were to make sure she receives adequate medical treatment, something our prison system has failed to provide during her two years in solitary.

The report makes no reference to medical treatment, so we must assume she will not get it.

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Morally, it will be murder if this prisoner dies

The NSW State Labor Government continues to risk this prisoner's life.

I've commented on this before ("Should imprisonment be a death sentence", on May 23). I'm even more angry after reading this report in today's Sydney Morning Herald.

As the report says, the Swedish government is seeking her urgent repatriation to Sweden because she is dangerously ill with acute anorexia. The Australian Federal Government agrees she should go home.

Ms Lindstrom's body mass index has fallen to 13.6, which, as the Herald reports, is well below the level at which she should be in hospital and undergoing refeeding.

The NSW prison system has never given her the treatment she needs.

Sweden's Ambassador to Australia said: "This is not according to what we would have expected from a modern and well-equipped government in NSW."

Nor has the NSW government replied to Sweden's request. A spokeswoman for the responsible minister said no decision had been made.

And who is the Minister for Corrective Services? None other than John Robertson, the trade union boss who slipped into the Legislative Council seat vacated by the minister he got rid of, Michael Costa. Robertson did not have to face the public in an election.

Robertson has done more than any other politician to ensure Labor suffers a humiliating defeat at the next State elections, as I wrote on February 26 in "How to destroy Labor's electoral chances".

If Ms Lindstrom dies as a result of Robertson's failure to provide adequate medical treatment, and his refusal to let her go home to Sweden for treatment, he and his colleagues will be guilty of murder. Not in any legal sense, but in a moral sense the electors should understand.


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Should imprisonment be a death sentence?

When does a jail sentence become a death sentence? The answer, it seems, is when you become geriatric or seriously ill in the New South Wales prison system.

Take these cases:

• Mary Anne Roberts, a 73-year-old woman suffering cancer, dementia and other problems. Despite a report from the director of geriatric services at the highly regarded St Vincent's Hosptial that she was not fit to serve a jail term, a District Court judge sentenced her to a minimum three years' jail for serious welfare fraud. She died less than five months later after a horrifying ordeal in a cruel system.
• Charlotte Lindstrom, sentenced to three years for having tried to hire a hitman to kill witnesses against her drug-dealer boyfriend, is now so seriously wasted by anorexia her organs may be breaking down and she risks death. The prison system's medical treatment clearly is indadequate, but the NSW State Labor government has refused an offer from Sweden to let her serve her term back home in humane conditions.
• Albert James Paddock – one wonders what the future holds for an 80-year-old man with paranoid delusions and early dementia, sentenced this week to at least six years after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of his wife.

Our prison policies should worry humane Australians. We should worry about overcrowding, the handling of prisoners with mental illness, high rates of recidivism, plans to build new prisons in distant towns where families cannot visit . . . the list goes on. But on all these issues, it may be possible to argue some justification.

But who could justify our prison system's failure to provide adequate care to the seriously ill, including those with mental illness, or those in serious geriatric decline who need nursing home care? People such as Mary Roberts and Charlotte Lindstrom.

Grumpy Old Journo has already noted the appalling treatment of Mary Anne Roberts. You may read the post (May 9, “Australia doesn't impose the death sentence, does it?”) here, athough it might be better to read the report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Herald ran the story on P8, suggesting its editors thought the public wouldn't be all that interested. As far as I can ascertain, the only media references have been my blog post, and a post by a contributing blogger on Larvatus Prodeo.

But the story – reporting the assisting counsel's outline of evidence to be given at a Glebe [Sydney] Coroner's Court inquest – may have caused consternation in some parties to be examined.

The hearing, set for May 11 to 15, did not go ahead. The court told me it had been adjourned to November 16.

It's my conjecture that the SMH story, describing the evidence to be given, alerted various parties that they faced public exposure in a scandal similar to that of the OOO operators who sneered at a schoolboy dying of thirst in the Blue Mountains. It's likely these parties sought the adjournment to obtain legal representation.

One can imagine the Justice Health employees' union, and that of the prison officers, urgently briefing silk – counsel assisting said the old woman had been left unwashed for days because of a demarcation dispute, and no-one would push her wheelchair.

I wonder whether a coroner can invite a District Court judge to explain his sentencing?

Charlotte Lindstrom, then a classic Swedish beauty besotted with her drug-dealer fiance, agreed to his request to hire a hitman to kill two witnesses who were to testify against him. The hitman turned out to be an undercover cop. After her arrest, and after overcoming her infatuation, she showed complete remorse and co-operated fully with police and prosecutors.

Because of her contrition and co-operation, she received a lenient sentence of two years – which would have seen her walk free on Monday – but the Crown appealed and it was increased to three years.

This SMH story (which I find credible), suggests she now suffers acute anorexia. She is at risk of having her organs melt down, of heart failure, of brain impairment, and possibly of death.

She needs specialist care, hospitalisation and careful feeding. Her parents say she has been seen by only the prison doctor and the prison pyschologist, and a cooking teacher comes once a week. She has never been admitted to a prison hospital. She is in solitary confinement because other prisoners have threatened her with death for having co-operated with police.

Displaying a humane approach not to be found in NSW, the Swedish Government has offered to pay for her transfer to finish her sentence in her own country, where she can receive proper treatment. The NSW Labor Government rejected the offer because it needs her to give evidence in a criminal trial in July.

Sweden offered to pay for a video link. The NSW Attorney-General said video-link evidence might be inadequate. She could apply for transfer after the July trial.

Perhaps the NSW Labor Government does have good cause to keep Ms Lindstrom in Australia until the trial is over. But if so, it also has a duty to ensure she receives adequate medical care – by a specialist in anorexia, and in hospital if necessary.

What lies ahead for Albert Paddock? Will the 80-year-old, suffering from paranoid delusions and early dementia, survive his six years in jail? Will poor medical treatment accelerate his geriatric decline? Time will tell.
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