A 36-year-old Anaiwan Dunhutti man, Nathan Reynolds, died in 2018 gasping for air on a prison floor from an asthma attack after guards took an “unreasonably” long time to come to his aid.
The NSW deputy coroner Elizabeth Ryan said the “confused, uncoordinated and unreasonably delayed” response by prison guards and health staff deprived Reynolds of “at least some chance” of survival.
Reynolds’ family, who have waited almost three years for answers as to how and why he died – and, crucially, for somebody to be held responsible – heard the NSW deputy coroner give a brief summary of her findings on Thursday.
The NSW deaths only came to light after Greens MLC David Shoebridge asked Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin at a NSW budget estimates on March 9.
Severin defended authorities’ silence saying that it was “not appropriate” to advise the public of deaths without any detail and “cause a lot of anger, a lot of angst and a lot of grief”.
Karly Warner, spokesperson for the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT (ALS), called for government accountability. “While identification of people who die in custody must be up to families, the government should be more transparent and timely in the information they share with the public,” she said on March 9.
Last modified on Thu 11 Mar 2021 19.59 EST
Aboriginal justice advocates have expressed their devastation following a third Indigenous death in custody in a week and demanded the Australian prime minister urgently meet with bereaved families to progress reforms.
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (Natsils) representatives from across the country, who met on Thursday, said they were “horrified and deeply upset”.
“We are extremely concerned that while our people continue to die in custody at alarming rates, federal, state and territory governments have had the answers to end this injustice for 30 years but have chosen not to act,” they said in a statement.
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The NSW government has defended the rate at which it is removing hanging points from jail cells, following revelations an Indigenous woman took her own life at Silverwater jail last week.
It is the second Indigenous death in custody to take place in the past week.
A budget estimates hearing on Tuesday heard an Indigenous woman in her 40s took her own life within days of an Indigenous man dying at Long Bay Hospital.
Long Bay Hospital is a non-acute 85-bed healthcare facility located on the Long Bay Correctional Complex in Malabar.
Credit:Nick Moir
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Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin said Tamworth Correctional Centre had a minor works program that included removing hanging points. Similar programs are underway at Junee and Parklea correctional facilities.
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