Sarah Mumme
A man died. A UN representative is asking questions. Yet protests in Kalgoorlie and Perth haven’t rated a mention. Have you heard of Mr Ward?
Unpack the issue...
Cast your mind back to last summer. Do you remember what it felt like to get back into a car after it had been sitting in the sun for an hour while you were at the beach or in the shops? It was pretty uncomfortable and
oppressive, right? So what did you do to alleviate the problem? Open a window as you drove away? Crank up the air-conditioning? Open the door and let the car ‘breathe’ for a few minutes before getting in?
Now, imagine it’s the middle of summer. It’s 42 degrees outside. You get into your old has-seen-better-days-car because you have to make a 380km journey. Your air-conditioning doesn’t work. You can’t wind your windows down. Almost 400km in those conditions — it doesn’t sound like a journey anyone would willingly undertake, does it?
On 27 January 2008 a Western Australian man was in a similar situation but was forced to make the 380km journey. The result? He died. Here’s what we know.
In March of this year, the Coronial Court in Kalgoorlie heard evidence that Mr Ward, a 46 year old Warburton resident, died of heatstroke in custody after he was arrested for allegedly drink-driving. Mr Ward was a well-known and respected local resident. He was arrested for a traffic offence — this doesn’t make him a high security risk. But, having been denied bail, he was sent by private contractor Global Solutions Limited (GSL) from Laverton to Kalgoorlie, to be held in custody.
For four hours he was locked in the back of the van with no air-conditioning. The air-conditioning was working in the front of the van, where the GSL officers travelled in comfort, but was not working in the back of the van, where Mr Ward was being slowly cooked alive. The trip was over 370 kilometres on a day when the temperature outside was 42 degrees. It would have been much hotter in Mr Ward’s unventilated, un-air-conditioned compartment. In fact, a chemist who assisted in a re-enactment of the incident in similar conditions told the Coronial Court that the air temperature in the back of the van reached 50.4C. He also told the court the surface temperature of the metal floor in the back peaked at 56.6C during the re-enactment.
Mr Ward was given a pie and a 600 ml bottle of water for the four hour-journey. This was obviously not enough water for a four-hour journey; particularly since, as the Coroner heard, Mr Ward was likely to have been very dehydrated to his high blood alcohol level when he was arrested the previous day. Mr Ward had been placed in a dangerous situation from the very start of the journey.
The only time the GSL officers stopped during the four-hour journey was when they heard a ‘thump’ in the back of the van. This ‘thump’ was Mr Ward collapsing onto the floor of the van. After hearing the ‘thump’, the GSL officers stopped the van and partially opened the back door (the door had a security chain keeping it mostly closed) to check on Mr Ward. Upon finding Mr Ward unconscious on the floor of the van, they headed to the hospital in Kalgoorlie, where Mr Ward later died. Doctors found Mr Ward had third-degree burns on his stomach, burns consistent with being in contact with a very hot surface.
That Mr Ward was subjected to such torturous treatment is appalling. That Mr Ward’s death should be caused by such treatment is inexcusable. That the media, government and public should react to Mr Ward’s death with such apathy is sickening. What if it was your relative that this had happened to? Mr Ward most certainly deserves justice.
By the way, Mr Ward was an Indigenous (Wongai) man. While it shouldn’t matter whether or not he was Indigenous, I can’t help but wonder if it did.
Would a white man or woman ever be sent four hours in the back of an un-air-conditioned van in 42 degree heat to be held in custody? Highly unlikely. Would the media, government or public have been so apathetic towards the death of a person in custody had it been a white man or woman? Definitely not.
Sarah Mumme is justice and mission officer for the Uniting Church Synod of WA.
Unpack the issues...
Footage
Footage of June 20th public rally has just been released. Watch a 30min video of the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee (WA) Inc's Public Rally for the 'Ward Campaign for Justice'. Or if you're on Facebook, go to: http://www.facebook.com/deathsincustody.
- What did you think when you first heard about this story? Where you shocked?
- What can be done to ensure this doesn't happen again.
- Do you think race was a factor in the death of Mr Ward?
- Perth Indy Media photos from public protest held in Perth 3 April
- Add your voice to the call for justice through Amnesty International
- National Human Rights Consultation
- Join the DICWC’s fast growing network of supporters for change. Follow the campaign and other Deaths in Custody Watch Committee (WA) events and activities.
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written by Ben Mitchell , June 15, 2009
I can not believe that Aboriginal Deaths in Custody is continually raising it's head in Australia. A constant promise of this will never happen again etc etc etc and it does not stop. It is a continued culture of racism involving the prison system in Australia. When I was put in jail in Queensland at the age of 17 a prison guard said to me his last name was Mitchell too and that him and I would be the only white people with this last name all the rest were black. This culture of racism crimes against aboriginal people in the corrective services division of Australia needs to be investigated and I think that from now on the only way for this never to happen again is that Aboriginal Elders are responsible for all things when it comes to Aboriginal Prisioners. This may sound an unrealistic answer to this problem to some but I believe it is an obtainable goal. What happened to Mr. Ward is just something that can not be put in words and as perusual no one will be made accountable but all will give empty apologies and make false promises.
written by hannah peard , July 23, 2009
The death of this well respected elder is an act of injustice and downright cruelty. I am appauled and shocked that these transporters would allow this to happen in a country in which we treat other as "equal". I hope justice is served to these barbaric and savage human beings.
written by Thomas Woodford , July 06, 2010
The West Australian government has a duty of care towards the people who it deems as offending, in any way shape or form, against legislation it has enacted.
This duty encompasses to the arrest, transportation and prosecution of offenders.
Unfortunately the duty of care was compromised by a lack of training of the employees and contractors of the Department of Corrective Services.
If this training and professional development had been undertaken, a protocol for the transportation of prisoners or offenders of the legislation would have been implemented, and been accepted as a standard.
Mr Ward had not been afforded any form of protocol. Instead, what occurred was a regurgitation of past history- indigenous people being transported in conditions which an Australian cattle farmer would not expect of his/her animals on a ship to the Middle East or elsewhere.
Why? The impetus, or cause of Mr Ward's arrest has never been a matter of public scrutiny. Why was this man arrested?
Police have to be seen to be doing the right thing. Mr Ward was a means for achieving this vision of compliance to a god of the public order.
Unfortunately for the police their training and expert methods of incarceration were not what attracted attention. It was the removal and transport of a man who's only crime was to consume more than what was historically available- alcohol.
Beads, mirrors and alcohol have for so long been an emissary for change in Western Australia. Copied from colonial conquests of a by gone era, they still ring true as a means of overcoming and dominating indigenous people.
Take for example the Conquistadors of South America. Armed with a vision of gold they hunted and obliterated the native populations until they achieved their dream of gold. Mr Fiorrest would have been proud as was his law-maker Mr Burt.
In just two-hundred years Australia has captured the 'magic' of this conquest.
As I walk around the streets of Kalgoorlie, I lament this conquest. I see the ruins of a culture so much more sophisticated than the white, earthquake-trash of contemporary fly-in-fly-out mining workers who queue for a flight to get away.
I smell the vomit emitting from the hotels and the flesh of the skimpies who only serve to remind these people of what they cannot have.
Civilised? No! Far from it. If Colin Barnett's son had been treated the same or Mr Porter's relative had to wake up with their back soldered to the metal floor of a van you would believe that the whole nation would want answers.
However, Mr Ward is different.
Beneath the veil of secrecy is a moment of truth, often ignored and too difficult to comprehend. Mr Ward was better than these people, they knew it but could not come to terms with his simplicity, his abandonment of the authorities which bestowed upon themselves the duty of care.
in many respects Mr Ward was better before he was found and this troubles White Australia as they come to terms as to who they are. Strangers in a distant land with crops and industry unsuited to a continent with fragile diverse soils, unreliable and, in the long term, unpredictable to a generation that thrives on predictability.
Good luck Australia. Less than a thousand kilometres to the north is a growing need for migration. In time these people from the east will use the experience of Mr Ward as a test case as to how you will be treated.
Buck shot in the bum?
I hope so!
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