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Ms LEE RHIANNON [6.00 p.m.]: I pay tribute to Mrs Letty Scott, the wife of Mr Douglas Scott, who was found dead in Darwin's Berrima gaol in July 1985. Mr Scott had been remanded in custody 27 days earlier for having failed on one day to report to police while on bail for minor offences. In spite of the findings of a Coroner's Court and of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody that the death was a suicide, there is strong evidence to the contrary. Both Federal and Northern Territory Governments are being urged to reopen inquiries into Mr Scott's death. Mrs Letty Scott, widow of Douglas, has refused to accept the finding of suicide and has secured expert opinion which suggests that the death may have been the result of strangulation.
Prior to the death of Mr Scott witnesses testified that they saw four prison guards going into his cell carrying batons. They heard sounds of a beating and Mr Scott's cries for help. After that, authorities claimed that Mr Scott had hanged himself. However, conflicting photographic evidence of the death scene suggests that the area had been tampered with. Eye witnesses claimed that they saw him hanging in a manner different to that suggested in the photographs. Eye witnesses were forced to clean blood from the floors, walls, around the toilet and the mattress. Photos of Mr Scott taken after his death revealed bruising and a fracture of the thyroid cartilage in the neck, which is generally more consistent with manual neck compression than with hanging mechanisms. An external band of impressions around the neck was also likely to have occurred as a result of manual strangulation.
So far the Prime Minister has rejected the reopening of the royal commission, despite evidence found by a former policeman, Mr Robert Dow, and human rights lawyer Rodney Lewis supporting the need to reopen the inquiry. As well as their evidence a forensic investigative committee from the United States and the United Kingdom and lawyers from the United Kingdom engaged in the case have raised serious questions in a report relating to the death, and all support the necessity for further investigation into this matter. The committee found that there was a significant possibility that the death scene integrity had been compromised. For example, there were changes in the sheets and a stool appeared in some photos and not in others. Lawyers acting for Mrs Scott have been unable to obtain copies of the photos.
The forensic report also notes inconsistencies between an ambulance officer's statement and an autopsy report and a number of factors were omitted in the commission's considerations at the time of death. It must also be noted that, according to the royal commission transcript, a meeting was held before its hearing at which it was agreed that "individual officers were not at risk for having acted criminally or improperly". This is a sensitive case for some people in power as the legal aid lawyer in the territory 15 years ago was Mr Shane Stone. He later became Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. It has been reported that Mr Stone did nothing to get Mr Scott out of gaol after he was held well beyond remand. The question Mrs Scott has raised is whether Mr Stone potentially faces a suit of negligence.
Mrs Scott claims that she has been harassed and that she is constantly concerned about her welfare. She has been forced to change addresses. One example of harassment occurred recently after she and her campaign partner, Mr Taylor, were arrested after faxing Department of Community Services documents from Queensland to the Northern Territory. Mr Taylor suffered throat injuries from a police baton. The Greens commend Mrs Scott for her tireless efforts to determine the circumstances surrounding Mr Scott's death. It is an indictment on the human rights record of this country in relation to the issue of Aboriginal deaths in custody that Mrs Scott has had to seek help for so long and from so far afield. The expert forensic and legal advice from overseas has supported her case so far. Mrs Scott has had to take her case as far as the United Nations. The Greens would support a petition requesting that her case be reopened and that justice be brought to bear in the light of the overwhelming evidence supporting her case.