9th March 2010 Palm Island Court House - Day 2

Palm Island – 2^nd Inquest re the death of Cameron Doomadgee, referred to as Mulrunji at his family’s request.

9^th March 2010 Palm Island Court House -  Day 2

These are my impressions from talking with various community members and sitting, listening and watching, in the Court room – I cannot always catch what is said.

We woke to soft rain, light winds and the sound of light planes coming in to land.

The lawyers and media started arriving clutching copies of the Townsville Bulletin and the Australian. The Australian in particular had a page which looked half full of photos – though I was not able to grab one to look at properly. Whilst the Store seems to have improved in quality and choice with the advent of a new manager I don’t think early delivery of the Australian is one of the innovations.

Well, the new detail I mentioned re yesterday was the stuff of headlines . Shock new evidence in Palm inquest  John Andersen,Townsville Bulletin, 9/03/1010   Witness changes story: I could see Mulrunji Doomadgee’s ‘scuffle’ Tony Koch, The Australian 09/03/2010 and Key witness in Cameron Doomadgee death inquest says he was threatened by police officer, The Australian 09/03/2010

The hearing started at about 9:45. There was some discussion about some of the media reports and some clarifications from Counsel assisting – but as they referred to documents, and sub clause x of page y, it was impossible for me to follow them well enough to comment here.

Roy Bramwell was called back to the witness stand and Mr Devlin continued to go through the 45 minute audio tape of an interview with Inspector Kitching and ?, who were acting for the CMC on the morning of 26^th November 2004 – before the autopsy results were announced to the people of Palm and there was the subsequent ‘disturbance’. 

I appreciate the fact that Mr Devlin always refers to the ‘disturbance’ and not to the ‘riot’.

A key point which was  returned to frequently was how Roy could have seen Hurley hitting Mulrunji when they were hidden by a filing cabinet. Roy said there was a mirror on the wall which was angled to show the corridor in which Mulrunji and Hurley were. When shown a photo of the room, with no mirror, Roy insisted that it had been there on the morning of the 19^th.

There was also a great deal of questioning as to why Roy’s statements, at approx 8:am, and 10:45 am on the 20 November and 26^th November 2004, and on the 19 October 2006 had some discrepancies.   As well as appearing confused as to which statement contained what, Roy also seemed to have different levels of trust in the interviewers, all of whom were police officers except lawyer Frank Shepherd, and all of whom were white. This lead to Roy withholding some levels of information.  In particular, he did not include all the evidence about the mirror and seeing ‘kicking’, nor that Mulrunji seemed unconscious when dragged into the cell.

Roy mentioned several times his lack of trust in police officers, including Inspector Weber, acting for the CMC. When being questioned about how long he sat in the watch house after Mulrunji had been dragged into the cells, Roy who does not have a watch, thought it was a long time, although from his own evidence about going to the post office just after it opened at 11am, it must have been quite a short time.

I thought about how time seems to both race and drag in my life, irrespective of what the clock says.

Roy said that when Hurley came back into the room after leaving Mulrunji and Patrick Nugent in the cells, Hurley asked him if he had seen anything. Roy said he answered no, because he was frightened.  He feared that if you spoke up, Hurley would put him in the cell too and deal with him in the same way.

 It was very apparent from his body language that this is still a source of guilt for him as he was very close to Mulrunji.

Roy said that he thought it extraordinary that he was called into the police station to be asked about serious assaults that morning on three women, and yet he was sent home, without a question being asked, after Mulrunji was put into the cell.

Roy spoke again about Detective Sgt Robinson tearing up the first version of his statement at 8am on 20 November, 2010. He said that Robinson told him to leave out the bit about the mirror.

After two hours of solid questioning even Mr Devlin occasionally got his references a little confused when asking questions and Roy appeared hopelessly confused as to which statement, when and what he was being asked and why they were not all totally consistent.   I was certainly very confused myself and I am very sure that in the circumstances, my statements would also have been inconsistent and confused, regardless of any attempts to be a truthful witness.

Mr Zillman for Sn Sgt Hurley asked Roy about the role of Sgt Leafe and the lack of consistency about Roy’s accounts of Sgt Leafe’s movements. He also wanted to know how ‘drunk’ Roy was on the 19^th and 20^th November 2004 for the various interviews which were being discussed. Mr Zillman challenged Roy’s statement that he could not read. My impression was that Mr Zillman and Roy’s ideas of being able to read were miles apart.

Mr Zillman questioned Roy about his statement during the re-enactment on 20^th November ’04, that ‘he was kicking’. Did Roy mean that Mulrunji was kicking to get up on his feet or did he mean that Hurley was kneeling on Mulrunji  and Roy described this as ‘kicking’.

Today Roy said that it was Hurley kicking Mulrunji.

I feel that I have not done justice to all the ins and outs of this long questioning period, 2 hours before lunch and a good half hour after. But the reality is that because the public does not know what point the lawyers are trying to make, it is very hard to follow the very detailed questioning – especially with poor audio tapes, and soft-spoken speakers.

Vincent Thimble was next called as witness. This was a big surprise.  Mr Thimble worked as a police liaison officer and ambulance officer, on Palm,  from the 1980s until 1998, and then continued to visit the police station fairly often. Mr Devlin asked him if he was familiar with the day room in the station and also with a mirror in the police station. Vincent said yes and proceeded to describe a mirror in virtually the exact place described by  Roy Bramwell. He said that it was positioned so that officers in the day room could see along the corridor leading to the cells.

This was sensational as Vincent said that two people had come that lunch time and asked him if he would come and testify about the mirror. He agreed. He could not point out who the people were. in the courtroom and did not know who they were.

Some light relief was then supplied by Lance Poynter who laughed when Mr Devlin called him a career criminal. Lance admitted to be in and out of police stations, because of criminal activities. He said that he definitely remembered two mirrors in the corridor leading to the cells. However, one of the lawyers then stated that Lance had not been charged, on Palm Island, between 1997 and 2005., the inference being that his recollections were not within the necessary date of November 2004.

Note: Lance is one of the four men declared ‘Not guilty’ of rioting as mentioned in yesterday’s post. Sadly, he has been in prison again since 2007.

My feelings after the two days of evidence gathering and testing on Palm were that Mrs Sibley and Roy Bramwell came across as credible witnesses in the circumstances. In spite of getting confused about the various statements and when they were signed and in spite of Roy admitting to being drunk, both Mrs Sibley and Roy were solid about the events which they had witnessed  around the hour during which Mulrunji died. Mrs Sibley did not waver about what she saw.  Roy did have some discrepancies but his explanations were surprisingly convincing and I thought about the sobering effect of finding that your best friend had just died in very surprising and suspicious circumstances.

I recommend Jeff Waters piece about the evidence which is being surpressed and kept secret from the public – follow this link to Monday’s story.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/09/2840386.htm?site=thedrum

Jeff has written Gone for a Song  a very interesting book about the first inquest into the death of Mulrunji and then the second or continuation of the first under Christine Clements.

Tomorrow the hearing is in Townsville and the police witnesses will have their turn at being cross examined.  It should be a very interesting day,

Monique