Indigenous leader JULIE TONGS says the death of a young Aboriginal man in a prison far away in NSW, by his own hand, alone and sad has caused her ‘unutterable distress’ because it could have been prevented.

WHILE it is often said that the factors that shape our lives and determine our fate exist or are present at the time of our birth, I have long believed that for most Aboriginal people the course of our lives is settled at conception. 

This is something I have reflected on in the weeks since the tragic death of Tian-Jarrah (“TJ”)  Dennis in Silverwater prison in NSW. 

TJ was a young Aboriginal man whom I had known for years as a client of Winnunga Nimmityjah, but for whom I had also developed a deep affection. TJ’s death, in a prison far away in NSW, by his own hand, alone and sad has caused me unutterable distress. 

Upon hearing of TJ’s death, I commented publicly that his death was both predictable and preventable. 

I also said that the ACT government must accept responsibility for his death following its refusal, at the time it took the decision to transfer him to a prison in NSW, to respond to the advice and entreaties of TJ’s medical team, which included a psychiatrist, to place him in Dulwah, Canberra’s forensic mental health facility.  

Following the decision by ACT Corrections to ignore the medical advice, I met with the then Minister for Corrections, Shane Rattenbury, and implored him to intervene and direct that TJ be housed in a facility where he could get the health care he so desperately needed. 

I also insisted that if the ACT government was determined, against medical advice, to transfer TJ to NSW, then it was imperative that he be placed in the forensic mental health hospital at Long Bay prison. My entreaties went unheeded, and TJ is now dead. 

There are a range of issues about TJ’s incarceration in both NSW and the Alexander Maconochie Centre and the treatment he was forced to endure, that I believe warrant an independent inquiry into his incarceration and death. 

While I accept that the NSW coroner will inquire into the circumstances of TJ’s death, I think it is imperative that his care and treatment while at the AMC be separately and independently investigated in the ACT. 

It is also relevant that the backlog in the NSW Coroner’s Court is as long as four years. No family should be expected to wait that long for answers to the causes and circumstances of a loved one’s death. 

An independent and clinical inquiry into TJ’s treatment at the AMC would obviously include an examination of the racist and deeply disturbing drawing of TJ hanging from a noose, which had pride of place in an AMC staff room. 

It would also investigate not just the legality of the literally hundreds of days that TJ was placed into solitary confinement in the AMC Management Unit and denied access to fresh air or exercise, but the impact which such draconian and medieval treatment had on his health and wellbeing. 

Coincidentally, TJ had initiated legal action against the ACT government in respect of both the hangman drawing and the lawfulness of his extended solitary confinement. One question I would also welcome a response to, through an independent inquiry, is whether the decision to transfer TJ to NSW was made before or after he began legal proceedings against the government for its disgraceful treatment of him in the AMC. 

A concerning question is also raised by the events that, in effect, precipitated TJ’s extended period of incarceration in the AMC and NSW prisons. I have read the transcript of the court proceedings, in 2018, which resulted in the initial or head sentence that led to TJs incarceration. 

The offence was aggravated robbery. The offence occurred on a day that TJ, who was on remand in the AMC, had been granted conditional release, for a day, to make accommodation arrangements that were a precondition to his release from the AMC to attend a rehabilitation program. 

TJ had a long history of serious drug and other substance use, which began when he was only 14.  

TJ was released from the AMC on his own. He was unaccompanied and it was presumably expected by the AMC that he would simply wander into the city, identify accommodation suited to his needs and wander happily back to jail.  

Regrettably, he did no such thing. He did what people with a serious substance use issue do. Especially those with serious mental health issues. He contacted an associate, obtained heroin and while high, committed a robbery in order, it is understood, to obtain the wherewithal to buy more drugs. 

I cannot help wondering what those at the AMC who facilitated his release on that day thought TJ, with his known substance use issues and challenging mental health conditions, would do when released alone, for the day, from custody. 

TJ was ultimately sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, ie to March 2021. However, because of the failure of the AMC to either successfully treat his severe mental health issues or effectively manage him, he was prone, when under stress, to lighting fires in his cell at the AMC and consequently faced, over the years, serial charges of arson that led to his term of imprisonment being extended for a further five years. A sentence that proved ultimately to be one of death. 

Which brings me back to my opening reflection. TJ was born in 1990 in country NSW. His life path was one painfully familiar to the Aboriginal community. Each of us is either related to or knows someone whose life trajectory and experience is virtually the same as that of TJ. 

It was a life that was shaped and a destiny determined not by the challenges he faced as an individual but by his Aboriginality. A fate that was settled at conception. 

Julie Tongs is the CEO of Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Services.