WA Police and WA Country Health Service apologise to family and community of Ms Dhu

The WA Police Commissioner and WA Country Health Service chief executive issued an apology on Friday to the family and community of Ms Julieka Ivanna Dhu, a 22-year-old Aboriginal woman who died in custody in August 2014.

Ms Dhu had been a victim of domestic violence and when she called police for help she was imprisoned at South Hedland Police Station for unpaid fines, and died after three days in custody from septicaemia caused by untreated fractured ribs. She repeatedly asked for medical help and received grossly inadequate care.

In April 2021 the doctor who treated Ms Dhu at Hedland Health Campus was found guilty of professional misconduct by the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT).

A case brought in the Federal Court in Perth by Levitt Robinson Solicitors alleged Ms Dhu was cruelly treated by West Australian police, and medical staff, disrespected and dehumanised on racial grounds in contravention of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. 

In March this year lawyers representing Ms Dhu’s family came to Perth to engage in mediation with the WA government.

On Friday, Police Commissioner Col Blanch and WA Country Health Service CEO Jeff Moffet issued an apology.

“On behalf of the Western Australia Police Force and WA Country Health Service, we apologise to the family and community of the late Ms Julieka Ivanna Dhu, a young Aboriginal woman, for the circumstances leading to her death on 4 August 2014,” they said.

“We are truly sorry for the circumstances of Ms Dhu’s death and recognise the significant impact her passing has had on her family and her community.

“This apology is made following a mediation process that concluded in March 2024. Other than this apology, details of the conclusion of the mediation process remain confidential.”

Earlier this year, Levitt Robinson Solicitors senior partner, Stewart Levitt, said the Western Australian government “had ample information of the deleterious effects of what it was doing” through the enforcement of fines by incarcerating fine defaulters arbitrarily, without regard to their personal circumstances or family defendants, which disproportionately impacted Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families.

“The West Australian Law Society, academics, and parliamentarians had advocated for the end of imprisonment as a mechanism for fines enforcement because of what it was doing to Aboriginal families. The government persisted for many years, until it caved on 29 September 2020,” he said.

Mr Levitt said he was aware of cases “where women were taken by police from their homes to jail, to serve out their fines, without notice and without an opportunity for arrangements to be put in place for the care of their dependent children”.

“In the meantime, thousands of people had been jailed virtually without notice. 64 per cent of the female prison population was Indigenous, and 43 per cent of the male population.”