Four years ago, Gwen Sturt was left stranded in heavy floods on a remote outstation, reeling from the sudden death of her son Cody.

Police came via helicopter to take Cody's body away, but they didn't return to evacuate his family to safety.

It was only after media coverage of the incident that WA Police gave the family a private apology for their treatment that day.

"I was full of tears, when they said sorry to me," Gwen told ABC RN's Awaye! program.

"Like I told them, it's not you mob that's gotta live with it. I'm the one that's gotta live with it ... I'll see it in my face every day, in my mind and everything."

While a coronial inquest has publicly criticised the decisions of WA Police, the police maintain their position that it was not their responsibility to evacuate the family.

This doesn't sit well with Gwen and her lawyer, who still have questions about police accountability and duty of care.

The family are now seeking a public apology as well as compensation from WA Police.

Sorry, this audio has expired Hear more from Gwen Sturt, her brother Cameron and their lawyer

The incident at Wungu

On January 6, 2015, WA Police responded to the sudden death of Gwen's 20-year-old son Cody Carter at the remote outstation of Wungu in the East Kimberley, about 70 kilometres from Halls Creek.

Monsoonal weather and flooding rivers had cut off vehicle access to the outstation, so police flew via helicopter to Wungu, where they found the Sturt/Carter family.

Two detectives along with police officers investigated the young man's death and ascertained that the death was not suspicious.

They intended to airlift the body and the officers back to Halls Creek.

A view of the East Kimberley landscape between Halls Creek and Kununurra. ( ABC RN: Harry Hayes )

Gwen told them her car was bogged in black soil, they were low on food and fuel supplies and they were psychologically vulnerable.

The family had used the last of their fuel to power a generator, to power an air conditioner which kept Cody's body cool in the night, as requested by WA Police.

With looming storms ahead, they were desperate to leave the station with their loved one's body.

They asked the police to evacuate them from the remote outstation. But the police refused.

Police said evacuation not their responsibility

Cody's death and the police response were investigated by coroner Ros Fogliani in a recently completed inquest into 13 deaths of children and young people in the Kimberley.

Coroner Ros Fogliani looked into Cody Carter's death. ( ABC News, file )

She found that "the inspector at the Kimberley District Office decided that the family would not be evacuated by the Western Australia Police, nor would police facilitate a resupply of essential items to the community".

"The inspector determined that this was the responsibility of the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES)."

According to the inquest findings, WA Police contacted the DFES at 1:00pm on January 6 and told them about the situation at Wungu.

But DFES had no available helicopters to rescue or provide provisions for the family on that day.

DFES and WA Police both charter pilots and helicopters from the same commercial charter company in Kununurra, Helispirit.

Detective Sergeant Simone Taplin told the coroner:

"We should have made an attempt to bring them back, given that they had assisted us with putting their deceased family member inside a house. "Anybody that's aware of the cultural sensitivities around that — it causes an issue for the family to remain there, where the deceased had been. "So I would think, [with] sensitivity, with the cultural awareness, we should have brought them back. However, the decision was made not to bring them back."

The coroner then asked Sergeant Taplin how this could have been achieved if it were the responsibility of the police.

"We would have then come back in the helicopter [to Halls Creek] with the deceased and then one of us would have gone back out with the helicopter to the community, collected the family and then brought them back," she said.

Would it have happened to a non-Aboriginal family?

Gwen's brother Cameron Sturt feels that being Aboriginal played a big part in his family's treatment that day.

"If it were a white family with no food, no electricity, with a dead body, I'm sure they'd be rescued straight away," he says.

Cameron Sturt wonders why the family hasn't received any compensation. ( ABC RN: Harry Hayes )

After WA Police flew away, it was Cameron who rescued his family by driving across heavy flowing rivers between Halls Creek and the Wungu outstation in the night.

His car became bogged too, where he, his father and cousin continued through the storm on foot.

Gwen and five others, including her mother and grandson, walked nine kilometres in the dark, through rivers and heavy rain to Cameron's car.

"We never seen this place like that in our life ... it was just too much rain," she recalls.

"It was just so scary ... at one point it was stinging on our skin from that rain, stinging us, flogging us.

"We had to shelter in the trees, just to get away from that for a while, then it would settle down and we'd start walking again."

When the police said sorry

On June 6, 2018, three years after the incident at Wungu, Kimberley Superintendent Allan Adams sat down with Gwen, Cameron and their lawyer Sarouche Razi and apologised.

This meeting was offered by WA Police after the family's ordeal was reported by the ABC.

Superintendent Adams was not in charge at the time, and reportedly assured the family that this wouldn't have happened under his watch.

But he declined the offer of an interview, saying he would "leave it to Gwen and Sarouche to detail their perspective of the conversation".

Superintendent Allan Adams declined to comment but met with the family. ( ABC Kimberley: Emily Jane Smith, file )

According to Mr Razi, during the meeting Superintendent Adams stressed the legal position of WA Police of not having responsibility.

He reportedly told the family that while it was not the police's responsibility to rescue the family, that the WA Police need to show more care.

Tamar Hopkins, a lawyer working on the Police Accountability Project, says it is an area of law which is very complicated in Australia.

"The family are concerned with the failure of police to take action in circumstances where they should," she says.

"There is currently no jurisdiction in Australia where courts have found that police owe a positive duty of care to take action to assist people, in these circumstances or a whole range of circumstances."

No action taken against police

Gwen Sturt, her brother Cameron and their lawyer Sarouche Razi are pushing for a public apology after receiving a private one from police. ( ABC RN: Harry Hayes )

The Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) is the body that investigates alleged police misconduct in WA.

The family's lawyer raised the incident with the CCC in May 2015. It performed an initial inquiry to assess the eligibility of the complaint, and whether it required an investigation.

The commission told ABC that "after a careful assessment of each matter, the commission was unable to form a reasonable suspicion of misconduct and there was no further action taken".

"In Australia the overwhelming majority of complaints are investigated by the police themselves, and that includes deaths in custody," Ms Hopkins says.

In her final comments about the matter, the coroner wrote:

"Regard must be had to the enormous loss that had been suffered by the young man's family, the trauma involved in conveying his body over a long distance back to the house at Wungu Community [which assisted police] and keeping vigil over him overnight, and keeping his body cool [which also assisted police], the limited food and fuel supplies, the fact that the family was cut off from Halls Creek because of the wet season weather, the terrain and the impassable roads, and the presence of an elderly community member and a very young child. "Considering all of these factors, as well as the cultural sensitivities involved, all possible steps ought to have been taken to evacuate the family on 6 January 2015."

Will the family be compensated?

But Cameron asks: "If the police are in the wrong, then where's the compensation?"

During the meeting, Cameron reportedly told Superintendent Adams "we're looking into compensation for the trauma that they went through".

But Mr Razi, the family's lawyer, says the question was brushed aside and not open for discussion.

Superintendent Adams reportedly said it was outside of his pay grade to discuss that.

Mr Razi found this response frustrating.

Sarouche Razi thinks police haven't fully taken responsibility for what happened in 2015. ( ABC RN: Harry Hayes )

"Taking responsibility doesn't work in that way," he says.

"Taking responsibility means saying to the victim of a situation: 'What do you need to be well? What do you need to move through this grief?'

"Is it enough to express regret and feel someone's suffering? I think that's setting a very low bar. That's just being human, when so many people in this situation haven't been human."

For Gwen's son Troy, it feels like an echo of the apology to the Stolen Generations.

"It's a big thing for them, saying sorry to Aboriginals — a real big thing to them," he says.

"Done their word, and talk, and that's it."

And that's why the family is pushing for a public apology instead of just a private apology.

"That's behind hiding doors, you know," Cameron says.

"He could say anything in there. But where's the sorry so everyone can see it?"