Senior constable Danny Wolters tells inquest he did not take more time because he wanted to preserve Day’s ‘dignity’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A police officer tasked with monitoring the welfare of the Aboriginal woman Tanya Day said he spent just three seconds looking through the cell window because she was in a “very undignified position” and he “didn’t want to get caught leering at her”.

Day, 55, was detained for public drunkenness on 5 December 2017, and brought to the Castlemaine police cells for four hours to sober up. About 50 minutes into her stay she fell and hit her forehead on the cell wall, causing a brain haemorrhage that ended her life 17 days later.

Leading senior constable Danny Wolters, the watch house keeper that afternoon, told an inquest he did not see the fatal fall, and rejected a suggestion his care of her had been “criminally negligent”.

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He was shown footage of a welfare check he conducted at 5.35pm that showed him walking down to the cells and standing for three seconds at the door before leaving.

He rejected a suggestion that it was a “thoroughly inadequate” check.

He told the court on Tuesday that he said, “Are you OK, Tanya?” and received a “yes” in response.

Footage of Day in the cell at that time has shown her lying crossways on the cell bench with her feet on the floor and her head against the wall. She does not physically respond to Wolters’ presence.

Counsel for the Day family, Peter Morrissey SC, asked Wolters why he did not spend more time talking to Day at the cell. Wolters said he wanted to preserve her “dignity”.

“When I observed Tanya I found her to be in a very undignified position for a lady to be in,” Wolters said. “I have seen a lot of males in that position in our cells, a lot of males, but not females, and I found it a little bit confronting … I spoke to her, I got a verbal response from her, and I left her to her own privacy and dignity.”

Morrissey suggested that if Wolters had been concerned about Day’s dignity as a woman, he could have gone to fetch Sergeant Edwina Neale, his supervisor on that shift, to conduct the check.

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“I didn’t see any reason [to fetch Neale],” Wolters said. “She was in a very undignified position for a female to be in, I didn’t want to get caught leering at her.”

“This whole dignity argument is a flat out lie that you’ve made up later, isn’t it?” Morrissey asked.

“Not at all,” Wolters said.

“You found it embarrassing and confronting to deal with an Indigenous woman.”

“Not at all.”

Footage of Day in the cell, played in court, showed her holding her right arm and her forehead in the minutes after hitting her head at 4.51pm.

Wolters agreed that it appeared Day was having difficulty moving her right arm, although he said he did not notice it on the night. He interpreted it as her appearing more intoxicated than she had earlier.

“Around about that time I had formed the opinion that Tanya was not going to make the four-hour rule, she was going to require six hours in custody if she was not collected,” he said.

He said he did not see her fall off the bench at 6.39pm, despite both paramedics and Neale saying that Wolters described seeing Day slip off the bed and hit her forehead on the floor.

He rejected a suggestion from Morrissey that Day did not say anything to him when he conducted in-person welfare checks at 5.35pm and 6.43pm.

On the latter occasion, Day was lying on her back on the floor with a blanket over her head. She did not move when Wolters was at the door.

“She looked comfortable, and I was satisfied,” Wolters said.

The inquest continues.