Aboriginal death in custody prompts call for minor traffic offenders to be kept out of jail

Updated

The death of an Aboriginal man in custody has sparked calls for urgent law reform to prevent the high number of people being jailed for "victimless" driving offences.

Stanley Lord, a 39-year-old Indigenous man from Nyngan, in western New South Wales, died in custody while serving an 18-month sentence for driving while disqualified.

It was his seventh conviction for the offence.

Lord had heart problems and was transferred from Long Bay jail to the Prince of Wales Hospital for treatment early last year.

He died while in intensive care. An inquest into his death opened in Sydney today and the coroner will deliver his findings on Thursday morning.

Got a confidential news tip? Email ABC Investigations at investigations@abc.net.au For more sensitive information: Text message using the Signal phone app +61 436 369 072 No system is 100 per cent secure, but the Signal app uses end-to-end encryption and can protect your identity. Please read the terms and conditions. No system is 100 per cent secure, but the Signal app uses end-to-end encryption and can protect your identity. Please read the terms and conditions.

Claims Indigenous people locked up at disproportionate rate

Lord's father, Stanley Lord senior, told the ABC his son was resuscitated five times in jail before he was sent to hospital, under prison guard.

Mr Lord believes if his son had not been in custody, he might still be alive.

Warning: this story contains the image of a person who has since died.

"Something could have been done about his heart. I've had four by-passes, that was 15 years ago and all [the] time I was in RPA he was there with me," Mr Lord snr said.

"He didn't want to be there, he wanted to do community work but we didn't do anything about it. Young people shouldn't be sent to jail for minor driving offences."

The Aboriginal Legal Service said Indigenous people are being locked up for licensing offences at disproportionate and disgraceful rates, locking them out of participation in mainstream society.

Lawyer for the Lord family, Felicity Graham, told the ABC Lord died alone, hundreds of kilometres away from his family and community.

"He shouldn't have been in custody. He should have been with his family in his community [but] he wasn't and that is a result of this draconian system," Ms Graham said.

"He was just driving in the street. There was no dangerous driving, no drink-driving, no driving that affected public safety in any way. It was just getting from A to B.

"We're talking about a system which operates where people are locked up for unauthorised driving offences at a much greater rate [than] where people are locked up for child pornography offences, serious drug offences, serious property crime and other offences that really do interfere with public safety and other people's rights."

Custodial sentences for disqualified drivers under review

In the past 18 months the issue of driver disqualification and custodial sentences for repeat offenders has been investigated by the NSW Auditor-General and a parliamentary committee.

The NSW Government has adopted many of the recommendations made by the Legislative Assembly Committee on Law and Safety, however these are yet to be implemented and passed into law.

A spokesperson for the Attorney-General's department said it was "currently working through the various initiatives that were raised by the Legislative Assembly Committee on Law and Safety to ensure community safety and provide effective and responsible rehabilitation mechanisms".

Ms Graham said Lord's case was a stark reminder of how urgent the reforms are.

"The Government needs to move on this urgently. Every day that another person is locked up unnecessarily for unauthorised driving is another day someone might die in custody," she said.

Ms Graham said she had seen cases where people have been jailed for their first offence.

"Commonly, in our experience our clients are sent to jail on their second or third offence of driving while disqualified," she said.

"Prison is really being overused in our system and particularly in this area of unauthorised driving."

Residents in regional Australia 'at risk' of offending

Lord initially became disqualified for driving without a licence.

Ms Graham said he was not a chronic drink driver or dangerous driver. He had one prior conviction for mid-range drink driving and driving recklessly.

She said the driving while disqualified offences did not involve erratic or dangerous driving or any attempt to speed away from police.

She said people living in regional and remote parts of Australia were more likely to run the risk of driving while disqualified because public transport was limited or non-existent.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 783 people were jailed for traffic and vehicle regulatory offences in 2013. Of that number, 270 or 30 per cent were Indigenous.

Topics: black-deaths-in-custody, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, community-and-society, nsw, australia

First posted