Exclusive: Justice advocates in WA condemn operation that took woman from her children for 14 days and say it echoes Ms Dhu case

An Indigenous woman in Perth has been jailed for 14 days for unpaid fines, 10 months after a coronial inquiry recommended the Western Australian government abolish the practice.

The 35-year-old Noongar woman was arrested on a warrant of commitment at the home she shares with her five children in Joondalup on Wednesday morning, after a call was made to police about a family member who had visited the house earlier and who was reported to have become violent.

When police arrived they performed a background check on the woman and found an outstanding warrant for $3,900 in unpaid fines, dating back to a dispute over an unregistered dog in 2012.

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She was taken to Melaleuca women’s prison and told that unless she could pay the outstanding fine she would have to cut it out at a rate of $250 a day. The electricity at her house, where her children remain under the care of an aunt, has since been cut off.

The circumstances are similar to the 2014 arrest of the Yamatji woman Ms Dhu, the justice advocate Gerry Georgatos said.

“They went to a call and once again they did what they did with Ms Dhu, they do not prioritise the actual incident and instead prioritise the background check,” Georgatos said. “They neglected the whole purpose of the callout.”

A spokeswoman for WA police said the arrest had been reviewed by a senior officer and police were satisfied that “both the woman and her family were afforded all reasonable care”.

“The officers who handled this matter conducted themselves in accordance with policy and met the standards required when dealing with these difficult situations,” she said.

Dhu was arrested on a warrant of commitment for $3,622 in outstanding fines after police went the house she was staying at in Port Hedland on suspicion that her partner had breached a family violence order. She died in custody three days later.

After Dhu’s death, the coroner recommended that WA either immediately end the practice of jailing people for fines, or changed the law to require that anyone arrested for outstanding fines be brought before a magistrate who could decide if jail was the appropriate option.

The law has not changed but, in a statement to Guardian Australia, the attorney general, John Quigley, said the amendments would be put before cabinet before the end of the year.

“I intend to introduce a package of amendments to the Fines, Penalties and Infringement Notices Enforcement Act 1994 (WA), the effect of which will be to reduce the number of people imprisoned for fine default alone,” Quigley said.

“I have examined the approach taken in other jurisdictions in relation to jailing for fines and I will be in a position to bring forward a reform package to cabinet before the end of the year.”

Under the act as it now stands, the registrar of the court can issue a warrant of commitment to imprison a person for unpaid court fines if the person has not completed or is not eligible for a work and development order, which would allow the person to cut out the fine by way of community service.

The act also states that the registrar “may at any time cancel a warrant of commitment for good reason”.

Guardian Australia understands the woman was assessed by the sheriff’s office last week as unsuitable for a work and development order because she needed to care for her own children as well as her sister’s six young children.

She was also assessed by the fines enforcement registry as being under financial hardship. She relies on $520 a fortnight in Centrelink payments but was prepared to enter into a payment plan.

The woman’s mother said she should be released to care for her children, aged between two and 18. The youngest is still breastfeeding.



“She has got five children to look after and she does not want to lose her house, because she will be made homeless,” she told Guardian Australia. “It’s Department of Housing and she’s frightened they will find out she’s in prison. She does not want to be homeless.”

She said her daughter should have been allowed to enter into a payment arrangement with the court. “I think that is the most shameful thing to do, to lock a mother away from her five children,” she said.

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Fines are cut out by imprisonment at a rate of $250 a day and are served concurrently. If a person has multiple warrants of commitment for multiple fines, they are only required to spend enough time in custody to cut out the single largest fine.

The $3,900 owed by the Noongar woman is a single fine on a single warrant, so her total period of imprisonment is 14 days.

Guardian Australia understands she has other fines that are not subject to a warrant.

A 2016 report by the WA inspector of custodial services found that Aboriginal women were the most likely of any group to be jailed for fines, making up 15% of the total prisoner intake but 22% of all people jailed for fine default, and were the most likely to be jailed when they were unemployed and had no real capacity to pay.

The report also found that WA had spent $42m on imprisoning fine defaulters between 2006 and 2014.

The WA police spokeswoman said police did not have discretion over whether to arrest a person when there was an active warrant of commitment. She said policy changes discussed as part of the Dhu inquest, which included giving police officers in regional areas a discretion about whether to arrest or hold a person who was unwell and ending the practice of holding people on unpaid fines in a police lock-up, were “not yet complete”.