Man 'cooked' to death in Australian prison van

Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 7:23 AM Posted by Beijing News


The family of an Australian Aboriginal elder who died after being "cooked" in the back of a scorching hot prison van may sue after a coroner branded his treatment inhumane.

A coroner Friday described the treatment of the 46-year-old man as a "disgrace" and inhumane, saying he would ask prosecutors to consider criminal charges over his death from heatstroke in Western Australia in January 2008.

The elder, known only as Mr Ward as his first name was withheld for cultural reasons, was transported 360 kilometres 225 miles to jail in temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius 122 F in a van with faulty air conditioning.

Ward, who was arrested a day earlier for drink driving, spent four hours in the searing heat between the mining towns of Laverton and Kalgoorlie, suffering third-degree burns where his body touched the metal floor, the inquest heard.

Western Australia Coroner Alastair Hope found that Ward was effectively "cooked" to death and heavily criticised the state prisons department, the private security firm that operated the van and the two guards who escorted Ward.

"It is a disgrace that a prisoner in the 21st century, particularly a prisoner who has not been convicted of any crime, was transported for a long distance in high temperatures in this pod," Hope said.

The hearing was told that when Ward eventually arrived unconscious at hospital in Kalgoorlie, his body was so hot that staff were unable to cool him down. After an ice bath, which failed to save him, he had a body temperature of 41.7 degrees Celsius as opposed to a normal temperature of 37 degrees Celsius.

He also had a cut on his head from falling in the vehicle and a third-degree burn to his stomach from lying on the van's hot metal floor.

The coroner said the state Department of Corrective Services had failed to provide the transport company, Global Solutions Ltd GSL, with proper means of transport and that the vehicle was "not fit for humans."

He found that guards Nina Stokoe and Graham Powell, who provided Ward with only a 600 millilitre bottle of water and did not check on him throughout the journey, had breached their duty of care.

"As a matter of commonsense, it should have been abundantly clear that on a hot day... it was of fundamental importance to check the air conditioning was working," Hope said.

The coroner found that Ward's death breached Australia's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Ward's cousin, Daisy Ward, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC on Saturday the family was considering filing a civil lawsuit against GSL, which ran the prison van fleet, for breaching its duty of care.

"The community wants to see that they are punished... for what they have done, for what they have not done," she said.

She said she hoped no other prisoner would suffer the same fate and "that the prisoners are well treated and that there is no more using those vehicles any more," she said. "Just get those vehicles out."

The transport company offered to travel to Ward's home town of Warburton to apologise to the family, but the family has declined the offer.

"We all said that it was too late and that... they could have come forward to us and apologised to us earlier on," Daisy Ward said.

State Corrective Services Commissioner Ian Johnson said he would do everything possible to ensure incidents like Ward's death were never repeated and stressed his department had made significant changes to its prisoner transport system.





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