Petition to repeal s.6B Firearms Act

A few weeks back I posted this article about the tragic death of Lalin Fernando, who was killed by his daughter Shamin.

Shamin had been suffering with severe mental illness, which caused her to believe that she had to kill her father.  She joined a gun club, and there obtained a pistol and ammunition, despite not having a license.  She took these out of the gun club, and back home, where she used the skills she had practiced at the gun club to shoot her father.

Is it difficult to fathom how someone in such a state of mind could so easily do this.

But they can. The law as it presently stands actually allows a person to attend a gun club, and shoot pistols, without having had any training, without any need to be licensed to handle a gun, and without any background check at all.

The relevant provision is s.6B Firearms Act (NSW), an amendment which was introduced by the Shooters and Fishers Party in 2008, and supported by the NSW Labor government.

6B Exemption for unlicensed persons shooting on approved ranges and for persons undertaking firearms safety training courses

(1) A person is exempt from any requirement under this Act to be authorised by a licence or permit to possess or use a firearm (other than a prohibited firearm) if the person possesses or uses the firearm only:

(a) at a shooting range approved by the Commissioner in accordance with the regulations and while under the direct supervision of a person who is authorised by a licence to possess or use a firearm of that kind, or

(b) while participating in a firearms safety training course approved by the Commissioner in accordance with the regulations and while under the direct supervision of a firearms instructor approved by the Commissioner in accordance with the regulations.

(2) Any such exemption from the requirement to be authorised by a licence or permit to possess or use a firearm is subject to the requirements prescribed by the regulations.

(3) This section does not apply in relation to a person who is under the age of 12 years.

One would think that the exemption would be subject to stringent requirements, but turn to the regulations and you'll find the only requirement is that a person fill out a questionnaire and not answer 'yes' to questions like "are you currently suffering from any mental illness or other disorder that may prevent you from using a firearm safely?"

That and being supervised at all times by a licensed shooter, who must carry the weapon to and from the unlicensed self-declared sane person. Except when they're not supervising and instead leaving the weapon with the self-declared sane person to take home. And except when they are selling ammunition to the same person.

All of this occurred in the case of Shamin Fernando, who only had to lie about having a mental illness in order to legally practice killing her father, and then be in a position to walk out of the club with a gun.

The Fernando family have been campaigning to have s.6B Firearms Act (NSW) repealed. After this tragedy, you might question the case for the retention of the provision and its associated regulations in their current form.

A petition to the Police Minister, Michael Gallacher, has been set up on change.org, urging the government to repeal this law. If you would like your support for the repeal to be registered, please consider adding your name to the petition.

Without this provision in its current form, a severely mentally ill person could not legally get their hands on a firearm. A good idea, you might think.

A father killed, a daughter lost

Michael Duffy | SMH | April 6, 2012

For 19 months a family has fought for tighter gun laws, so others won't suffer the grief they must endure. Michael Duffy reports.

When Carmen Fernando went into the house that Sunday there was a message on the answering machine from her daughter Shamin. ''Dad: I need help to load some software now, please ring me back.''

It was a surprise. Shamin, who was 43, was mentally ill and had harboured paranoid fears of her father Lalin for a long time: they'd had almost no contact in three years. Carmen then returned to the garden and told her 70-year-old husband the good news. He was delighted. He went inside and had a shower while she made some lunch for him.

Shamin rang again to make sure he was coming: the job seemed urgent. At 2.40pm, believing he was about to be reconciled with his daughter, he drove to her flat in Glebe.

Once there, she sat him in front of the computer where he began to load the software disks. Saying she had to go to the toilet, she left the room and picked up a pistol hidden beneath the doona on her bed. She came back to the room where the computer was, aimed the gun at the back of her father's head and pulled the trigger.

The gun failed to fire and Lalin, his attention on the computer screen, noticed nothing. Shamin returned to the bedroom and corrected the problem with the pistol, then went back to the other room. This time the gun worked. She shot her father many times, pausing once to reload. At 3.14pm she called the police to tell them what she had done. It was August 22, 2010.

Like most tragedies, Vincent Lalin Fernando's death had many causes. One was the mental illness of his daughter, whose medical treatment seems at times to have been less than ideal. Another was the incompetence of officials of the Sydney Pistol Club, from where she stole the pistol that day.

And finally there was the political cause: the Labor state government's support in 2008 for a Shooters Party bill that watered down gun control. In particular, it removed the need to check the background of unlicensed shooters at gun clubs.

This enabled Shamin to obtain the training, the ammunition and the gun to kill her father, who she believed was orchestrating a deadly conspiracy against her. Despite his death and the change in government, the 2008 change to the Firearms Act still stands.

AG Greg Smith's speech to Public Defender's Conference

Speech by Greg Smith SC MP, Attorney General and Minister for Justice to 

open the Public Defender’s Conference, Saturday 24 March 2012 at Taronga 

Park Zoo Conference Centre. 

This Monday marks the first anniversary of the election of the O'Farrell Government.  

For the past week we have had the pleasure of getting up at 5.30 and going out to 

railway stations handing out  little cards telling people what good things we’ve done 

and they are saying: what’s up?, Is there an election on? But we have had a very 

good reception. 

I am pleased to say the firm agenda I set in opposition – with the backing of the 

Coalition –which was that there would be no law and order auction at the last 

election, has been honoured by us. And I think Labor was becoming weary of it. 

They didn’t try to counter with a one sided auction – no grid sentencing, or more 

maximum life sentences, no extra aggravated offences, no standard non parole 

periods – which had coloured the previous 20 years of elections. 

Unlike previous governments, our State plan does not demand a certain number of 

arrests or prisoners. Take section 22A of the Bail Act; it allowed only one application 

for bail and had a particular impact on young people - especially for those who 

breached curfews. There are now are 150 people a week in juvenile detention 

centres who will never receive a custodial sentence. 

I promised we would open a second metropolitan drug court – I expect that will up 

and running in May – and the first intensive drug treatment facility in a NSW jail. We 

have done that at the John Morony complex at Windsor. In late February the first 62 

prisoners started and within two years I hope we have 300 prisoners – 250 men, 50 

women - undergoing treatment that will last for about six months. They will be linking 

up with the non-government organisations after their release so they can continue 

their treatment. 

Drug addiction can be a lifelong struggle and my hope is that this program will help a 

lot of people to turn their lives around and make a positive contribution to the 

community. If they can get off the drugs, get a job, get somewhere to live and help – 

 rather than just being thrown into jail and let out with the same problems – it will be 

better for the community. We will have more citizens who might have been 

permanent criminals going straight and the community will be safer. And hopefully 

the perceptions of safety will increase because that is one of our big problems. 

Fanned by publicity and sensation, there is a perception out in the suburbs of 

Sydney that it’s dangerous out there, in the night, even in the day.   

Australia moves to strengthen oversight and accountability of places of detention

Human Rights Law Centre | 28 Feb 2012

Australia has moved a step closer to ensuring independent monitoring, inspection and oversight of places of detention.

The Commonwealth Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, and the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, Craig Emerson, today tabled a National Interest Analysis on Australia’s ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.

The Optional Protocol is an international treaty which aims to prevent ill treatment and promote humane conditions by establishing systems for independent monitoring and inspection of all places of detention.

“It is not only in the interests of persons deprived of liberty, but also the broader community, that all places of detention – whether prisons, psychiatric hospitals, police cells or disability facilities – promote rehabilitation and reintegration. It is fundamental that all detainees are treated with basic dignity and respect. Independent inspections and oversight are critical in this regard,” said Human Rights Law Centre Executive Director, Phil Lynch.

At the national level, the Optional Protocol requires that countries establish what is known as a “national preventative mechanism”, or NPM. An NPM is an independent body with a mandate to conduct both announced and unannounced visits to places of detention, to make recommendations to prevent ill treatment and improve conditions, and to report publicly on its findings and views.

At the international level, the Optional Protocol establishes an independent committee of experts, the UN Sub-Committee on the Prevention of Torture, with a mandate to carry out country missions to monitor deprivations of liberty.

According to Mr Lynch, “The whole system is premised on the evidence and experience that external scrutiny of places of detention can prevent and redress torture and other forms of ill treatment. By making places of detention more open, transparent and accountable, it helps to ensure that persons deprived of liberty – whether people with psychiatric illness, prisoners, people with disability or asylum seekers – are treated with basic dignity and respect.”

Australia signed the Optional Protocol in May 2009. Since that time, progress on ratification and implementation has been slow, with wrangling between the states and the Commonwealth about who is to foot the modest bill for detention monitoring and oversight. According to Mr Lynch, “This is despite international evidence as to the very high social and economic costs of failing to prevent and redress ill-treatment.”

Mr Lynch said that, “Now that the NIA has been tabled, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments should all prioritise ratification and implementation of the Optional Protocol. Any further delay in the prevention of ill-treatment has intolerable social and economic costs and is simply not an option.”

Despair grips the children of the Dreaming

Russell Skelton | The Age | February 11, 2012

IT WAS a seemingly routine day in a thriving Arnhem Land township located on a bay facing the sparkling Arafura Sea. Northern Territory MP Marion Scrymgour had flown to the unnamed Aboriginal and islander community of 2000 to meet constituents, listen to grievances, and relay them to the powers that be in Darwin. ''I was walking from the council office to the health clinic when I saw all these people running, screaming and calling out.''

She stopped a panicked passer-by to ask what had happened and was answered by a swift gesture: a hand passing across the neck. ''It did not dawn on me at first what that gesture meant. Then somebody from the clinic said a girl had hanged herself. When I heard that she was 11, I thought, what is happening to our people and families? What is it that leads a young person to give up all hope and see no alternative in life but to leave?''

Flown by air ambulance to Darwin, the girl died in hospital after life support was turned off.

The circumstances of her death remain a mystery for most. Police requested that details not be publicised and the Coroner is yet to publish a finding - he may never do so, because not all suicides in the territory are subject to coronial investigation. Police reports are often accepted at face value and passed onto grieving families.

Scrymgour, who says she was told that the girl's desperate final act had had something to do with bullying, believes there is an urgent need for much more research into the territory's horrendous number of indigenous suicides. ''There had been a lot of bullying at school, but there is nothing cultural about a kid being bullied. That is an issue that can and should be dealt with.''

The shocking fact remains that more young girls are killing themselves than ever before in the Northern Territory. It is almost impossible to put an accurate figure on the precise number suiciding because of a time lag in reporting the deaths, but no one disputes figures complied in the NT Child Death and Prevention Committee annual report, showing that territory Aboriginal children are 3.5 times more likely to die during childhood than non-Aboriginal children.

Hardline A-G hits back at his critics

Anna Patty | SMH | February 3, 2012

It didn't take long for the vitriol over the state government's approach to law and order to start.

Ten months after the NSW election, the opposition and tabloid media have been dishing it out to the Attorney-General, Greg Smith, accusing him of being soft on crime.

One radio talk-back host recently accused Smith of being a step away from the Greens, saying he had failed to earn his stripes as a conservative Attorney-General.

When it comes to the rehabilitation of non-violent offenders, Smith would agree.

He says he is "more left-wing on issues like dealing with prisoners and rehabilitation than any other Attorney-General in the country".

But Smith, reputed as a tough public prosecutor when he worked for the DPP - having put away murderers including those who killed policeman David Carty - is hardline when it comes to serious violence.

In response to a recent spate of drive-by shootings in Sydney's south-west, the opposition and some commentators have confused the distinction Smith has made between his different approaches to sentencing and rehabilitation.

He believes in non-custodial sentences for less serious offenders and rehabilitation for people with drug and alcohol addiction or mental health problems.

When it comes to people guilty of serious violent crime, including the "buffoons" responsible for the shootings, repeat offenders and those guilty of child sex offences, Smith wants to toughen punishments.

Smith recently asked the Supreme Court to look at how judgments against people convicted of sex offences against children could be strengthened.

A Human Rights Agenda for the new Attorney-General

Human Rights Law Centre | 15 December 2011

Australia’s new Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, was sworn in on 14 December 2011.

We asked some of Australia’s leading human rights advocates, activists and academics to tell us, in less than 100 words, what the Attorney’s top human rights priority or initiative for 2012 should be. We’ll be sharing more of them with you in the coming days and weeks.



Catherine Branson QC is President of the Australian Human Rights Commission

My hope is that the new Attorney-General’s priorities will include bringing along her fellow ministers and parliamentarians in making the new human rights scrutiny processes effective and seeing through the consolidation of federal discrimination laws process to create an effective national equality law. She should also ensure the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and establish a national system of monitoring places of detention. Finally, the Attorney must ensure that human rights considerations inform policy in all areas of her portfolio, for example in security policy where there is an urgent need for a system enabling review of adverse security assessments.

Nicolas Patrick is a Partner and Head of Pro Bono with DLA Piper

I would prioritise the human rights of people in places of detention. A significant proportion of Australia’s prison population suffer from mental illness. There is a causal and consequential link between imprisonment and mental illness. Australia is warehousing people with mental health problems in prisons, where mental health care is entirely inadequate.

The number of juveniles in detention is also a major concern, along with the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. These issues raise significant concerns with respect to Australia’s obligations under the Convention against Torture, the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and require the urgent attention of the Australian Government.

Professor David Kinley is Chair in Human Rights Law at Sydney Law School

Dear Attorney,

Pay very close attention to the newly established parliamentary human rights scrutiny committee. This is a sleeping giant, whose potential power and range is underappreciated; indeed largely unnoticed. Having authority to scrutinise all bills for compliance with all Australia’s international human rights obligations goes far beyond the scope of any equivalent mechanism overseas, and it will embarrass and expose. So, heads up for the enhanced human rights scrutiny of the next wave of immigration, anti-terrorism or workplace relations proposals.

PS. Don’t take up smoking this year.





Ed Santow is Chief Executive Officer of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre

Over the last few years, the Australian Government has made progress in improving the protection of our basic rights. However, Australia still lacks a comprehensive human rights law. This increases the vulnerability of already disadvantaged people — like Indigenous Australians, people experiencing homelessness and people with a disability. To rectify this, the new Attorney-General should take the lead in fully implementing the recommendations of the 2009 National Human Rights Consultation, including by enacting a comprehensive Human Rights Act.

Nicky Friedman is Head of Pro Bono & Community Programs with Allens Arthur Robinson

The new Attorney should ensure that asylum seekers can access and exercise their legal rights.
Since the High Court’s decision in M61, which confirmed that review by the courts is available to asylum seekers who are processed offshore, legal assistance providers have been hit with floods of applications for legal representation in judicial review proceedings. Despite the huge increase in demand, no extra funds have been provided and legal aid and community legal centres are turning away desperate people. The Attorney should provide funds to boost the capacity of refugee and immigration community legal centres and legal aid commissions to deal with these matters immediately.

Professor Sarah Joseph is Director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law

There are many human rights priorities for Australiain 2012, such as properly implementing the new Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act and vastly improving this country’s impoverished refugee debate. As the number one priority, however, I would say that the Australian Government must take the lead in vigorously supporting amendment of the Australian Constitution to better recognise and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples, and to educate Australian people about the need for such amendment. A campaign against Constitutional recognition has already begun (see eg, J Albrechtsen inThe Australian on 14 December). The government and the opposition must get on the front foot to counter the scaremongering.

AG at Estimates: Mental Health in custody

General Purpose Standing Committee No 4 | Attorney General and Justice | 26 October 2011

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Attorney, in the 2011-12 budget do you know the amount allocated to mental health care services for people in New South Wales correctional centres?

Mr GREG SMITH: No, I do not.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Does either Mr Glanville or Mr Woodham know the amount allocated?

Mr WOODHAM: I cannot tell you the exact dollar figure, but I can relate to the programs that we have, which are very expensive and very intense.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Could you give the dollar figure on notice?

Mr WOODHAM: Yes, I can give you that.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Could you include whether any recurrent funding has been allocated for that purpose?

Mr WOODHAM: It is there every year, because large sections of our remand jails are involved with mental health.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Mr Hubby, could I ask you to provide the same figures and details in relation to young people in Juvenile Justice centres?

Mr HUBBY: I will. I would note though that health services in Juvenile Justice centres are generally provided by NSW Health. So some costs are incurred directly by our agency, but some are incurred by NSW Health.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Could you give the NSW Health figures to the extent they are available to you?

Mr HUBBY: I will take that on notice.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Mr Woodham, could you give the same figures for the amount allocated for mental health care services for people in privatised correctional centres in New South Wales, and include the recurrent figures?

Mr WOODHAM: Yes.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: So that is a separate figure for the privatised centres.

Mr WOODHAM: What the whole facility costs?

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: No. The amount allocated to mental health services.

Mr WOODHAM: Our main programs are not there.

Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE: Which is why I am asking can you give the amount allocated in those privatised centres, including by centre, so Parklea and Junee.

Mr WOODHAM: Yes.

Legal aid lawyers buckle under work stress

Geesche Jacobsen | SMH | 6 September 2011

A STAFF health survey within Legal Aid NSW has exposed high levels of stress, concerns about the bullying of criminal lawyers and found that workers compensation claims for its criminal solicitors are running at twice the national average.

Coming as the government prepares to review the provision and funding of legal services in NSW, the survey found that 13 per cent of claims within the service are due to mental health problems.

The survey reports solicitors have had to interview clients in the street because of a lack of facilities. Inadequate resources and slow computer systems also contributed to their frustrations. Some lawyers said they were not always fully briefed at the start of a trial, had inadequate information to manage their cases and were poorly trained to handle emotionally charged situations.

Sources suggest legal aid solicitors sometimes see as many as 30 clients a day, allowing less than 15 minutes per consultation. Some solicitors outside of the Sydney CBD are understood to manage as many as 120 cases every month.

Last month, the Attorney-General, Greg Smith, informed staff of a government review of the provision of legal assistance to the community. The review will make some recommendations on how to improve services, especially to disadvantaged groups, but will do so considering ''the level of funding provided''.

Mr Smith has previously announced a review of the amount of legal work contracted out to the private sector. The review might also examine a controversial restructure of Legal Aid, which was announced late last year.

The health survey found 65 per cent of staff reported sleep difficulties and 36 per cent said they felt stressed at least once a day. The pace of work and time pressures were listed as major sources of stress. Staff felt bullied by managers or supervisors and reported problems with conflicting demands and burnout.

Many said the workplace culture encouraged ''toughing it out'' in difficult situations and seeking help was stigmatised.

They also mentioned the extreme emotional demands of their job, and many reported their clients were violent or aggressive and had unrealistic expectations.

About two-thirds of the administrative and legal staff of Legal Aid's criminal law division took part in the survey, but the report's authors admitted that results from more detailed focus groups were not random and ''influenced somewhat by … [staff] work commitments''.

It has taken more than a year to produce the results of the survey, which mirrors the complaints of two earlier surveys involving legal aid staff in 2008 and 2009.

The chief executive of Legal Aid NSW, Alan Kirkland, said he was taking the issue very seriously and would develop an ''organisational health and wellbeing strategy'' focusing on mental health, the training of managers and changes to the workplace culture.

''It is always a reality that Legal Aid will have a large workload. What we need to do is make sure that it's fairly shared,'' he said.

''What the report suggests is that most of our staff are in good health and possibly doing better than other lawyers.''

While the survey found staff reported similar levels of ''psychological distress'' to the general population, it also found there was a higher proportion of those with severe symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression. The survey also found the staff surveyed felt committed to their work and many enjoyed working towards social justice objectives.

''Many of the stressors raised by staff in the present study are inherent to the work they do and the environment in which they do it,'' the study concluded.

Modern prescription for mental illness: go directly to jail

Richard Ackland | SMH | July 29, 2011

"Most are ill people locked in a system that can't provide proper treatment."

A comfortably-off, middle-class woman from a nice suburb suddenly finds herself at the Silverwater metropolitan remand and reception centre. She's been charged with a serious driving offence and is awaiting trial.

The reception centre is a madhouse. It's so crowded people are swinging off the rafters. There are three or four people to a small cell. Our middle-class inmate shares with two others.

There's an Aboriginal woman clearly suffering a dreadful mental trauma, who spends the entire night screaming and bashing her head against the wall. There is blood everywhere.

The lady on the driving charge repeatedly calls the guard for something to be done, only to be told when someone in authority finally gets around to sticking their head in (twice in 12 hours), ''don't worry about it''.

The guards would have seen this sort of scene innumerable times. Someone might die, but the resources can't cope and the system is choked with mentally ill prisoners.

A group of us who attended the most recent forum of the Crime and Justice Reform Committee heard this story from Kat Armstrong, an articulate former prisoner who nowadays works for the Women in Prison Advocacy Network.

Former District Court judge Chris Geraghty, who chaired the lunchtime session of the CJRC, said he quite frequently had to sentence mentally damaged people to jail who said their heads were filled with voices. Sending these people to prison is unlikely to improve their capacity to function. It also compounds the difficulties of daily life for other prisoners and prison officers.

Through the Cracks: Suresh Nair

Tanveer Ahmed |The Monthly | June 2011

On a Saturday afternoon in November 2009, a sergeant at Kings Cross Police Station received a call from Helen Lonergan, the administrative head of Nepean Private Hospital. She was trying to discover the whereabouts of Suresh Nair, a neurosurgeon responsible for several in-patients who, three days after their operations, had still not been reviewed. Each had undergone a major procedure upon their spine; one required monitoring in intensive care.

Lonergan, who had appointed Nair three years earlier, had only a vague idea that he might suffer from a mental illness. Nair was also employed by the public hospital adjacent to the Nepean; the Medical Board had stipulated Nair must work under supervision and could operate just one day per week in the private sector. After his protracted absence, hospital staff had been trying to reach him by phone for days. Lonergan was worried about a possible decline in his condition, maybe even a suicide attempt.

When the local sergeant pulled up Nair’s name on the police database, he discovered the doctor was already under investigation and ordered an immediate search. Police arrived at Nair’s luxury pad in Elizabeth Bay to find it vacant. But they did discover the dead body of a beautiful young woman, Brazilian student Suellen Domingues Zaupa, on the floor.

The following Monday, not having heard anything further from police, Lonergan was preparing to shift Nair’s patients to other surgeons. But Nair had already been to work that morning and reviewed the patients who had been waiting to see him. Staff described him as calm and composed. He had apologised for his disappearance and lack of contact, citing a family crisis.

Later that day, police called the hospital and urged its administrators to suspend Nair from operating immediately, without revealing why. Lonergan waited anxiously after making special requests for confidential information to help determine whether the hospital would allow Nair to operate on a full list of patients the following day. The information arrived from police headquarters just in time.

Nair was found to have engaged the services of several high-end escorts over a long period of time. At his insistence he shared cocaine with them, sometimes inserting thumbnail-sized parcels of the drug into their vaginas and rectums, which increases the rate of absorption.

Nair’s activities may have resulted in Zaupa’s death. After she lost consciousness, Nair moved his Dionysian party of cocaine and prostitutes to a penthouse suite in a city hotel. Another woman, Victoria McIntyre, had been found dead in his apartment nine months earlier. He wasn’t yet charged for this earlier event, and neither the Medical Board nor Nair’s employers had been informed about it.

Nair was initially charged with murder over Zaupa’s death but the charge was downgraded and he ultimately pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He also pleaded guilty to the charge of supplying drugs to McIntyre. When released on bail in the middle of last year he was immediately discovered, thanks to police surveillance, to be hiring prostitutes and using cocaine. Further requests for bail were promptly refused. He was charged in January and will be handed a sentence at the end of this month.

Women prisoners set up to fail in 'dumping' jails

By Inga Ting, Pacific Media Centre, 5 January 2011:

Most of the growing numbers of women who are imprisoned in NSW in Australia are suffering psychiatric disorders. In a rare glimpse into Silverwater Corrections Centre,Inga Ting investigates and finds that imprisonment itself may be making mental health problems worse.

Jennifer*, a mother and university graduate, says she would not have considered herself at risk of suicide or self harm when she entered the Australian prison system early in 2010. Before February, when she was arrested for a crime committed more than 12 years ago, Jennifer was enjoying a successful academic career, leading a vibrant social life and flourishing in a stable, long-term relationship.

But after just six weeks in Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre – a maximum security facility where remand detainees are housed alongside the state’s most dangerous women offenders – her self-confidence, her outlook and her life are in tatters.