The actions of New South Wales police during the arrest of an Indigenous woman who later died in custody should be examined, given officers did not identify her “acute mental illness”, a court has heard.
Tammy Shipley died in prison while being held on remand at Silverwater women’s correctional centre in December 2022.
A coronial inquest into the 47-year-old’s death was held in September 2024, but it was adjourned after the police commissioner legally challenged the coroner’s jurisdiction to examine the circumstances of Shipley’s arrest, which led to her detention.
“Ms Shipley died from complications arising from the very acute mental illnesses that were the things that were not identified by the police when she was first brought into custody,” Oliver Jones, appearing on behalf of Shipley’s mother, Vicki Shipley, told a hearing before the supreme court on Friday. He argued that the coroner should decide the scope of an inquiry into a death.
“There’s a further reference … from corrective services that said they would have found it useful had they had correct documents from NSW police,” Jones said.
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Adam Casselden SC, who acted on behalf of the police, argued it was not in the coroner’s jurisdiction in this circumstance because Shipley’s arrest was “too remote” from her death to be considered causative.
“A line must be drawn at some point, beyond which, even if relevant factors which come to light, will be considered too remote from the event,” he told the court.
“A coroner doesn’t have powers of general inquiry to conduct a roving royal commission,” he said. “They are constrained in terms of what they can look into.”
Shipley, a mother of five, was charged by police on 9 December 2022 with two shoplifting offences and breaching her bail after she stole $23.10 worth of goods from a Woolworths supermarket, and several hundred dollars worth of items from Target.
A police statement said that when Shipley was asked by officers if she wanted to go to jail, she replied “that would be nice”.
Shipley, who lived with an acute schizoaffective disorder, died in custody 11 days after she was charged. She had drunk 20 litres of water and prison officers did not notice that she had collapsed and was experiencing seizures.
Karly Warner, the chief executive of the NSW and ACT branch of the Aboriginal Legal Service, said in a statement before the hearing that it was critical that the inquest was able to examine why Shipley was in prison.
“It is impossible to fully consider the factors that led to Tammy’s death in custody without looking into how and why she was there in the first place,” she said.
“Tammy was a mum of five, a daughter, a sister, a grandma of two and an aunty. Her death alone in custody should never have happened.”
Warner added that thorough investigations into deaths in custody were “essential to identify systemic failures” and argued that coroners had the power to issue recommendations to prevent more deaths in similar circumstances.
Justice Richard McHugh has reserved his decision.
