Harriet Wran: How her dad Neville’s illness and death triggered her ice drug addiction

HARRIET Wran’s first taste of the drug ice wasn’t in a back alley or drug den — it was in a rehabilitation clinic. The daughter of former premier Neville Wran was being treated for depression after learning of her father’s “rapidly increasing dementia”.

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• Her mums tells her ‘I love you and I’m not abandoning you’

HARRIET Wran’s first taste of the drug ice wasn’t in a back alley or drug den — it was in a rehabilitation clinic.

The daughter of former premier Neville Wran was being treated for anxiety and depression after learning of her father’s “rapidly increasing dementia”.

By the time the daughter of the Labor stalwart realised how destructive the drug had been on her life, it was too late.

Neville, Jill and Harriet Wran before Harriet turned to drugs. Picture: Patrick Riviere/Getty Images

It was approaching 1am on August 13, 2014, and she was inside Cabramatta Police Station about to be charged over Daniel McNulty’s murder.

Instead of being interviewed, Wran asked to provide police with a written statement on the ­advice of her barrister, Winston Terracini SC.

A police picture showing Harriet smoking ice.

Neville Wran with a younger Harriet.

“Sitting here writing this statement is such a clear ­evidence  of how quickly drugs (could) ruin my life,” she wrote. “Not just temporarily but forever. What more can I say?”

The now 28-year-old wrote that her path to ice came after she stopped taking Ritalin, which she had been prescribed from the age of eight to 22.

“Shortly after I stopped taking Ritalin my father was broadcast across the media for his rapidly increasing ­dementia,” Wran wrote.

“As a result I went to my first rehab clinic for anxiety and depression and there I met ice addicts who ­befriended me and enticed me to try the drug.

“Things have been pretty terrible for me since. I have had psychotic episodes whilst on drugs and I have attempted to self-harm on one ­occasion which landed me in hospital with 42 stitches in my left arm and 10 in my right.”

Jill and Neville Wran with their baby daughter Harriet in 1988. Picture: John Hawryluk

Wran wrote her father’s death in April 2014 pushed her further into addiction and she fled the ­family’s multimillion-dollar Woollahra compound “because when I was at home I  could not use drugs and I felt  I  could   not   cope without them”.

She outlined how she had been admitted to at least 12 drug rehabilitation centres, had consulted a psychologist and a psychiatrist and was on the bipolar spectrum.

“I have been told that I am on the bipolar spectrum and take medication for that.”

Since the murder, Wran wrote that “the drugs have not worked and I cannot numb my feelings like I used to”.

“Six  weeks   ago   I   had just finished a semester at Sydney University studying philosophy  and  the  culture of ­ancient Greece and now at 10 past one in the morning I am in a police station and I am  going back to my cell,” she wrote.

“How did I get here?”