Coroners court finds Aboriginal woman’s death while in custody was preventable

An Aboriginal woman’s death in hellish conditions in a maximum security prison could lead to criminal charges, a coroner has found.

The death of an Aboriginal woman, who died in a maximum security prison after her arrest for “minor” charges, could lead to the prosecution of Victoria’s state prison contractor, a coroner’s court has heard.

Veronica Nelson, 37, died in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre on January 2, 2020 after a “harrowing” final few days of her life which were recorded on CCTV, with footage showing her being left to lie in her own projectile vomit. The court also heard she made 49 calls for help in the space of 36 hours.

In the Coroners Court of Victoria on Monday, Coroner Simon McGregor found Ms Nelson's death was preventable, and said he would be compelled to inform the Director of Public Prosecutions that an indictable offence may have been committed by Correct Care, the government’s prison contractor, over a breach of occupational health and safety laws.

Veronica Nelson died despite making repeated calls for medical help at a maximum security jail in Melbourne, where she had been sent after her arrest for ‘minor charges’. Picture: Supplied

Mr McGregor said Ms Nelson died alone in her cell after “begging for assistance for several of the last hours of her life” and said he wondered how “the people who heard them and had the power to help her did not rush to her aid”.

Three days before her death, Ms Nelson was arrested on Spencer St, near Southern Cross Station in Melbourne’s CBD, for outstanding warrants and whereabouts notices, and spent that night in the subterraneous Melbourne Custody Centre.

A day after her arrest, a barrister met with Ms Nelson for less than six minutes, Mr McGregor wrote in his finding, with Ms Nelson ultimately making an unsuccessful bail application despite the “relatively minor, non-violent offences” she was alleged to have committed.

Veronica Nelson and her partner Percy Lovett. A state coroner has found her death at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in January 2020 was preventable. Picture: Supplied

Victorian bail laws had recently been tightened after the 2017 Bourke St attack, in which James Gargasoulas killed six people in drug-induced psychosis after being released on bail days earlier.

Ms Nelson died just before 8am on January 2, weighing 33kg, with an autopsy attributing her cause of death to Wilkie’s Syndrome in the setting of opiate withdrawal.

The findings come after a five-week inquest into her death was held in April and May of 2021.