Tammy was sent to jail for a $23.10 theft. After a cascade of errors, she died there

Warning: This story contains the name and image of a deceased Indigenous person. Tammy Shipley’s image has been reproduced with her family’s consent.

A mother of five in the grip of mental delusions died in a Sydney jail cell after drinking as much as 20 litres of water while prison officers failed to notice her collapse and suffer seizures, a court has heard.

Tammy Shipley, 47, died at Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre in December 2022 after being arrested for stealing $23.10 worth of goods from Woolworths, trespassing and breach of bail more than a week earlier.

Tammy Shipley, 47, died after consuming massive quantities of water in jail while delusional.

The NSW Coroner’s Court heard on Monday that her continued detention may have been an administrative error and that she was later convicted in absentia by a court unaware that she had died.

Three of her children were in the courtroom at Lidcombe – another watched the proceedings online – alongside Shipley’s mother, Vicki.

“I’m not saying that my daughter didn’t do anything wrong,” Vicki, 70, told the Herald. “She did, you know, and she deserved punishment for that.

“But I don’t think death was the punishment that she deserved.”

Vicki Shipley’s daughter died in SIlverwater prison in 2022.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

Vicki, a former nurse, remembered her daughter as creative and kind, an intelligent child who loved netball and athletics.

The court heard Shipley, a “much-loved Aboriginal lady”, first experienced troubles in her teens after suffering an undisclosed trauma. While she enjoyed periods of relative stability, her life was also marked by schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, substance abuse and domestic violence.

Counsel assisting the inquest, Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, said in her opening address that “Tammy was not a violent person” and almost all of her criminal charges related to drug possession and driving offences.

Tammy Shipley may have been kept at Silverwater jail due to an administrative error, the coroner’s court heard.Credit: Kate Geraghty

She had been involuntarily treated in hospital for acute mental illness three times in the two years before she died.

On December 9, 2022, she was charged with stealing several hundred dollars worth of goods from a Target store. The same day she returned and stole $23.10 worth of goods from Woolworths at the same shopping centre.

When one police officer asked if she wanted to go to jail, she replied: “That would be nice”.

Shipley, charged with shoplifting, entering inclosed lands and breach of bail was refused bail by police and then Parramatta Local Court.

At Silverwater, she displayed signs of paranoia. She thought people were out to get her. She tried to self-harm with her shirt and at one point appeared “dishevelled and odorous”.

Despite her condition in jail, Shipley then appeared via audiovisual link for a court hearing with no legal representation. She pleaded guilty and was fined.

But in circumstances Dwyer described as unclear, the court did not deal with all of Shipley’s offences together and she was kept in custody on outstanding charges.

“It is part of the tragedy ... that Tammy was in custody, for very minor offences, as what appears to have been an administrative or clerical error, or human error,” Dwyer said.

In the days leading up to her death, Shipley began to consume large quantities of water due to polydipsia, a delusion associated with schizophrenia that creates feelings of extreme thirst.

Vicki Shipley says her daughter should have been in hospital, not jail.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

Over a roughly 12-hour period on the day of her death, CCTV recorded Shipley refilling a red cup 67 times, which meant she consumed up to 20 litres of water. She had episodes of diarrhoea and vomiting and at 11.55am collapsed on her bed.

Prison officers did not see her repeated seizures as blinds obscured their vision and they failed to enter the cell. When prison staff finally intervened she could not be revived. An autopsy showed sodium levels in Shipley’s blood had been dangerously diluted.

Dwyer told the court it would hear evidence Shipley’s death was avoidable. Even though she was meant to be observed physically every 30 minutes, no one saw her for nearly three hours.

“No one should pass away alone on a cold prison floor, forcibly separated from their loved ones,” said Nadine Miles, principal legal officer of the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT), which is representing the Shipley family.

“Yet this has been the reality for too many Aboriginal people.”

Dwyer noted the inquest was one of many – “too many” – into Indigenous deaths in custody and that the over-representation of Aboriginal people in jail was “a source of great pain to Tammy’s family”.

Vicki Shipley says her daughter should have been in a hospital, not a jail, in December 2022.

“Over the years, I’ve worked very hard to get institutions to listen to families, to listen to me about the needs of my child and now I’m very angry – as I’m sure you can hear in my voice,” Vicki told the Herald.

“I have failed because, in the end, she died alone.”

The inquest before state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan will be held over the next two weeks.

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