‘We want the world to see this’: footage of Tanya Day’s cell fall released

Coroner agrees to family’s request for release of footage of an Aboriginal woman who died | WARNING: DISTRESSING VIDEO

The family of Tanya Day, an Aboriginal woman who died from head injuries suffered while in a Victorian police cell, have been granted their request to have footage of her time in custody released by a coroner.

The children of Day have pushed for the release of the footage of their mother in a cell at Castlemaine police station on December 5,2017, in which she falls five times and sustains the fatal head injury that causes a brain haemorrhage and kills her 17 days later in a Melbourne hospital.

Day’s children Belinda Stevens, Apryl Day, Kimberley Watson and Warren Stevens made a statement outside Victoria’s Coroner Court on Friday.

“This CCTV footage shows the last few hours that our mum was conscious. It shows her being denied her basic humanity and dignity,” the Day family said.

“Imagine having to watch your mum die in this way, with nobody held responsible.

“We want the world to see this footage because it is what our mum would have wanted.”

Apryl Day, daughter of Tanya Day leaves coroners' court in Melbourne. Picture: David Geraghty

They said their mother deserved to be treated with dignity and care rather than “left to die on the floor of a police cell”.

Day, 55, was arrested for being drunk on a train on from Echuca to Melbourne. She was sleeping with her feet on a seat and responded in a confused manner when she was woken and asked for a ticket.

The CCTV footage from the prison cell, which has been played at the inquest but not yet released, shows an intoxicated Day lying on her cell bed during checks at 4.17pm and 4.50pm.

At 4.51pm she tumbled over the cell bench and smashed her forehead against a wall before appearing to lose movement in her right arm.

This is the fall that caused the brain haemorrhage that killed her 17 days later in a Melbourne hospital.

A screen grab from the arrest of Tanya Day.

Coroner Caitlin English said it was in the public interest for the footage of Day in custody to be released, citing the family’s wishes.

“The privacy of Ms Day, regarding trauma and stress, is not an issue here because unusually Ms Day’s family are advocating strongly for the release of the footage,” she said.

“In fact they are advocating for the very opposite of the protection of privacy, and reject invisibility.”

The coronial inquiry is examining the role systemic racism played in Day’s death.

Lisa Harrup, who was the first paramedic to attend Day in the cell, broke down in tears on the witness stand as she apologised to the Yorta Yorta woman’s family for appearing to roughly handle the injured woman.

“I was neither intentionally rough with Ms Day or disrespectful,” she said.

“I actually felt sorry for Ms Day because she had been kept in a dirty, foul smelling cell for at least four hours.”

Ms Harrup pulls Day by the left arm on to the stretcher and said she had difficulty moving the woman due to the cell’s proximity to the wall and because the woman’s body was wet.

“I would have handled my mother or sister in the same way as Ms Day,” she said.

“That said I understand Ms Days family are upset by the footage they have seen and I regret if my actions have contributed to their distress.”

Ms Harrup said she did not notice the woman had lost movement in her right arm because of where she stood in relation to the bed and because she had only been informed by Leading Senior Constable Daniel Wolters that the woman had suffered a minor fall.

“Because of the history I was provided of the fall, a low mechanism fall, by the policeman I considered that shouldn’t cause a haemorrhage or a cerebral bleed.”

The inquest had previously heard Constable Wolters told the paramedic Day had suffered a stumble before standing up but he has denied he saw a fall.

Tanya Day was taken off a train and arrested for being drunk in a public place in December 2017. While in custody the 55-year-old hit her head five times and eventually died from a brain haemorrhage.