Former cop Zach Rolfe to give evidence as Kumanjayi Walker inquest resumes

The coronial inquest into Kumanjayi Walker’s death will resume next month after the failed bid to have Coroner Elisabeth Armitage recuse herself from presiding over the long-running inquiry.

Kumanjayi Walker.

The coronial inquest into Kumanjayi Walker’s death will resume in Alice Springs next month after Northern Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage refused to recuse herself from presiding over the long-running inquiry.

In October, former NT police officer Zachary Rolfe, who fatally shot the Indigenous teenager at Yuendumu in 2019, filed an application inviting the Coroner to recuse herself over “a cumulation of conduct that, when viewed in combination, gives rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias”.

Judge Armitage vacated hearings while she considered submissions made in response to Mr Rolfe’s recusal application before rejecting it.

Constable Zachary Rolfe examines a stab wound to his shoulder while inside the Yuendumu police station on the night of November 9, 2019. Picture: NT Courts

In November, she published her decision to “decline to recuse myself from proceeding with the inquest”.

“Having carefully considered Mr Rolfe’s application for recusal, for the reasons that follow: I am not persuaded that a fair-minded lay observer might reasonably apprehend that I might not bring an impartial mind to the resolution of the issues arising under the Act,” she wrote.

Judge Armitage said that “more than one interested party was critical of Mr Rolfe for bringing his application shortly before the recommencement of the inquest”.

“These interested parties submitted that the delay was objectionable because most of Mr Rolfe’s complaints concerned matters that had occurred months before the application was made,” she wrote.

Northern Territory Coroner Elisabeth Armitage during a visit to Yuendumu during Kumanjayi Walker’s inquest. Picture: Jason Walls.

The NT Police Force submitted that the application “appear(s) to constitute a further attempt on behalf of Mr Rolfe … to distract from and delay the inquest process”.

The police submission said the application was brought “immediately before” Mr Rolfe was scheduled to give evidence on October 23, after having already made unsuccessful bids to avoid testifying.

Judge Armitage wrote that the Walker, Lane and Robertson families submitted that it was “difficult to see (the application) as anything other than strategic” and their position was that the application should be dismissed on its merits.

Mr Rolfe submitted in reply that the criticisms were “unjustified” and that his application was “premised upon a cumulative sequence of events concerning the conduct of this inquest”.

Judge Armitage with her counsel assisting Maria Walz and Peggy Dwyer outside House 511 in Yuendumu. Picture: Jason Walls.

Mr Rolfe had been one of four Immediate Response Team members deployed from Alice Springs to Yuendumu on November 9, 2019, to execute an arrest warrant for Walker on four charges including assaulting local police with an axe days earlier and breaching his suspended sentence.

During the arrest, Mr Rolfe shot Walker three times at close range after the teenager stabbed him in the shoulder with a pair of scissors and allegedly attempted to stab his police partner Adam Eberl.

Just four days after the shooting, amid community unrest and protests, the officer was charged with murder.

Charges of manslaughter and engaging in a violent act causing death were later added.

NT Police body-cam footage showing Kumanjayi Walker threatening police with an axe days before he was fatally shot by police officer Zachary Rolfe.

In March 2022, following a five-week trial, a Supreme Court jury acquitted Mr Rolfe of all three charges.

The costly coronial inquest into the “death in custody” commenced in September 2022 and has faced several delays

Mr Rolfe and his former IRT boss Lee Bauwens are the final witnesses to be called when the inquest resumes next month.