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The head of a prison told staff not to take the death of an indigenous inmate “personal” and said his family was looking for “someone to blame,” according to a leaked email.
The email from Dame Phyllis Frost’s prison warden, Tracy Jones, was sent in April 2020 following the release of harrowing images and audio revealing Veronica Nelson’s agonizing pleas for help as she suffered heroin withdrawal.
Despite her repeated cries of anguish in the early hours of January 1, 2020, including a piercing wail of ‘Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy,’ Nelson received only one overnight visit from a nurse and was found dead in his cell at 8 am.
Veronica Nelson (pictured) died in her cell at the Dame Phyllis Frost Center in January 2020 after making more than a dozen calls for help over the intercom system.
In the email sent by Ms Jones, she tells Melbourne jail staff the images were part of ‘a very negative picture’ being ‘painted by the media’, which had ‘sensationalised’ the interactions Nelson had with the staff the night he died. .
Ms Jones notes that the ‘disturbing and distressing’ footage shows Nelson ‘vomiting and screaming in his cell and it’s pretty horrible!’
She informs the staff that the prison lost a legal challenge to blur the faces of prison employees who interact with Nelson and that this was “very unfortunate for the staff and their families.”
Publishing his findings, the coroner said Nelson’s treatment had been “cruel and degrading” and that his death had been prevented.
Heartbreaking images and audio show Nelson, who weighed just 33kg when he died, pleading for help.
After a night of vomiting, Nelson was found to have weighed just 33kg when he died.
She was in pretrial detention after being denied bail on shoplifting charges and other outstanding warrants, offenses that the coroner said probably would not have landed her in jail when the case went to court.
In evidence given to the coroner some weeks after the leaked email was sent, Ms Jones agreed that staff had shown no compassion for Nelson.
“The fact that she died in our care means we failed her,” Ms Jones said at the inquest.
Lawyers representing Nelson’s mother, Aunt Donna Nelson, said the leaked email betrayed the jail’s callousness.
Despite his desperate plea for help and the anguished cry of ‘Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy’, staff only attended Nelson’s cell once during the night, where a nurse passed medication through the door.
“Coroner McGregor began his landmark finding by wondering how Veronica’s heartbreaking pleas were ignored,” said Robinson Gill’s attorney, Ali Besiroglu.
‘This callous email from the DPFC Governor provides insight into the callous culture that existed from the top down.
“This was not that the media was sensationalizing, the only thing sensational about the evidence was the lack of empathy and humanity provided by the governor and his staff.”
Veronica Nelson’s family have been demanding justice after a coroner delivered a damning verdict on how her final hours in prison were “cruel and demeaning”.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews called the email very worrying and vowed his government would take action.
“That’s not acceptable to me in any way, it’s a terrible tragedy,” he said.
“Once again I offer my apologies and declare that I and the government will take full responsibility for making a deep reform as a result of what happened to Veronica Nelson.”
The night Nelson died, prison guards called nurse Atheana George, but she told them she didn’t think the indigenous woman seemed so bad.
Ms. George only went to see Nelson once during the night and passed his medication, including Panadol, through a panel in the cell door.
The nurse said she did not go to assess Nelson because the prison guard treating her had treated her so badly that she was “afraid to ask him to open the door that day.”
The nurse also denied that the guards told her how bad Nelson looked.
It was also revealed that she played movies during the night, and although she said they were just “background noise”, the monitors showed her staring intently at the screen for hours as Nelson yelled for help.