Today's must read: Roger Brookings. For the past few months he's been poking into the death of Jai Davis, a prisoner who died in 2011 because Corrections didn't want to spend $300 on calling a doctor on a weekend. The inquest into the death last year was scathing, with Police Detective Colin Blackie making it clear that he thought the death was due to neglect, that the prison was dysfunctional, and that corrections failed in its duty of care towards Davis. Today's revelation is something else: Blackie wanted to charge those neglectful Corrections staff, but was pulled off the case by Police management:
No one in the Corrections Department has ever been prosecuted over an ‘unnatural death’ in prison. In what could have been the first case, Detective Senior Sergeant Colin Blackie (right), who conducted the police investigation into the death of Jai Davis, wanted to prosecute prison staff who allowed Davis to die from a drug overdose. Despite a wealth of evidence showing prison managers, officers and nurses all failed in their duty of care, Mr Blackie was taken off the case and no one was prosecuted.
The reason? Police were covering their own arses:
The Police had Davis in their custody for 24 hours before they took him out to the Otago prison and there is no doubt they knew he had drugs on board. Despite this knowledge, no one did anything to help. Numerous Police officers made exactly the same mistake as numerous Corrections officers (and nurses) – they neglected their statutory duty to call a doctor to have Davis examined. What this means is that if police had done their job properly, Davis would never have been sent to Otago prison at all and would, in all probability, still be alive.
Senior Sergeant Colin Blackie wanted to prosecute prison staff. But a public hearing of Corrections ineptitude in court would have exposed similar misconduct by the police. No wonder he was taken off the case – and no one was prosecuted.
So criminals escape justice so the Police can pretend to the public that they're not muppets. This isn't a justice system - its a farce.
