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TJ's mother urges police charges

By Louise Milligan

17 July 2004 - Two officers who "chased" Thomas "TJ" Hickey should be charged under the Police Service Act with giving untrue statements and wrongfully pursuing the boy, counsel for TJ's mother has urged the NSW State Coroner.

In closing submissions yesterday, Gail Hickey's barrister, John Stratton SC, said the Redfern anti-police riots following TJ's death on February 15 could have been avoided if police were "frank and truthful" and used community liaison officers when dealing with the Aboriginal family.
But counsel for the NSW Police Service, Patrick Saidi, said constables Michael Hollingsworth and Maree Reynolds should be commended for bravery and assistance to TJ at the scene of his horrific injuries.

"Don't bother analysing too much about the evidence - give these police officers a clean bill of health," Mr Saidi told coroner John Abernethy.

"It is regrettable that in a public forum a consistent and sustained attack has been made on police officers."

TJ, 17, from the inner-Sydney Aboriginal enclave of Redfern, died in hospital after he was flung from his bicycle and impaled through the neck on a metal fence. Mr Stratton said TJ died partly because of police action - along with his bike's faulty brakes - but it was not for the coroner to deliver findings on the cause of the Redfern riot. "However, it is submitted that had the police been frank and truthful about what they were doing before TJ Hickey's death, and had they used the (Aboriginal community liaison officers) ... the riot might never have happened."

He said they chased TJ and then lied about it in inconsistent evidence. But counsel for Constable Hollingsworth, Eugene Wasilenia, said the differences in his client's evidence could be explained by trauma.

In statements after the accident on February 14, constables Hollingsworth and Reynolds failed to mention they went after TJ down a cul-de-sac, mounted a kerb and travelled on the path TJ was riding on moments before.

"Matters that cause distress are often repressed in the human psyche - especially matters that don't matter a great deal," Mr Wasilenia said. "In this case, admirably, young Hollingsworth, without thinking about the risks of putting his ungloved hand inside someone's gushing neck, did it immediately."

Counsel assisting the coroner, Liz Fullerton SC, said this week that while police did not cause TJ's death, their "lack of candour" enhanced public doubts about their integrity.

Mr Abernethy will deliver his findings on August 27.

Source: The Australian

More police plan for Redfern

July 16 2004 - A $6 million police super-station, more visible street patrolling, new riot gear and cultural awareness training have been announced for Redfern police in the wake of February's riots and the death of Aboriginal teenager Thomas 'TJ' Hickey.

The move, which comes as the inquiry into the 17-year-old's death delivers its findings, will increase police presence in the troubled area and reduce crime rates, Police Minister John Watkins said.

"Police have done the heavy lifting in Redfern for far too long," he said. "This plan provides us with additional resources and strategies for day to day crime-fighting and community safety."

Key aspects of the 32-point plan include:

• Increasing the number of high-visibility, street patrolling officers on Operation Concertinas from eight to 20.
• Extending Operation Vikings operational support to include a 24/7 incident response team to target civil unrest, additional riot training and new riot gear.
• More investigators, with six targeting drug crime and robbery.
• A new $6 million, seven-storey police station visible from Redfern station.
• A freeze on probationary officers at Redfern and the recruitment of more experienced police. Rasing total police numbers from 170 to 220.
• Greater community involvement and awareness through cultural training, youth liaison and the establishment of resident's committees.

Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said the additional resources should improve community wellbeing.

"This plan seeks to provide reassurance to a range of community concerns," he said. "At the same time it sends a strong message of deterrence to those engaged in criminal and anti-social behaviour."

The plan will be reviewed after six months to determine if more resources are needed, he added.

"The police at Redfern have our full support, and they'll continue to do a good job under difficult circumstances. These additional resources can only boost their success in the fight against crime."

Source: National Nine News

Don't let me die: TJ's desperate plea

By Louise Milligan

July 14, 2004 - "Dont't let me die, don't let me die, I want my mum," Thomas "TJ" Hickey cried to police officers after they pulled his impaled body off a metal fence.

Senior Constable Michael Hollingsworth, on a police video, was describing the agonising moments on February 14 after the 17-year-old was found impaled through the neck. His death the next day sparked the Redfern riots.

"(Thomas) looked straight at me and sort of moved up. By the time I got to (him) the blood just shot out everywhere - it was pretty horrendous," Constable Hollingsworth said, his voice faltering as he described the instant he first saw the teenager.

Seconds before, the coronial inquest into TJ's death heard yesterday, Constable Hollingsworth had arrived at the scene at the Aboriginal enclave in inner Sydney where his two colleagues found TJ. "I remember him falling and blood coming out of his neck and I put in my hand to stop it," he said.

Constable Hollingsworth did not have gloves on but his colleague and fiancee, Constable Ruth Rocha, supplied a pair, which he placed in the neck wound in a desperate effort to stop the flow of blood.

"I was making sure he was not passing out and dying on us," he said on the video as Constable Rocha left the court in distress. Danny Allen, the first person to find TJ, was equally shaken.

Mr Allen said he had heard the sound of metal hitting metal as he walked through the park next to the public housing tower block at 1 Phillip St.

"I looked up and saw a young lad on a pushbike losing control and going over the handlebars - he put his hand out and hit the fence," Mr Allen, a witness in the inquest, said.

"I just tried to reassure him that everything was going to be all right ... I was just ringing the ambulance for him there and then."

Mr Allen called the triple 0 emergency number and then Constable Rocha and her patrol partner, Constable Allan Rimell, pulled up and took over.

Using the name Damien - he later changed it to Danny Townsend because he was "scared" - Mr Allen said he asked Constable Rocha if the police had chased TJ. "She said, 'no', they did not know who he was so they followed him down to see if they could recognise him."

Constable Rocha denied last week that she had told Mr Allen this, as did her colleague, Constable Maree Reynolds.

If Mr Allen is right, it contradicts the four officers' version of events.

The court heard yesterday that Constable Hollingsworth gave three different versions of his movements in the minutes before TJ was found.

Source: The Australian

No adviser for TJ's mother

By Louise Milligan

15 July 2004 - Inspector Robert Emery did not appoint an Aboriginal community liaison officer to speak to TJ Hickey's mother even though she blamed the police for chasing her son to his death.

The second-in-charge of police in inner-Sydney's Aboriginal heartland of Redfern also did not nominate Thomas "TJ" Hickey's death as a "critical incident" on the advice of the four officers Gail Hickey believed chased her son.
The night after TJ was impaled on a metal fence, Aboriginal Redfern exploded in a furious anti-police riot.

Inspector Emery said his first responsibility was for the psychological welfare of those officers who arrived at the scene where TJ, 17, lay slowly bleeding to death on February 14.

"In hindsight, I should have been more concerned about their psychological health and less about their efficiency as police officers," he told the coronial inquest into TJ's death yesterday. "These young people had been through a horrific experience," he said, adding his extreme concern for witnesses.

TJ died in hospital in the early hours of February 15.

Inspector Emery said that while Ms Hickey was very upset and refused to deliver witnesses who she said saw police chase TJ, he did not appoint a liaison officer employed by NSW Police to talk to the community.

"The ACLO that was available was not in my considered opinion appropriate to act in that role," he said.

Ms Hickey's counsel Ertunc Ozen asked: "Did you seek to contact an appropriate ACLO to speak to the members of the community?"

Inspector Emery said: "No."

Inspector Emery said he arrived at the scene of TJ's injury about 20 minutes after the boy came off his bike, where four officers were already attending to him.

He spoke to Constable Michael Hollingsworth, who drove the wagon that went down a footpath after TJ. Seconds later, the boy shot out, as his cousin described the scene, "like a bat out of hell" towards the fence at a nearby tower block.

Constable Hollingsworth said he saw TJ earlier, "discarded him as a person of interest and did nothing other than continue (to) patrol".

Inspector Emery said there was no basis for treating it as a "critical incident" - a term for when a person dies or is seriously injured during a police operation.

This meant Constable Hollingsworth, his partner and the two other constables who were first at the scene were free to discuss their statements before they filed them.

"I know that area very well and if you were asking me to conclude whether there was a pursuit, I would not, prima facie," Inspector Emery said. "I don't believe police have realistically pursued someone down that pathway. It makes no sense."

Source: The Australian

Conflicting police reports emerge at Hickey inquest

7:30 Report: Reporter: Matt Peacock

15 July 2004 - MAXINE McKEW: First tonight to the coronial inquest into the horrific death of young Aboriginal boy Thomas, or 'TJ', Hickey, as he was known.

The inquest finished taking evidence today.

It was his death which sparked one of Australia's worst street riots earlier this year in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern.

The 17-year-old boy was impaled on a metal fence after coming off his bicycle.

The Aboriginal community at the time blamed his death on the police, who they said had been chasing Hickey.

But that claim was flatly denied by the police, the NSW Premier and even the Prime Minister.

Now, evidence has emerged which casts serious doubt on the police version of events.

Matt Peacock reports.

MATT PEACOCK: This year's riot at Redfern.

One that shocked police, the community and the nation for its ferocity.

The most alarming feature - the young age and fury of the rioters.

NEWS REEL: There is a large group of Aboriginal persons throwing rocks, bricks and beer bottles at cars.

MATT PEACOCK: And the spark that ignited the powder keg?

A boy on his bike and his gruesome death.

Seventeen-year-old Thomas Hickey, or TJ, was pedalling flat out when he went down this drive.

His bike hit the fence and Hickey landed on its blunt metal spikes.

ROY HICKEY, TJ HICKEY'S COUSIN: He come around this corner here, sharp around here, don't know what he hit there to come off his bike but this is where he was impaled on the fence here and then when I come across the park from over there the police had him laying down on the ground here and one officer stood up and he had blood all over his shirt. Another woman officer was there, she had blood on her shirt, but there was about 10 officers sitting around him trying to revive him and all that there and the ambulance come, put him in the bag, put on the trolley and wheeled him away and then I went and got in my car and went and picked Gail up from the Block and took her to the hospital where TJ was.

MATT PEACOCK: Within hours, the word had swept around Redfern's Aboriginal community - TJ was being chased by the police.

A claim the police denied, then and now.

BILL MORONEY, NSW POLICE COMMISSIONER: And so it was a matter of happenstance that Mr Hickey rode past the police.

They didn't give him a second thought, they were intent on identifying the person responsible and arresting the person responsible for the vicious assault on an elderly woman outside Redfern Railway Station at about 6:30am on Saturday morning.

SHANE PHILLIPS, REDFERN COMMUNITY LEADER: I think it would be really good if the police would actually just say, "Look, there was a chase and unfortunately an accident happened from it".

MATT PEACOCK: Few, though, seem to believe the Aboriginal claim.

BOB CARR, NSW PREMIER: There were no sirens or squealing tyres and, indeed, it took the police and the vehicle some minutes to return when they were alerted to the bicycle accident.

JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: I don't see any evidence though that he was being pursued by the police.

I think the allegations that have been made against the police are unreasonable.

MATT PEACOCK: But at the coronial inquiry, conflicting police versions of events preceding Hickey's death have emerged.

The assault at the railway station the police were focused on that morning was a bag snatch in a crime-ridden area notorious for its heroin problem.

Two police vans, Redfern 16 and Redfern 17, were involved in patrols to find the suspect.

They were still cruising the area when they encountered Hickey.

The teenager came speeding past the first paddy wagon, Redfern 16, somewhere near the top of Cope Street from the direction where there'd been a reported sighting of the bag snatcher.

As the boy sped off to the south, the paddy wagon went around the block turning right and right again into Renwick Street.

Their colleagues in Redfern 17 were coming up Renwick Street and caught sight of Hickey crossing the carpark that joins it to Cope Street.

The two police vans passed.

R16 followed the teenager south down Renwick Street, R17 turned right and started to go around the block.

Renwick Street ends in a cul-de-sac but a footpath follows directly through to Phillip Street.

Hickey rode down the path, the police wagon mounted the kerb and followed the same path.

The end of the Renwick Street footpath is blocked by a gate.

The teenager shot out through a pedestrian gateway, crossed Phillip Street and pedalled down the driveway next to the Housing Commission building.

It was around the next corner his bike hit the iron fence and Hickey was mortally wounded.

Meanwhile, R17 had arrived in Phillip Street at the bottom of the footpath.

A witness pointed in the direction that Hickey had ridden, the paddy wagon did a U-turn and drove down the driveway next to the building where they found the boy impaled.

While doctors at the Sydney Children's Hospital fought a losing battle to save Hickey's life, the four police from R16 and R17, shaken by witnessing the horrific fatality, gathered at Redfern Station to write their individual statements.

They compared notes.

By then they knew of the rumours that they'd been chasing the teenager.

Had they been, they would have been in breach of police procedures, which don't permit paddy wagons to engage in pursuits.

The police in R16, constables Maree Reynolds and Michael Hollingsworth, recounted how they'd seen Hickey pedalling in front of them as they headed south down Renwick Street.

Significantly, neither mentioned mounting the kerb and following him down the footpath.

It took both police a full week when they were interviewed by an investigating officer before they remembered driving down this pathway.

Eyewitnesses say they drove nearly to the bottom.

One man says the blue light was flashing.

They both deny it.

Constable Hollingsworth has refused to testify before the current inquiry on the grounds that it might incriminate him in relation to possible police disciplinary proceedings.

In allowing Constable Hollingsworth not to testify, the coroner said that no inference adverse to him should be drawn.

His Honour explained his decision this way.

"There is always a forensic need "for an honest, accurate and reliable account from material witnesses.

"Would I get that should he step into the witness box?

"Frankly, it is difficult to feel confident that I would "because the versions he has given are contradictory."

Constable Hollingsworth's colleague, Marie Reynolds, did testify.

But she used the phrase "I don't recall" so often in court it prompted an icy response from counsel assisting.

ELIZABETH FULLERTON, COUNSEL ASSISTING THE CORONER: "For those of us who have heard police officers give evidence over many, many, many years, the claimed failure to recall is sometimes not, in fact, an honest answer.

MATT PEACOCK: So, while a significant part of the police story is muddy or unavailable some witnesses that day do have a clear account.

TJ Hickey's cousin, Roy Hickey, who's lived and worked in the area for 15 years, is amongst them - seeing the boy shoot out of the pedestrian gate moments before tragedy struck.

ROY HICKEY: I was coming down Phillip Street here and as we got to the section where the driveway is over there, TJ shot out in front of me.

He just went flying past me and as he went past me I turned to my right and as the police wagon pulled up at the fence here.

MATT PEACOCK: The Coroner may need to make sense of other aspects of the police account.

R17 had progressed down Pitt Street to Phillip.

Constable Allan Rimell said that he turned right into Phillip Street because he didn't like the speed bumps to the left.

When a witness pointed in the direction that Hickey had gone, he immediately turned around and followed without seeking details because, he said, it was good community relations.

Both he and Constable Ruth Rocha said they didn't realise when they found Hickey that he was the same boy that they'd seen earlier on or that he'd been on a push bike.

Yet their first radio report specifically mentions the push bike.

POLICE OFFICER'S RADIO REPORT: Behind No. 1 Phillip Street, male impaled on a fence off a push bike.

MATT PEACOCK: The evidence at the inquest indicates no-one was anywhere near Hickey at the moment of fatal impact.

He had reason to flee the police.

Only that week he'd been listed as a high-risk offender.

He had a warrant outstanding for an assault and a stick of marijuana in his shorts.

The question that the Coroner has yet to determine is whether he was fleeing a police chase.

For his cousin and many in Redfern, there was never any doubt.

ROY HICKEY: They do chase them all the time out there for little, petty things like warrants and that there and even around the area down the Block they chase a lot of people around there, too.

In their paddy wagons, they chase them across the Block down there, which they say they don't do and I just say that they shouldn't be chasing like that there.

MATT PEACOCK: What lessons do you think have been learnt from all this?

ROY HICKEY: I don't think they learnt any lesson.

It will go on all the time.

Keep going the same way.

Nothing will change.

MATT PEACOCK: The 7.30 Report approached the police for an interview, but no-one was available until the parliamentary inquiry into the riot is concluded later this month.

The force still seemed sure of its ground, an internal police inquiry found no breach in procedures, despite the inconsistencies in police statements.

Alan Hollingsworth has since been promoted to the rank of Senior Constable.

Whatever the inquest findings, TJ Hickey's death is likely to remain a symbol of the gulf between the NSW force and the Aboriginal community it polices.

Source: ABC

Further information: redfern riots