Search resumes for missing fisher reported taken by shark near Newcastle
A multi-agency search will resume on Monday after a person is believed to have been taken by a shark after falling off a boat near Newcastle.
The person fell overboard while competing in a fishing competition around 1pm on Sunday, 55km off the coast of Newcastle, NSW police said in a statement.
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NSW ambulance confirmed that marine rescue was informed via marine radio that a person had fallen into the water and was taken by a shark.
A spokesperson said other people on board the boat were assessed but did not require treatment.
Those on board also reported a shark was involved, the spokesperson said.
Crews from the water police, marine rescue and the Lifesaver helicopter responded to the incident on Sunday.
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A spokesperson for NSW marine rescue said its crews were on standby to assist with the rescue operations on Monday if required, as the incident occurred outside its normal capabilities.
Its volunteer crew from Port Stephens responded to the incident on Sunday, and did not return to the shore until after midnight.
'Where this is happening is a long way offshore,' the spokesperson said. 'It's pretty fatiguing on any person who is assisting that search … It's a different ballgame out there.'
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The Guardian
12 hours ago
- The Guardian
A perfect storm of errors meant Darren was placed in an unsafe cell. He died two days later
Warning: this story contains descriptions of self-harm and some readers might find it distressing. When Darren Brandon was detained at Melbourne assessment prison, a perfect storm of missed paperwork and a lack of clear intake procedure between police and the jail meant he was assessed as being low risk of self-harm. This could not have been further from the truth, according to his brother Steve. Darren lived with a serious brain injury after a motorcycle accident. It had left him with memory problems and bouts of depression. The family home where he lived had been sold after the death of his mother and Darren was between accommodation. 'Everything in our family just went upside down,' Steve tells Guardian Australia. In June 2018, when he found out Darren had been picked up by police, Steve says he and his father thought, 'Look, at least he's safe. He's not sleeping in his car on the street somewhere. He's safe. He's in care.' But the 51-year-old was placed in a cell with a known hanging point and self-harmed the next morning. He died in hospital two days later. Darren's death is one of at least 57 across 19 Australian prisons from hanging points that were known to prison authorities but not removed, as revealed by a Guardian Australia investigation. But his story also exemplifies what experts say is the broader story behind Australia's hanging cells crisis. None of the 248 deaths examined by the Guardian could merely be blamed on the presence of a ligature point. In most cases, those prisoners' placement in an unsafe cell was just the final failure in a litany of them. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The investigation has also revealed repeated failures to properly assess, review or treat inmates with mental ill health, meaning their suicide risk was either missed or not properly mitigated. Of the 57 deaths, Guardian Australia has identified 31 cases where inmates who had been previously deemed at risk of suicide were sent into cells with known hanging points. There were 13 cases where inmates who had previously attempted self-harm in custody were sent into such cells. Guardian Australia has spent five months investigating the deadly toll of Australia's inaction to remove hanging points from its jails, a key recommendation of the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. The main finding – that 57 inmates died using known ligature points that had not been removed – was made possible by an exhaustive examination of coronial records relating to 248 hanging deaths spanning more than 20 years. Reporters combed through large volumes of coronial records looking for instances where a hanging point had been used repeatedly in the same jail. They counted any death that occurred after prison authorities were made aware of that particular hanging point. Warnings were made via a prior suicide or suicide attempt, advice from their own staff or recommendations from coroners and other independent bodies. Guardian Australia also logged how many of the 57 inmates were deemed at risk of self-harm or had attempted suicide before they were sent into cells with known hanging points. In adherence with best practice in reporting on this topic, Guardian Australia has avoided detailed descriptions of suicide. In some instances, so that the full ramifications of coronial recommendations can be understood, we have made the decision to identify types and locations of ligature points. We have done this only in instances where we feel the public interest in this information being available to readers is high. In one 2018 New South Wales case an inmate known only as GS had warned officers he wished to kill himself, begged for psychiatric review for months, and was placed into a cell at Goulburn jail with a hanging point that had been used in five previous hanging deaths. That ligature point has since been covered. In another, an inmate assessed as having a high chronic risk of self-harm, and who had attempted suicide months earlier, in 2007 was placed into a cell at Sydney's Long Bay jail with what a coroner described as an 'obvious hanging point'. Staff at Arthur Gorrie correctional centre in Brisbane were told that an inmate had 'expressed an intention to commit suicide by hanging if the opportunity arose'. In October 2007 that inmate was placed into a medical unit that contained an obvious hanging point that had been used by another inmate in an attempted suicide just two months earlier. The hanging point was allowed to remain, despite one guard telling his superiors it needed 'urgent attention before we do have a suicide hanging'. The overwhelming majority of hangings from known ligatures points involved inmates on remand. Thirty-six of the 57 inmates were on remand, or awaiting trial or sentencing, which is known to be a time of elevated risk for mental ill health. Most people who experience incarceration have mental health problems but investment in prison mental health care is 'woefully inadequate', according to Stuart Kinner, the head of the Justice Health Group at Curtin University and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. The fact that prisoners do not have access to Medicare 'is a somewhat perverse situation', Kinner says. 'We have a system that concentrates a very high burden of mental health issues and simultaneously almost uniquely excludes those people from a key source of funding for mental health care.' It is unlikely that Australia will ever be able to make all areas in all prisons 'ligature free', he says. 'Therefore, we don't just prevent suicide by removing ligatures, we prevent suicide by providing care and connection.' Ed Petch led the State Forensic Mental Health Service in Western Australia before returning to clinical work as a psychiatrist in Hakea – the state's main remand prison. He says that while the removal of known ligature points is important, improving access to health services should be the primary focus, in and out of prison. 'We had more mentally ill people in the prison than Graylands hospital,' he says, referring to the state's main mental health hospital. It has 109 beds. Hakea housed 1,143 men in mid-2024. Between 2018 and 2023, Petch says he saw more than 12 people every day. 'They weren't adequate mental health evaluations,' he says. 'It was quick in, see what the people are like, decide what treatment to give them and see them in a few weeks' time, if I was lucky. 'The rate of mental illness – acute mental illness and psychosis and depression and loads of mental health disorders – was absolutely vast.' A scathing report published in February by WA's Office of the Inspector of Custodial Services emphasised that Hakea is overcapacity and a prison in crisis. After a 2024 visit, the inspector, Eamon Ryan, formed a view that prisoners in Hakea were being treated 'in a manner that was cruel, inhuman, or degrading' and noted suicides, suicide attempts and assaults. There were 13 attempted suicides in the first quarter of that year, the same number as took place in the whole of 2023. Physical and mental health services 'were overwhelmed', with a nurse-to-prisoner ratio of approximately one to 86, and only three full time-equivalent psychiatrist positions for the state's entire prison system. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Often the most severely mentally ill people are swept up by police, Petch says. 'The courts can't send them to hospital because they are full – or too disturbed – and cannot release them to no address or back to the streets so have no option but to remand them into custody where it's assumed they'll get the care they need. But that assumption is quite often false.' The WA Department of Justice said it was 'expanding the range of services provided to meet the needs of an increased prisoner population, including those with complex mental health issues'. This includes 36 beds in a new mental health support unit. A statewide program to remove ligature points had been running since 2005, a spokesperson said. Experts largely agree that a focus on hanging points, at the expense of all other problems, would be dangerous. Programs to modify cell design are expensive and can leave rooms inhospitable and cold, something that in turn may cause a deterioration in inmates' mental health. But Neil Morgan, a former WA inspector of custodial services, says a balance must be struck. 'I came across examples where changes were being made to cells … where the new beds were riddled with hanging points,' he says. 'Now that struck me as absolutely ludicrous in this day and age. Changes were only made after I raised my concerns.' Darren Brandon was a brilliant mechanic before his brain injury, Steve says. He had a coffee machine at his workshop and loved to host visitors and chat. 'He worked on Porsches and BMWs, all the high-end stuff,' he says. 'But he could work on anything.' But the motorbike accident hit him hard. The coroner noted his repeated attempts at suicide and self-harm. 'The up and down, the depression – this was the side-effects of his brain injury,' Steve says. '[Some days] he could go back to being like a standup comedian. I mean, he was so sharp and just witty and funny.' After the family home was sold, Darren began a residential rehabilitation program but left, and was reported to police as a missing person. When he went to a police station accompanied by a case manager, he was taken into custody due to a missed court date. Prison staff were not fully aware of his history of self-harm. This meant he was given a lower risk rating and was placed in a unit with a known hanging point and which was not under hourly observation. The coroner overseeing the inquest found that the design of Darren's cell was the 'proximate cause' of his death. He wrote that the 'rail inside the cell was known to be a ligature point well prior to Darren's death'. A spokesperson for Victoria's Department of Justice and Community Safety said the state's prisons had strong measures in place to reduce self-harm and suicide, including the use of on-site specialist mental health staff and training in the identification of at-risk inmates. Inmates are now required to undergo a mental health risk assessment within 24 hours of arriving in custody and are seen by a mental health professional within two hours of being identified at risk of self-harm. The state government has aimed to build all new cells in accordance with safer design principles for more than 20 years. 'The Victorian Government continues to invest in modern prison facilities to improve the rehabilitation and safety of people in custody,' the spokesperson said. Steve and his wife, Annie, keep a photo of Darren on their fridge. There are so many what-ifs. So many moments when something could have gone differently. 'If he'd been assessed properly, they would have said, 'Oh, this guy's had some attempts in the past, brain injury … OK, let's put him in a safer spot where there's no ligature points,'' Steve says. 'He'd still be alive.' Annie says: 'The system certainly failed him, and us as a family.' In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
The Guardian
4 days ago
- The Guardian
Crossbenchers call for federal intervention after ‘deeply shocking' revelations about prison deaths
Key crossbenchers have called for the federal government to intervene to drive reforms to state prison systems after revelations that 57 Australians died from hanging points that were known to authorities but not removed. A Guardian Australia investigation on Tuesday revealed that inaction to remove known hanging points from 19 prisons across the country had caused a shocking death toll, more than 30 years after state governments promised to make prisons safe in the wake of the Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission. In one case, 10 inmates hanged themselves from the same type of ligature point at Brisbane's Arthur Gorrie prison over almost 20 years, despite early warnings that it be immediately addressed. Guardian Australia has spent five months investigating the deadly toll of Australia's inaction to remove hanging points from its jails, a key recommendation of the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. The main finding – that 57 inmates died using known ligature points that had not been removed – was made possible by an exhaustive examination of coronial records relating to 248 hanging deaths spanning more than 20 years. Reporters combed through large volumes of coronial records looking for instances where a hanging point had been used repeatedly in the same jail. They counted any death that occurred after prison authorities were made aware of that particular hanging point. Warnings were made via a prior suicide or suicide attempt, advice from their own staff or recommendations from coroners and other independent bodies. Guardian Australia also logged how many of the 57 inmates were deemed at risk of self-harm or had attempted suicide before they were sent into cells with known hanging points. In adherence with best practice in reporting on this topic, Guardian Australia has avoided detailed descriptions of suicide. In some instances, so that the full ramifications of coronial recommendations can be understood, we have made the decision to identify types and locations of ligature points. We have done this only in instances where we feel the public interest in this information being available to readers is high. In another, four inmates were able to hang themselves from the same hanging point at the Adelaide Remand Centre after the state government was explicitly warned to either remove it or minimise its risk. In many cases, prisoners who were known suicide risks – like Gavin Ellis, a beloved son whose mother still mourns his loss – were sent into cells with hanging points that had been used in prior deaths. The revelations prompted immediate calls from crossbenchers for the Albanese government to show national leadership on the issue and pressure state governments to engage in reform of their justice and prison systems. The independent senator David Pocock said the cases were 'deeply shocking' and highlight 'a widespread failure in our prison system'. 'I would support more federally coordinated action to better address these persistent failures, whether through a Senate inquiry or action by national cabinet,' he said. The Greens justice spokesperson, David Shoebridge, said the 57 deaths showed Australia's prison system was 'fundamentally broken and killing people, even though governments have been on notice for decades'. He said it was time for the federal government to intervene. 'Thirty-four years after the Royal Commission, First Nations people are still dying from government inaction and broken promises,' he said. 'It's impossible to imagine something more awful than families losing their loved ones because a hanging point, that the authorities knew had killed before, still hadn't been removed.' The deaths disproportionately affected Indigenous Australians, who remain vastly overrepresented in the system. Seven Indigenous Australians hanged themselves in 2023-24, a number not recorded since 2000-01. The independent senator Lidia Thorpe said Guardian Australia's findings revealed 'shocking negligence'. She said the federal government could not keep 'pretending this is just a state issue'. 'That's not only misleading – it's a shameful abdication of responsibility,' Thorpe said. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'The Prime Minister needs to show leadership. These are preventable deaths. This is life or death. And it's long past time for action.' Thorpe called for the coronial system to be overhauled, and 'real accountability mechanisms' to be put in place. She also wants to see someone tasked with the responsibility of overseeing and driving the implementation of the royal commission recommendations. 'Thirty years after the Royal Commission, people are still dying in exactly the same way. Governments are sitting on their hands while our people die in these brutal facilities,' Thorpe said. 'Implementing the Royal Commission recommendations won't just help First Nations people – it will save lives across the entire prison system.' The independent MP and former barrister Zali Steggall said the deaths represented a 'systemic human rights failure' that 'demands immediate action'. 'I call on the government for firm national leadership,' she said. 'There urgently needs to be commitment and a timeline for the implementation for reform and previous recommendation. 'It's been more than 30 years since the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and countless more inquiries, and little has changed. It's clear that a step change on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander policy is needed by the government who have done very little to push progress since the referendum.' In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support. Other international helplines can be found at
The Guardian
4 days ago
- The Guardian
Morning Mail: staggering prison death toll revealed, LA braces for more unrest, Albanese to deliver key speech
Good morning everyone. Our top story today reveals a staggering death toll from government inaction. In a five-month investigation, scouring coronial findings from 248 deaths, Guardian Australia has found that 57 inmates in Australian jails hanged themselves in the past two decades using ligature points that were known to authorities but not removed. Plus: Anthony Albanese will map out his priorities for his second term in a key speech today, Los Angeles braces for more unrest, and we hear about a time when Monet, Cezanne et al were panned by the critics. 'Meet the moment' | Anthony Albanese will tell the National Press Club today that government and democratic institutions 'including a free media' can meet the demands of global uncertainty, despite growing attacks around the world and the shooting of an Australian reporter covering the Los Angeles unrest. 18C 'battle' | A Sydney cleric being sued in the federal court for alleged racial discrimination of Jewish people has described his case as an existential battle 'between Islam and unbelievers'. Koala cut | New South Wales environmental activists say an area that is home to endangered koalas and southern greater gliders has been left out of the Minns government's assessment for its proposed great koala national park. Tasmania tangle | After a week of drama in Tasmanian politics, the premier, Jeremy Rockliff, is expected to visit the state's governor on Tuesday to request a state election. Greensill case | The Australian financier Lex Greensill has told a court in London that senior managers at SoftBank 'felt threatened' by his relationship with Masayoshi Son, the founder of the Japanese tech investor that pumped millions into Greensill's company before its collapse. Veteran warning | As crowds gathered in Los Angeles for a fourth day of protests against immigration detentions, veterans warned the Trump administration's deployment of national guard troops to the city over the head of California's governor is a major escalation that risks the politicisation of the US military. Unions have demanded the release of a leader arrested and injured during the Ice raids in the city on Friday. You can follow developments live, and also learn more about the protests with our visual explainer. AI 'limits' | Apple researchers have found 'fundamental limitations' in cutting-edge artificial intelligence models, in a paper raising doubts about the technology industry's race to develop ever more powerful systems. Russia threat | Russia could be ready to attack westwards within five years, Nato's chief has warned, with member states expected to agree to increase military spending to 5% of GDP later this month. Ukraine claims to have damaged two fighter jets in another audacious raid deep inside Russia. Western guests including Elon Musk's father will speak at a pro-Putin conference being held in Moscow. Boat blocked | A boat with Greta Thunberg and fellow activists on board is being held in an Israeli port ahead of deportation hearings after the country's military seized the vessel when the group tried to break the blockade on Gaza. Celebrity defamation | A judge has dismissed Justin Baldoni's US$400m defamation claim against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, finding that Lively's accusations of sexual harassment against Baldoni were legally protected. Trump takes on the LA protesters and Elon Musk Washington DC bureau chief David Smith tells Nour Haydar why Donald Trump's reaction to the LA protests is a diversion from his feud with billionaire Elon Musk. Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen $ There's a shrine in Karen Reid's home to her son Luke. His white hard hat sits on top of a toolbox. His old vape is there, tucked inside one of his favourite sneakers. Luke died in 2022 at 27 years old on his first night on remand. He took his own life by hanging in a prison cell that authorities knew contained a dangerous ligature point, but failed to remove. As part of a new Guardian Australia investigation launched today, Karen speaks out, saying government negligence allowed her son to die. She calls on authorities to take seriously their responsibility to keep inmates safe, and to urgently remove known hanging points from prison cells, 'so that no other mother and family has to go through this pain'. We have also asked other states why they haven't removed ligature points. The National Gallery of Victoria's new show, French Impressionism, celebrates some of the greatest names in art such as Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot and Pissarro. But the curator of the show tells Sian Cain that when they first started one critic said the style 'makes me sick'. Sign up to Morning Mail Our Australian morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Test cricket | The World Test Championship starts tomorrow with Australia taking on South Africa at Lord's. Martin Pegan examines where the match will be won and lost. AFL | Collingwood showed why they are flag favourites by edging out the Demons by one point in a tense game at the MCG. Football | After sacking Ange Postecoglou last week, Tottenham have approached Brentford over appointing Thomas Frank as their new head coach. Former federal minister Eric Abetz is a 'creditable candidate' to be Tasmania's new premier, a key backer tells the Hobart Mercury. The De Bortoli winemaking family tell the Herald Sun they are 'doing the unthinkable' and ripping out vines amid a slump in wine sales. Circular Quay will be transformed by a giant half-woman half-whale sculpture, according to Sydney Morning Herald. Business | NSW premier Chris Minns and treasurer Daniel Mookhey will speak at a NSW Economic Review event ahead of the state budget. Technology | Summit in Sydney to discuss energy and water challenges faced by the data centre sector. If you would like to receive this Morning Mail update to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here, or finish your day with our Afternoon Update newsletter. You can follow the latest in US politics by signing up for This Week in Trumpland. And finally, here are the Guardian's crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword
