TJ Denniss, a Canberra Aboriginal man, took his own life in a NSW prison on the weekend. Julie Tongs, CEO of Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health and Community Service, has called on the ACT Government to commission an independent inquiry into the death.

“TJ’s death was not only predictable, it was avoidable, if only the ACT Government had listened to the voices of those who sought to care for and/or who loved him,” Ms Tongs said.

Mr Denniss, 33, died at the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre, a maximum-security correctional facility for male offenders, at the Silverwater Correctional Complex, Sydney, on Saturday 5 August. Officers found Mr Denniss unresponsive in his cell at 7pm, and immediately began a medical response, but paramedics pronounced he was deceased at 7.53pm, a Corrective Services NSW spokesperson said.

Corrective Services NSW and NSW Police are investigating the incident. A coronial inquest will be held.

Ms Tongs called for an independent inquiry into all the circumstances of Mr Denniss’s incarceration, treatment, and care in the Alexander Maconochie Centre, including a decision against the advice of his medical advisers to transfer him to NSW, and detain him in a prison rather than in a forensic mental health facility.

Ms Tongs said that Mr Denniss was “a long time and much-loved client of Winnunga Nimmityjah”, and that his death came as “a dreadful and deeply distressing shock”.

“The place and nature of TJ’s incarceration and care was the responsibility of the ACT Government,” Ms Tongs said. “The ACT Government must accept that it was as a result of decisions taken in its name that TJ was moved against the advice of his medical advisers to NSW where sadly and tragically, he died.

“The Government and ACT Coroner must do everything possible to investigate and report on the transportation of TJ to NSW, the nature and adequacy of the care he received, and the circumstances of his death.”

Mr Denniss was transferred from the AMC to the NSW prison system in July 2021.

Ms Tongs, however, said that she and other Winnunga Nimmityjah doctors had “insisted that TJ required dedicated mental health care, and that it was imperative that he be placed in a forensic mental health facility”. They had recommended that Mr Denniss be admitted to the Dhulwa Mental Health Unit in Canberra, or to the forensic mental health facility at the Long Bay Correctional Complex, “the only appropriate placement”.

“This recommendation was also ignored, and TJ was placed by the ACT in the NSW prison system in multiple prisons across the state,” Ms Tongs said.

An ACT Government spokesperson said that Mr Denniss requested to be transferred to NSW. The decision was made “in the interests of the man and after careful consideration”, under the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005.

Allegedly, Mr Denniss was the Aboriginal detainee with whose name AMC staff played ‘Hangman’, as the ABC reported in 2018. Ms Tongs suggested that ACT Corrective Services prevailed upon the NSW prison service to assume responsibility for Mr Denniss’s incarceration, care, and protection because he was “the subject of the vile and racist ‘hangman’ game that [allegedly] shamefully adorned a staff tearoom at the AMC”.

An independent inquiry would be a matter for NSW authorities, an ACT Government spokesperson said; it was inappropriate for the ACT Government to comment while NSW authorities investigated the death. ACT Corrective Services would assist any enquiries undertaken.

Ms Tongs extended her deepest condolences to his family and friends.

“TJ had, as so many Aboriginal children do, a very difficult and troubled childhood,” Ms Tongs said. “He had significant and challenging mental health issues that led him inexorably into contact with the criminal justice system. Despite this, he was held in deep affection by almost all who met him and took the time to know him.”

The ACT Government and Corrective Services NSW also extended their sympathies and condolences to Mr Denniss’s family and friends, and to the wider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community who mourn his loss.

Lifeline 13 11 14

Beyond Blue 1300 224 636