chapter 9
The confession
All too soon they were in the car, driving to the police station. “You have got to tell the police everything. OK?” Casey said as she negotiated a roundabout.
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“Yes Mum, we will,” Ricky spoke for both of them. Mum looked and sounded nervous, he thought. So did Bindi. His own mouth was dry. He thought of the lines in a poem about deaths in custody that he’d read once: Lights flashing; Heart pounding; Palms sweating;
Footsteps coming; Keys jangling; Door slamming; Darkness falling.
He didn’t understand it when he first read it. But today it made more sense and, as he recited the words in his head, somehow the machine-gun rhythm of the words made him relax. He was not alone, he had his mum, he had his brother, he was going to tell the truth and Mum had forgiven him.
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The wait at the counter seemed very long but really it was only a few minutes before a young constable introduced himself as Rod Soles, and led the trio into an interrogation room. “My children want to tell you everything, officer,” Casey blurted out.
“That’s all we’re interested in,” Constable Soles said. “Do you want me to call the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service before we start the interview?”
“No,” was Casey’s short reply. She prided herself on her independence.
“That’s OK, it’s just a question I’ve got to ask,” the police officer said.
It was two hours before they walked out of the police station. They were exhausted after recounting their story, repeating some points over and over again. And they knew that they would be charged with breaking and entering two cars and a house and shop stealing. Ricky felt numb but underneath, he was angry. He had been so silly to let Damien con him into committing a crime. On the drive home he again recalled the death in custody poem, and thought how easy it was to get involved with the merry-goround of crime—caught, police, court. He thought about Damien and wondered about the kind of life he’d led. Damien did seem to know more about the world than either Bindi or himself—he knew how to steal from cars, break into houses, and he drank alcohol in front of his dad. He also knew how to manipulate people, to take advantage of them. In the future, Ricky thought, he would keep away from people like Damien.
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chapter 10
The court
Four months later, they were in the Polwarra Court’s small interview room with their lawyer from the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. Jane Foster was a pretty young Melbourne lawyer with a social conscience. They had met her before and both boys liked her.
“Your sons don’t have any prior convictions and they cooperated with the police. I don’t know why the police didn’t just caution them,” Jane said to Casey. “Anyway,” she continued, “there’s not much we can do about that now.”
There was a knock on the door and Jack Winter, the Koori Court Officer, came in. “It’ll be
another fifteen minutes before you’re called up,” he said. “The magistrate is Chris Nicholls and the two Elders sitting with him are Uncle Murray Franklin and Aunty Phyllis Arden.”
Jack then explained what happens in the Koori Court. “The magistrate and the two Elders sit at a table, along with the prosecutor, someone from Juvenile Justice, your lawyer and yourselves also the Koori Court Officer—that’s me,” he said.
Ricky tried to swallow. This sounded like a lot of people, and they’d all be talking about him and Bindi.
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“Only people who plead guilty appear before the Koori Court, and it’s more like a conversation than a court really,” Jack said. “The Koori Court is about restorative justice.”
Ricky and Bindi looked at him blankly. What was “restorative justice”?
Seeing that they didn’t understand, Jack went on, “It’s when a defendant—that’s the person who committed the crime—recognises why they did it, and does something about it. That could
be apologising to the victim of their crime and/ or doing community service to make up for the offence.”
This sounded pretty good—or at least, better than being sent to juvenile detention—but Ricky and Bindi were still nervous. Ricky thought about the coat of arms and the lady with a blindfold on holding a set of scales. I hope that justice isn’t blind today, he thought. I hope she sees Bindi and me as the kids we really are. Ricky knew that lots of people looked at Koorie kids and decided they were bad, without even speaking to them. He had to believe that the justice lady wouldn’t be like that.
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When Jack finished and went back into the courtroom, Bindi turned to Jane. He had not said a thing since coming into the interview room but now he asked, “What happened to Damien? Has he been to court yet?”
Jane told them that the day Ricky and Bindi had gone to the police station and made their statements, the police went around and arrested
Damien. He had already gone back to the primary school and got the jar of coins and was sitting at his kitchen table with his father when the police knocked on the door. They had arrested both of them. Apparently, both were in breach of court orders. Damien had been to court and received a twelve-month sentence, with six months of it suspended. That meant he was spending six months in juvenile detention. The thought made Ricky’s bowels churn, his heart beat a bit faster and his palms sweat. The blindfolded lady sprung into his mind. A door slammed somewhere. Ricky jumped and all his spit dried up.