Inquest into the death of Roy Melbourne

AI-generated summary

Roy Melbourne, aged 81, died by self-inflicted hanging from a ceiling fan in his cell at Darwin Correctional Precinct on 19 November 2015. Melbourne was a long-term prisoner (serving 19+ years of a life sentence for murder) who had been well-behaved and low-risk. He had achieved 'open' security classification allowing community engagement but lost this status days before his death due to a new government policy denying open classification to all prisoners convicted of murder or sexual offences. This occurred after he cancelled his approved parole due to his brother's leukaemia diagnosis and anxiety about parole conditions. The coroner found the facility had classic hanging points (ceiling fans) with no mitigation mechanisms—a known suicide risk—despite being a modern 21st-century facility. The coroner emphasised that restricting reintegration activities for long-term prisoners increases risk and reduces community safety, and criticised the failure to install load-limiting mechanisms on fans despite decades of work since the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Royal Commission to eliminate such hazards.

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