The Tall Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

She was taking his goddaughter to Townsville to a land rights meeting. Hurley pulled into the garage, and when he opened the cage doors, she saw Cameron “going off, drunk, singing out, and everything”.
    Then Cameron struck the senior sergeant on the jaw.
    Hurley was stunned. No one on the island had ever hit him before. Penny Sibley said his face went “wild”. She and another witness, Tiny Bonner, said they saw Hurley punch Cameron in the ribs. In the garage, the two men struggled; Hurley tried to force his prisoner inside the station. As she watched them fighting, Penny Sibley began to cry. She said they entered the station, then the door slammed shut.
    But Chris Hurley, Lloyd Bengaroo, and a young constable standing watching from within the garage all said that when Hurley and Doomadgee got to the station’s doorway, the two men tripped over a step and fell inside.
    Standing by the door, Bengaroo did not move to see if his boss was hurt. The next day he told investigators: “I was thinking, um, if I see something I might get into trouble myself, or something.” Constable Kristopher Steadman, who had arrived on Palm Island fresh from the police academy the day before, also stood outside. He heard Hurley yelling angrily, but like Bengaroo said he waited until he thought it safe to enter.
    Inside, Roy Bramwell was sitting by a filing cabinet, waiting to be questioned. The day before, he and the three Nugent sisters had started drinking at 11:30 A.M. , and by midnight Roy had drunk forty cans of beer. He got up early next morning and had six more. Standing on the sisters’ veranda, Roy—“plenty drunk”—became angry because Gladys wouldn’t go home with him to take her insulin. They started to fight. In his statement, Roy later said:
    During this argument I punched her sister, this is Anna Nugent, and hit her in the face. I punched her with one punch and this knocked her out. This was in the front yard. I punched Anna because she was being smart with her mouth.
    I then punched the other sister, this is Andrea Nugent, and punched her once to the face and this knocked her out. I punched Andrea for the same reason. I dropped her on her knees and then the smart mouth did not get back up.
    I then got into Gladys. I punched her once to the face and knocked her out. This was in the front yard as well. Gladys dropped to the ground and was on her knees. I started kicking into her and kicked her about three times. I kicked her in the face. I did this ‘cause I was angry with her ‘cause she didn’t want to come home with me.
    After beating the three women, Roy went home alone and had a shower to cool off. Then he headed to the post office to pick up his welfare check. While he was waiting there, the Nugent sisters’ uncle Tiny Bonner found him, and another “tongue bang” (argument) began. That was where Sergeant Michael Leafe had found Roy, and that was how he came to be at the station.
    But in his struggle to control Cameron, Hurley did not notice him.
    The next day, and the next week, in separate police statements, Roy claimed:
    Chris dragged him in and he laid him down here and started kicking him. All I could see [was] the elbow gone down, up and down, like that … “Do you want more Mister, Mister Doomadgee? Do you want more of these, eh, do you want more? You had enough?”
    Roy’s view was partially obscured by the filing cabinet, but he said he could see Doomadgee’s legs sticking out; he could see Hurley’s fist coming down, then up, then down. “I see knuckle closed.” Each time the fist descended he heard Doomadgee groan. “Cameron, he started kicking around and [called] ‘leave me go’ like that now. ‘Leave me go—I’ll get up and walk.’”
    Roy said Hurley did not stop: “Well, he tall, he tall, he tall, you know … just see the elbow going up and him down like that, you know, must have punched him pretty hard, didn’t he? Well, he was a sober man and he was a drunken