This week’s Background Briefing on ABC Radio National covers the issue of post-traumatic stress and police suicides.
My office has heard from many current and former police officers who have been shunned, isolated and left without meaningful assistance after suffering psychological injuries at work.
Before I came to Parliament I acted for a number of police in similar situations and saw first-hand how badly they were treated by the force and insurers.
Having heard first hand how police and their families are suffering I can’t turn a blind eye on this issue.
I would urge you to take the time to listen to the report on ABC and then see if you also think it is time to break the silence.
ABC Radio National Background Briefing: Death In The Line Of Duty by David Shoebridge Greens
Too often, traumatised police officers are shunned, isolated and put under surveillance. They lose their careers, friendships and often their homes, marriages and children, and a growing number are taking their own lives. William Verity investigates the silence around police, post traumatic stress and suicide.
For decades, silence has surrounded the issue of traumatised police officers taking their own lives.
Police forces and unions have viewed public discussion as taboo, arguing that raising the issue will only encourage more suicides.
But the final words of a suicidal former NSW detective sergeant look set to change that.
Ashley Bryant left behind a wife and three young children when he killed himself at a waterfall near Bryon Bay in NSW on 16 December 2013.
Before he died, he called 000.
‘I suffer post traumatic stress disorder,’ he said.
‘I can no longer live with the trauma of it and I want this to go to the coroner.’
‘There needs to be more things put in place for what happens. For partners of those that suffer, because I suffer and so do the partners.’
‘And there has to be more done for them. Alright, I have no more to say.’
His widow, Deborah Bryant, is taking up the campaign and has launched a scathing attack on the lack of support provided by the NSW Police Force.
‘I don’t think we were even a glitch on their radar,’ she told Background Briefing.
As a first step, she is calling for police who commit suicide with post traumatic stress to be included at remembrance days and included on the honour board. Suicides are specifically excluded from the National Police Memorial in Canberra.
She believes that nothing short of a change of culture is necessary to prevent further deaths.
‘These people have given their life for their career, and they have gotten to the point where they are broken and they should be recognised for that,’ she said.
‘As far as I am concerned, that’s death in the line of duty.’
The lack of recognition hit home last year for another widow, Kimberley Galvin, whose husband, Tom Galvin, killed himself after living with chronic post traumatic stress for six years.
She said Police Remembrance Day was one of the hardest times of her life.
‘It came in the same year as an officer killed on duty,’ she said.
‘With all due respect, it was like no-one else had died that year.’
‘It was very difficult for me to comes to terms with … your husband goes to work and he doesn’t come back, as opposed to your husband suffering and suffering and suffering and ends his life.’
‘That those two things are acknowledged in such different ways. Or one is acknowledged extensively and one is not acknowledged at all.’
Although the order of service listed many police who had died from a variety of causes—including old age and ill health—Tom Galvin’s name was conspicuous by its absence.
The story of isolation is repeated by thousands of police officers across Australia who become too sick to work.
Karol Blackley was dux of her class when she graduated and enjoyed a distinguished 22-year career in the NSW Police Force before—in police jargon—’falling off the perch’.
‘They didn’t care about me at all, not one iota,’ she said.
‘It was astounding, disappointing, hurtful, gut-wrenching. Here I am, with what could be a permanent psychological debilitation and they couldn’t give two hoots.’
At her lowest point, Blackley tried to hang herself and then drove to a local hotel, drank as much as she could stomach, and then drove her car in the hope that she would crash and die.
‘The minute you put up your hand and say, listen I am just not coping, I am ill and I can’t sleep and I’m crying uncontrollably in the corner of the office, and you can’t type because your fingers won’t send the message from your brain … that’s career suicide,’ she said.
‘So people hang on and they hang on until they commit actual suicide.’
Blackley runs one of several Facebook support sites set up by former officers—there is no site run by NSW Police—and says isolation can be one of the most damaging effects of post traumatic stress disorder.
‘No-one from the police department contacts you when you are off sick,’ she said.
‘No-one contacts you when you are medically discharged and certainly no-one contacts you when you are not in the police [force] anymore.’
The experience of these officers is in stark contrast to the message from Assistant Commissioner Carlene York, head of human resources at the NSW Police Force.
‘Whilst they are with us we have many intervention programs that we will go through with the officers to make sure those services are given to them urgently and immediately,’ York said.
‘They are very much supported in the workplace by their commanders and fellow officers.’
Although she declined to reveal suicide statistics, York maintained that indicators such as the number of officers leaving the force due to mental stress had improved dramatically in recent years.
‘We put a lot of services in place and we very much rally around the family in the regretful circumstance where there is a suicide,’ she said.
‘We make sure we can help them through those difficult times.’
One aspect of the treatment received by traumatised officers may soon face scrutiny thanks to NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge.
Next week, he will call for an inquiry into the treatment of sick officers seeking compensation from their insurance companies.
Shoebridge became aware of the issue when he represented injured police as a barrister, before entering parliament.
‘We need to ensure that those claims are handled promptly, fairly and independently,’ he said.
‘At the moment, there are many outstanding psychological injury claims that have been running for years. That aggravates the injury.’
The inquiry will look into the treatment of officers such as Andy Peverill, who has been fighting for compensation for three years with no end in sight.
The former constable sits in his farm outside Parkes, in western NSW, with the blinds drawn for fear of surveillance by his insurance company, MetLife.
The company has already made him see 10 psychologists—they all confirm that he has post traumatic stress disorder—but no decision is on the horizon.
Peverill’s wife, Michele, believes it is a tactic to grind them down and told Background Briefing that more than half of the officers who put in a claim end up giving up.
Like other officers, they say they have received no support from NSW Police or from former colleagues.
‘When I ask Andy he says he thinks they are frightened of catching it,’ Michele Peverill said.
‘Almost like it is contagious. I don’t know if there are any undermining things where senior officers say you mustn’t have a bar of him, I don’t know.’
‘They won’t even reply to my texts if I text them, so I don’t know.’
You can view the report in it’s original form on ABC Radio National here.
David introduced a Notice of Motion into the NSW Upper House on Tuesday seeking support for a Parliamentary Inquiry into how the NSW Police Force and insurers deal with serving and former NSW police who have suffered psychological injuries.