For a two-storey, dust-covered building in the centre of a remote town, the old Victoria Hotel in Roebourne (Ieramagadu) has played an outsized role in Australian history.
It was here, in 1983, that a group of drunk, off-duty police officers accosted an Aboriginal man at the bottle shop (“We’ll get you, you black cunt,” one said, according to witness testimony), starting a brawl on the street. Sixteen-year-old Yindjibarndi boy John Pat joined the fray and was seen being kicked in the head and face by police and dragged into a van. An hour later, he was dead.
