Victoria's police chief has directed senior officers to make sure they are not unnecessarily denying bail to marginalised people as part of the force's response to the coronial inquest into Aboriginal woman Veronica Nelson's death in custody.
This story uses the name and image of Veronica Nelson with permission from her family.
Legal groups have welcomed the move, but warn a major cultural shift is needed in the force.
The inquest highlighted failures across the legal, prison and policing systems which affected Veronica in the days before she passed away in pain after repeated pleas for help from her prison cell.
The 37-year-old was remanded under the state's harsh bail laws, which require people charged with even minor offences while on bail or a community corrections order to demonstrate there are exceptional circumstances as to why they should be released.
In January, coroner Simon McGregor found the laws — which were beefed up in the wake of the 2017 Bourke Street car attack — had become a "complete and unmitigated disaster" and called for urgent reforms.
But the coroner also expressed concern that police have been operating under an "informal policy" of opposing bail for every alleged offender caught up in the test, even when officers are empowered to bail some people themselves — most significantly if the person is a child, vulnerable adult or Indigenous person.
The inquest heard from lawyers who said as a result, vulnerable people like Veronica were being put behind bars while they waited for court dates on charges that were unlikely to ever carry jail time.
Victoria Police has confirmed to the ABC that Chief Commissioner Shane Patton sent an email sent to officers ranked sergeant and above last month, "to correct any misunderstanding there is an informal policy encouraging members to oppose all bail applications or discouraging them from using their discretion under the law".
"The Chief Commissioner noted police bail decision makers are empowered to bail alleged offenders, especially children, vulnerable adults and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons," a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
"This includes matters where the vulnerable person must demonstrate exceptional circumstances.
"The email further made it clear each matter must be considered case-by-case and assessed on individual merits."
Victoria Police will also update its manual and training content over the next six months to ensure the message was "unequivocal", the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the force had accepted all of the coroner's recommendations, which included collecting and publishing data on the bail decisions being made by police.
Legal Aid says police still unnecessarily locking up vulnerable people
Dan Nicholson, who heads the criminal law division of Victoria Legal Aid, welcomed the force's decision to accept the coroner's "very strong" recommendations.
But he said the service, which represents dozens of people on bail matters each day, continued to see cases where police sought to remand marginalised people for minor offences.
In the past few days, that included two separate cases where a pregnant woman and an Indigenous woman were arrested on non-violent charges," he said.
"[They] weren't facing terms of imprisonment and police have remanded them, and then opposed application for bail," Mr Nicholson said.
He said other examples since the inquest's findings were handed down included a person taken into custody by police for multiple counts of begging while on bail and a homeless Aboriginal man who spent time in cells after being charged with public intoxication-related offences.
In another instance, Mr Nicholson said a person on bail was stopped for riding a bike without a helmet and then held in cells after a "tiny amount" of marijuana was found in their pocket.
All of those people were released after advocacy from Victoria Legal Aid.
"It's welcome to see the commitment from the top, but there's a lot of work to translate that into change on the ground," Mr Nicholson said.
He said he remained concerned police were failing to consider their obligations under Victoria's Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities when they made decisions about people's liberty — another issue identified in the coroner's recommendations.
"Whatever the bail laws look like in the future, the way that police exercise discretion is going to be really important in people's actual experience of the bail and remand system," he said.
"So getting this right is really crucial."
Family lawyers urge police to support sweeping bail reforms
The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS), which represented Veronica's partner Uncle Percy Lovett in the inquest, said it was clear from the inquest that an informal policy of denying people caught up in the exceptional circumstances test had existed.
"It is clear from the Inquest, and from our work at VALS, that Victoria Police do not understand the Bail Act and their powers and responsibilities," VALS CEO Nerita Waight said.
"Despite what often law and order debates sell you on what community safety is, it's not putting people in custody," she said.
"Custody is an unsafe place and every moment spent in custody is traumatising to the individual, their family and their community."
Ms Waight said too often promises of a change in law enforcement practices failed to materialise because not enough was done to tackle the culture driving decisions.
"What I would like to see is them engaging people in the sector to actually understand the Bail Act, the powers and responsibilities open to Victoria Police, to ensure that any training, any materials, but most of all that cultural change is really led by not just Victoria Police but by the whole sector," she said.
Lawyers for Veronica's mother, Aunty Donna Nelson, said while the force's commitment to ongoing cultural sensitivity training recommended by the coroner was a "positive stride forward", it should have been put in place more than three decades ago in response to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
"Veronica's detainment and subsequent lack of adequate medical attention could have been avoided had the custody sergeant thoroughly considered her eligibility for bail," Robinson Gill lawyer Ali Besiroglu said.
"This incident highlights Victoria Police's persistent cultural issue of neglecting to employ sound discretion in favour of First Nations individuals. In that regard, it's too little, too late."
He urged Victoria Police to support the coroner's recommendation to remove the reverse onus test for bail and support the family's push for overhauled bail laws to be named Poccum's Law in Veronica's honour.
The Police Association of Victoria declined to comment.
