Today the Northern Territory Coroner, Judge Cavanagh handed down his findings into the death of Kwementyaye Green. The 25-year-old mother of two was found dead in a vacant block in Tennant Creek in 2013. Nearly five years later and the police have decided not to charge anyone with her death.

David Woodroffe, Principal Legal Officer of the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, said, “Kwementyaye Green was a young mother with her whole life ahead of her. The pain and loss that her family felt when she was killed can never be undone, but the failings in the police investigation continue to haunt her family.’

The Coroner’s findings were a harsh criticism of the police investigation. He found that police investigation was “so poor that prosecution would only have been possible if the killer confessed.”

In landmark findings, the Coroner was asked by counsel for the family to consider that the ‘incompetent’ investigation may have been caused by institutional racism. He quoted lengthy passages from the Report of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, from the United Kingdom concerning a botched police investigation into the stabbing murder of a black youth, Stephen Lawrence, in London by a group of white youths.

The Coroner’s comparison of the police investigation of Kwementyaye Green’s killing with that Stephen Lawrence’s comes at a time when other hopelessly inadequate police investigations into the deaths of a number of other Aboriginal people are in the spotlight across Australia.

Mr Woodroffe said, “Aboriginal people want Justice for their loved ones who are lost to violent crimes. As the Coroner stated, that the time for apologies is no longer sufficient and the community is entitled to expect better police investigations and a police force that will learn from its mistakes.”

A full copy of the Coroner’s findings can be downloaded here.