Subjected to sustained and vicious attack by her former partner, Mervyn Bell, Tamica Mullaley was left naked and bleeding with life-threatening injuries in a Broome street.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
When police arrived, instead of being treated as a victim of domestic violence, she was arrested along with her father Ted who'd turned up to help.
Bell then kidnapped, tortured and murdered her baby boy Charlie.
The Mullaley family's tragic 2013 story is one of many being told in submissions to a Senate inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children, which will hold a two-day hearing in Perth on Wednesday and Thursday.
Noongar academic Dr Hannah McGlade is a human rights lawyer, who has researched violence against Indigenous women and children.
"We do have - like Canada, the US and South America - a very grave situation of Indigenous femicide, shockingly high rates of murder of Indigenous women and girls, and the states have failed to properly address that situation," she said.
"In fact, we have a serious problem of impunity, where perpetrators might not even be held to account."
After Ms Mullaley's arrest, 10-month-old Charlie was left in the care of family friends.
Bell returned to the area soon after, taking the boy and murdering him the following day.
He was serving a minimum sentence of 27 years when he took his own life in 2015.
In their victim impact statement, published as part of the National Justice Project's submission to the inquiry, the Mullaley family describe how before the attack on Tamica, and Charlie's murder, they were a strong, bonded Widi Yamatji family.
"What is the Mullaley family today? Broken, beyond sad, traumatised, angry and in total disbelief," they said.
"What was a call to the police for protection and support for a victim of a violent life-threatening domestic attack, resulted in a living horror that is unbearable to recount.
"Actions by the WA police that night resulted in the brutal torture and murder of Baby Charlie Boy - an innocent 10-month-old baby with so much love to give and still receive from his family."
Last year, nine years after their arrest and conviction, WA Attorney-General John Quigley apologised to Tamica and Ted Mullaley and pardoned their convictions.
Dr McGlade said she welcomed the hearings because they gave the families and survivors a chance to speak for themselves.
"I'm pleased the Senate is hearing from the families of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls, including the family of Stacey Thorne, who was a teacher's aide murdered in Boddington (southeast of Perth) some years ago," she said.
"The person originally convicted of her murder has now been acquitted. We want justice for Stacey and for all missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls."
The 34-year-old Noongar woman was 22 weeks pregnant when she died in 2007 on her bedroom floor after being stabbed 21 times.
Nationally, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 32 times more likely to be hospitalised due to family violence than non-First Nations women, 10 times more likely to die due to assault and 45 times more likely to experience any type of violence.
Committee member WA Greens senator Dorinda Cox said the hearing was an overdue chance to look at the disproportional rates of First Nations, women and children both missing and murdered.
"This is a real opportunity for Australia that will allow us to look at why there's such a big disparity in that in those statistics but also responses in relation to violence against First Nations women and children," she said.
Australian Associated Press
