Coroner lashes failings that led to Darren's lonely prison death

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'I'm sort of numb,' Darren's brother Steven said. 'You have to keep soldiering through, but I think about him every day.'

A coroner has recommended Victoria dramatically change the way people with mental illnesses and brain injuries are treated on arrival in prison, to prevent more deaths in custody.

"I'm sort of numb," Darren's brother Steven said. "You have to keep soldiering through, but I think about him every day."Darren was only 51 when he died in a Melbourne hospital bed, two days after trying to take his own life in a cell in the Melbourne Assessment Prison. Mr McGregor recommended authorities meet to discuss the viability of a single database, and report back to him.Described by his family as a witty, funny and generous mechanic, Darren's life changed in his mid-30s when a catastrophic motorcycle accident left him with major physical injuries and a "severe" brain injury.

When staff reported him missing to Preston police station, police asked Darren's caseworker to bring him to the station to "have these matters cleared up". Despite a junior Victoria Legal Aid duty lawyer offering to represent him, Darren chose to represent himself in court. Mr McGregor said it was possible Darren refused legal aid because the lawyer indicated she would not make a bail application for him.

 

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