At Lilydale police station I was allowed to phone Paul Galbally. Hearing his voice on the other end was an enormous comfort even though his instructions sounded bleak. ‘Don’t say a word,’ he said. ‘Whatever the officers ask you, just reply “No comment”. Understand?’
‘I understand, Paul.’
‘OK, good. Now listen, you’ll have to apply for bail tonight by yourself. It’ll be done when they bring a Bail Justice in to see you.’ The courts close at 4pm and it was now well after hours.
‘And how do I apply for bail exactly, Paul?’ I pressed, a little concerned that he seemed to think I somehow magically knew how to conduct legal proceedings.
‘You tell the Bail Justice that you need to remain in the community because you have two small children to care for … but,’ he added as his voice trailed off a little, ‘I don’t think you’ll get bail.’
More than being fearful I was relieved that Shannyn and Sarah were safe in the care of their father at his place. The prospect of staying in custody overnight wasn’t the catastrophe it might otherwise have been. ‘OK, no bail,’ I said. ‘What then?’
‘They’ll keep you overnight and I’ll see you in court in Ringwood in the morning. How are you going really, Kerry? I’m worried about how you’re coping.’
By then Detective Smith had returned and was looming over me. I had to shut Paul down quickly because the kindness and concern in his voice were beginning to unravel me. I didn’t want to cry – not in front of Detective Smith. ‘I’m fine thanks, Paul, really. I’ll be alright. I have to go. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘OK, Kerry. Remember, “No comment.” See you tomorrow.’
I handed the phone to Detective Smith who rang off and announced that he was going to conduct a formal police interview. ‘Do you understand?’ he asked.
‘No comment.’
The Bail Justice arrived around 8.30pm. Detective Smith opposed bail on behalf of the Crown and it was formally refused. For the first time since I was abducted as a teenager I was to be locked up against my will. Only this time there could be no escaping through the bathroom window. There was no room for me at Lilydale so I was driven to the Knox Police Holding Cells just opposite the giant Westfield shopping centre, and signed into the custody of the Watch House officers. As they escorted me along a corridor I heard a voice announce, ‘Prisoner coming through!’
‘Oh God!’ I thought, suddenly alarmed. ‘Please don’t let me run into any prisoners.’ But there was nobody else in the hallway, and it dawned on me that they were referring to me. I was the prisoner.
I was passed over to two female officers with about as much ceremony as a dog-catcher drops a stray at a shelter. The women were wearing blue rubber gloves and I doubted they were fixing to do the washing up. I was ordered to step into a holding cell. ‘Take your clothes off and hand them to us,’ the older officer directed.
‘What? All of them?’ My head was spinning. I had no idea whether they were even legally allowed to force me to undress or how far they could go.
‘Yeah, all of them. Now!’
When the police had come for me I’d been dressed in a matching black Nike top and skirt with runners. Now I stood naked in the middle of the freezing cell while the officers suspiciously picked through my garments looking in vain for drugs or weapons. I thought about how much I had already lost and how much I was continuing to forfeit. And how it was all my fault. I had jettisoned trust and with it friends, my job, my reputation, my liberty, my children, my dignity and now I was being stripped of my sovereign womanhood by two blue-fingered agents of the state. Could it get any worse? Suddenly I became consumed with dread that an internal search was next on the agenda.
‘Now open your mouth and show me inside your ears,’ the officer continued. I did as I was told. ‘Lift up your breasts. Good. Now wiggle your fingers and toes. Right, now turn around slowly. Good, now get dressed.’
I was relieved they didn’t do an internal search but I needn’t have worried – I later found out it was illegal for the police, Corrections Officers or anyone else to do a physical internal examination of prisoners in Australia. I would also learn what a handy loophole this creates for women to exploit.
Next the officers told me to grab three vinyl cushions and two blankets from a nearby stack and follow them to a ‘lock-down’ cell. The cushions were just under a metre long and I was instructed to put them on top of a raised concrete slab on one side of the cell – my bed for the night. The blankets were typical army issue, as thick as a Kleenex, itchy to the touch and infused with a dampish aroma that was somewhere between vomit and three-day-old rubbish. There was no pillow. The cell was a tired-looking iron and concrete box with a stainless steel toilet (with no lid), a wash basin, the concrete slab and a seat. The most menacing piece of decor, however, was the security camera mounted in a corner of the ceiling. If I needed to go to the toilet it would be in full view of whichever officers were watching. As luck would have it, I was menstruating.
Outside of being raped I could think of nothing more degrading or intrusive than having to go to the toilet in full view of a crowd of strangers that included men. I fought the urge until my stomach hurt, my bladder stung and blood trickled down my legs. I had to ask an officer for toilet paper and sanitary pads and then sit on the toilet in front of them while I mopped up. It was the most dehumanising, unnatural act I had ever been asked – nay, ordered – to perform.
As I lay down for my first night in a cell, I found that although I was emotionally exhausted I was wired so tight I was unable to switch off. For some reason the man in the cell beside me started screaming and he kept it up all night. Despite it being obvious that I wouldn’t be getting any sleep, the officers banged on my cell door every hour to check on my ‘emotional state’ – though they seemed to think the shrieking maniac beside me was doing just fine.
In the morning Detective Smith returned and drove me to Ringwood police station to await my appearance in the local court. I was stripsearched by more strange women wearing blue rubber gloves before being locked in a holding cell with a young woman named Shannon. I almost burst into tears: she reminded me of my little Shannyn – just with an ‘o’ and all grown up.
‘Do you want a smoke?’ she asked. Shannon was casual and at ease as she leaned up against the cell wall, her long blonde hair tied back. I put her at about twenty-five. She spoke in a way that suggested she’d had a good education and I figured she was from a good family. Certainly not the type of girl I expected to find locked in a cell. But then, one could say the same about me, the quintessential suburban mum.
‘No thanks,’ I demurred, instantly curious as to how she could have got a cigarette into the cell in the first place. The strip-searches were quite thorough. Shannon must have noticed my perplexed expression as she carefully unwrapped the crumpled-looking smoke from a small square of Glad Cling Wrap. ‘Hang on, is that a joint?’ I asked.
‘First time, is it?’ she asked in reply. ‘It’s alright, you can have some. I’ve got more.’
I was still stumped by how it was possible she had a joint on her, let alone access to more marijuana. Then the penny dropped: the Glad Cling Wrap! Shannon didn’t have the drugs on her – she had them in her. ‘Oh no-no-no-no-nooo, but thanks anyway,’ I replied, declining her kind offer of illegal drugs fresh from her vagina while locked in the middle of a police cellblock. I couldn’t believe it was happening.
As Shannon sparked her BIC lighter – which had been ‘banked’ in the same place – I went into internal meltdown. In my straight-laced world, drugs were as dangerous as cyanide. I had visions of becoming stoned off Shannon’s second-hand smoke, staggering across the road and collapsing in front of the magistrate. I backed away from the young prisoner to the furthest corner of the cell and started taking tiny sips of air like a woman in labour. I was also terrified about what the officers would do if they came in. Shannon wasn’t; she might as well have been sitting on a beanbag in her lounge room.
‘What are you up for today?’ she asked casually as I kept up the weird breathing.
‘Bail, I think. Fraud charges,’ I said. (Sip-sip-sip …)
Once the smoke cleared – and without an officer ever coming near – we spent the next few hours sharing our tales of woe. Shannon, the first heroin addict I had met besides my late cousin Cathy, was facing a string of drug-related charges. She was already on remand at the Dame Phyllis Frost women’s prison in Deer Park, which, she assured me, was nothing like what you see in the movies and ‘waaaay more comfortable than these cells’. They may well have been, but I didn’t want to find out firsthand.