Trial of Lex Wotton - The Palm Island Riots

The Palm Island Riots

On Friday 19 November 2004, 36-year-old Palm Island resident Cameron Doomadgee was arrested for public drunkenness and died in police custody an hour later. The coroner's report was released on Friday 26 November, and read to a community meeting. After hearing that Doomadgee had died from a ruptured liver in the scuffle at the island's watch-house, a succession of angry young Aboriginal men spoke to the crowd and encouraged immediate action be taken against the police. Doomadgee's death was repeatedly branded "cold-blooded murder". Wotton joined 1,000 other people in a riot on Palm Island that resulted in the police station, the court house, and the home of the officer-in-charge being burned down. In a Friday interview with the The Courier-Mail, Wotton justified the riot, saying that the residents did not believe the death was an accident and the residents had set fire to the police station because they had been "crying out for help" and no one had listened. Additionally, Wotton sought an investigation by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) and wanted the government to agree to move all police from the island.

Before his Courier-Mail newspaper interview was delivered to the public and in response to Wotton's actions during the riot, police entered Wotton's home at 4:45 am Saturday and used a stun gun on the back of his leg to arrest him, all the time pointing a rifle at his 15-year-old daughter's head as she sat on a bedroom floor. At the time, Wotton became one of 17 defendants, all males, charged in the Palm Island riots and was alleged to be the riot ringleader. At the Townsville Magistrate Court on 29 November, Lex Patrick Wotton was charged with "arson (two counts), serious assault on police (three counts), wilful damage and riot causing damage."