Out of the shadows, part one: Lawyers on the front line against elder abuse

Sometime in the night between 23 and 24 July 2010, Janet Mackozdi died freezing and alone in a shipping container that had been converted into living quarters.

In the morning of 24 July, she was found dead by her son-in-law, but her death was not reported until five hours later. She was 77 years old.

An expert report prepared by the University of Tasmania assessed on the night Janet Mackozdi died, the temperature inside the shipping container was between -1.0 and 2.9 degrees Celsius. A coronial inquest held into her death determined that her cause of death was hypothermia caused by environmental cold exposure and the autopsy found she weighed only 37.9 kilograms. Her daughter and son-in-law were charged with manslaughter. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to two years imprisonment, wholly suspended.

Elder abuse is a heinous scourge plaguing our society. The statistics for elder abuse in Australia are worrying and increased awareness of elder abuse as a serious social issue has prompted the government and peak industry bodies to investigate what’s causing the incidence of abuse to rise and what can be done to prevent it.

The federal government recognises that to tackle the issue, a unified, national approach is needed. It’s in the process of conducting a second national study to understand what’s causing the numbers to rise and what can be done to address this issue in the next decade.