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"Both girls were screaming." Deportation of Tamil asylum seeker family stopped mid-air by last minute injunction, & more in News in 5.

With AAP.

1. “Both girls were screaming.” Deportation of Tamil asylum seeker family stopped mid-air by last minute injunction.

A judge has granted a last-minute temporary injunction to stop a Tamil asylum seeker family being deported from Australia.

The family of four left Melbourne Airport for Sri Lanka on a non-commercial flight at about 11pm on Thursday.

However, the plane landed in Darwin early on Friday and Priya, her husband Nadesalingam, and their two Australian-born daughters were taken to accommodation, according to a family friend who was in contact with them by phone.

“They’re pretty traumatised as you can imagine but also very relieved to be still here,” former Biloela resident Simone Cameron told AAP.

Priya’s arm was injured after she was forcibly taken onto the plane in Melbourne, Ms Cameron added.

“The officers came down and didn’t care, they just dragged her. She was screaming, both girls were screaming. It was very, very traumatic,” Ms Cameron told the The Age through tears.

A photo of Priya obtained by AAP showed her wrist had been bandaged.

The Age reported journalist Rebekah Holt spoke to a distressed Priya about 10pm. Ms Holt said Priya told her that she had been separated from her husband and children.

A video posted to Facebook showed Nadesalingam with his two daughters on the plane.

The plane landed in Darwin just before 3am on Friday, according to flight tracking website flightradar24.com.

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Video footage posted on Twitter by a supporter appeared to show the family being escorted from the plane and leaving in a white van.

Lawyers secured an interim injunction in the Federal Circuit Court in Melbourne on Thursday blocking the family’s removal.

The orders made by Judge Heather Riley state that the Minister for Immigration be restrained from removing the applicant from the Commonwealth of Australia until noon on Friday.

The order also states that an application be listed for hearing at 10am on Friday in the Melbourne registry of the Federal Circuit Court.

The Department of Home Affairs has been contacted for comment.

tamil family
Image: Facebook.
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Priya and Nadesalingam came to Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013 following Sri Lanka's civil war.

The family had been held in a Melbourne detention centre since March 2018, after being taken from their home in Biloela, in Queensland, during a pre-dawn raid.

They lived in the town for four years on a temporary bridging visa before it ran out in March 2018. The High Court denied their final bid to stay in May 2018.

Last week the family found out their efforts to stay in the country had been rejected, with supporters calling on the federal immigration minister to reconsider.

Priya was understood to have been separated from her family about 7.30pm on Thursday before being reunited at the Melbourne Airport ahead of the planned flight back to Sri Lanka, according to family friend Angela Fredericks.

"My understanding is they got served papers this evening and then separated," Ms Fredericks said on Thursday.

Supporters of the family rushed to the airport and chanted "let them stay".

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Change.org campaigns director Nic Holas said about 50 protesters attended, and they saw the plane the family was on taxi down the runway and out of sight.

Supporters have previously told AAP they feared the family would be in danger if sent back to Sri Lanka.

The family has received strong support from Australians with more than 200,000 people signing a Change.org online petition to prevent them from being sent back.

The Department of Immigration had previously stated the family's case had been assessed over many years.

2. Sydney security guard who assaulted toddler to be deported.

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A refugee who kidnapped and indecently assaulted a three-year-old girl at a Sydney shopping centre has "no right" to be in Australia and will be deported after serving his jail term, the prime minister says.

Security guard Mohammad Hassan Al Bayati was on Tuesday sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for taking the unsupervised girl from the DFO Homebush playground a week before Christmas in 2016.

The Iraqi-born man, who still denies the crimes, was in Australia on a permanent protection visa after seeking asylum in 2011.

But Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Thursday said his visa has been cancelled and he will be deported once his time behind bars ends.

"This individual didn't come as a welcome guest - he came by boat when Labor lost control of the borders," Mr Dutton told 2GB radio.

"Good riddance to him and people like him."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Al Bayati had "no right" to be in Australia and said it should serve as a warning to anyone on a permanent protection visa who breaks the law.

"His abuse of the generosity of a country that gave him a new start, it is absolutely appalling," he told the Seven Network on Thursday.

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By law, the minister - or delegate - must cancel a person's visa if they have been convicted of a sexual crime involving a child and serving a full-time prison sentence for the crime.

Mr Dutton said Al Bayati had the right to appeal the decision in court, but he was confident it would stand up.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus agreed there was no place for Al Bayati in Australia, describing his crimes as "abominable".

But he hit back at suggestions that Labor was somehow responsible because he arrived in the country under their watch.

"Many thousands of people are in Australia, sitting here on a visa issued by Mr Morrison personally as immigration minister. Is he accepting responsibility for all of their conduct and all of their behaviour for so long as they remain in Australia?" Mr Dreyfus told reporters in Canberra.

Al Bayati, who was working as a security guard at the shopping centre, had responded to a report of an unattended and distressed girl at the centre's playground when he took the girl by the hand and walked her towards the fire exit.

There, he exposed his penis and touched the girl's underwear during 11 minutes away from surveillance cameras.

Police only became involved after the girl told her father later that day the guard showed her his "needle" and "tried to kiss my bum bum".

During Al Bayati's sentencing, the NSW District Court was told he spent years as a child in Iran as an undocumented asylum seeker before being kidnapped by terrorists on his return to Iraq, where he saw a fellow abductee beheaded.

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He then made his way to Malaysia and attempted to reach Australia by boat, which ended up sinking in the Indian Ocean, the court was told.

He spent time on Christmas Island before eventually being granted a permanent protection visa.

Al Bayati will be eligible for parole in mid-2021.

3. Tanya Day inquest shown CCTV footage from the hours before her death.

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A police officer says Aboriginal grandmother Tanya Day was treated "better than equal" when taken into custody for public drunkenness on a Victorian train.

Within hours, the 55-year-old was lying on the floor of a police cell with a lump on her head and died 17 days later from a brain haemorrhage .

"We tried to treat her, in fairness, better than equal," Leading Senior Constable Matthew Fitzgibbon told an inquest into her death on Thursday.

"She was vulnerable. She wasn't hurting anyone."

Sen Const Fitzgibbon and his partner, Senior Constable Kristian Hurford, took the Yorta Yorta woman to Castlemaine police station in a divisional van.

"We were gentle with Ms Day. We showed compassion ... she wasn't the regular, everyday drunk," he said of their treatment.

"We treated her with as much dignity and respect as we could."

But 17 days later in December 2017, Ms Day died from a brain haemorrhage caused by a fall in her cell.

Sen Const Fitzgibbon defended their decision to take Ms Day into a cell because there was no other option.

The Aboriginal Community Justice Panel was notified and asked if someone was available to collect Ms Day, but a person named Sandy told him it wasn't possible.

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Officers also got in touch with her Melbourne-based daughter Kimberley Watson, but she was unable to collect her.

Instead, the officers planned to keep her in the cells to sober up for four hours until she could be put back on at train and someone could meet her at the station in Melbourne.

CCTV footage aired at the inquest showed Ms Day was crying and had difficulties with her balance at the police station.

Ms Day had been upset "on and off ... but that's not unusual," Sen Const Fitzgibbon said in response to the footage.

"No one is happy to be in a cell."

He said it appeared she had been crying at the charge counter.

Her family had been warned the footage would be played in court. After briefly leaving the room, they returned to watch the footage in full.

Sen Const Fitzgibbon had no further contact with Ms Day after he left the cell, but was told she was injured when he returned for a break at the station.

"I was informed... that Ms Day had fallen and hit her head and they had checked on her and saw she had a lump on her head," he said.

Once Ms Day was taken into the police station, officers did not go inside her cell until she was due to be released later that night.

She was taken off a train en route to Melbourne after it had been reported to police she was "unruly", intoxicated and didn't have a ticket.

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The coroner is examining whether racism contributed to Ms Day's death.

4. Former Sydney baseball coach accused of assaulting young players.


A former Sydney baseball coach has been accused of assaulting young players during private lessons and filming them over decades.

Police began investigating after five men reported they had been physically abused as children by a man known to them at a northern beaches sports club between 1994 and 2017.

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It's alleged Stuart Angus Mould assaulted the boys - aged between nine and 20 at the time - on numerous occasions while at sporting facilities and outside of practice.

A 12-year-old boy suffered fractures to his foot in one of the alleged incidents.

"It will also be alleged that, during private lessons with these young players, the man would film the assaults," NSW Police said in a statement.

Detectives on Wednesday arrested Mould, 70, and searched his home in Sanctuary Point on the NSW south coast.

Several items were found, including electronic storage devices, videotapes and documentation, which have been sent for forensic examination.

Mould has been charged with 16 counts of common assault, producing child abuse material and child pornography, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He was refused bail at Nowra Local Court on Thursday and is scheduled to next appear in Manly Local Court on September 3.

5. Scott Morrison vows to remove "ridiculous" gender inclusive toilet signs.

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The Canberra offices of Scott Morrison's own department have posted signs on its toilet doors inviting staff to "use the bathroom that best fits your gender identity".

The sign, posted on Twitter on Thursday, notes that the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is "committed to staff inclusion and diversity".

Mr Morrison said he had spoken with departmental officials about the signage.

"I don't think this is necessary - I think people can work out which room to use," he told 2GB Radio.

"It is political correctness over the top."

Asked whether the signs would come down, Mr Morrison said: "That's what I expect."