FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – 2 June 2026
Last night, ABC Four Corners aired an episode entitled “Brutal Force” looking into the abuse of power by NSW Police, including abuse committed in 2023 by two NSW Police officers responding to a woman experiencing mental health challenges and against a woman living with bipolar. (Watch the episode on ABC iView here. Read the associated online news story here.)
Content warning. The footage is confronting and we urge caution in viewing the programme.
BEING and the National Mental Health Consumer Alliance are both appalled at how this graphic evidence demonstrates the abuse of people living with mental health challenges by the Police. Following an initial statement we made yesterday, today we have published a joint release to the media restating demands made in a previous letter to the NSW Minister for Police and further calling for:
- the establishment of a national pyschosocial support scheme
- Adding the police into the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act 1992
- resourcing peer led responses
- the cessation of over-criminalisation of mental health consumers and
- the anchoring of governance in human rights.
Click here to read the media release in full.