Detained Kiwi 'living like an animal'

6:13 pm on 21 September 2015

A New Zealand-born woman in an Australian detention centre says she has been sexually harassed by officers, and is living like an animal.

Angela Russell, 40, is one of 160 New Zealanders who live in Australia and who have been detained since visa laws were toughened up in December.

Angela Russell

Angela Russell Photo: Supplied

Ms Russell has had her visa and passport cancelled after she was jailed for petty theft and has been in Wickham Point Centre in Darwin for six months awaiting deportation to New Zealand.

Ms Russell said one of the officers there, working for Serco, had approached her for sex.

"I reported it to the police, the police reported it to immigration, got him on camera and he's now left, they had to stand him down."

Ms Russell has lived in Australia since she was three, and is raising two children there.

Dozens of people have been locked up awaiting deportation across the Tasman since Australia toughened up its laws nine months ago.