Vickie Roach

Vickie Lee Roach (born 1958) is an Aboriginal Australian activist. She is a Yuin woman. She was the plaintiff in the landmark Australian High Court case Roach v Electoral Commissioner. At the time of the case, she was serving a six-year term in prison. Since her release, she has become an advocate for prison abolition.

Early life and criminal convictions Vickie Lee Roach was born in 1958 in Merewether, New South Wales. She is a member of the Yuin people, In 1961, at the age of two, she was charged with neglect, removed from her mother's care and placed with a non-Indigenous foster family.

On 14 December 2002, Roach and her partner robbed a milk bar in Mordialloc, a suburb of Melbourne. While driving away from the robbery at high speeds under the influence of alcohol and other drugs, she crashed into another car, severely injuring its driver. She received a sentence of six years with a non-parole period of four years. Roach completed a master's degree in writing from Swinburne University of Technology. As Roach's sentence was longer than three years, she was not personally granted suffrage by the decision. For her work on the case, Roach was a joint winner of the 2007 Tim McCoy Human Rights Award.

Later activism Roach was released from prison in August 2008. Since her release, she has become an activist, particularly advocating for Indigenous women, women suffering domestic violence, and incarcerated women. She was a founding member of the National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.

Roach believes that her first criminal charge at the age of two was "basically the start of [her] criminalisation," and that it "set the course for [her] life… negatively influenc[ing] the way [she] was viewed by police and other authorities from then on". She is an advocate for prison abolition. She has proposed alternatives such as dadirri ("a Central Desert tradition of going out in the bush and reconnecting with country and culture"), and "healing places, particularly for Aboriginal women".

Television Year Title Role Notes 2019 You Can't Ask That Self Episode: "Domestic and Family Violence" 2026 Judgment: Cases That Changed Australia Self Episode: "Vote"