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Netflix's Stateless: The true story behind the drama is even more upsetting

Photo credit: Ben King - Netflix
Photo credit: Ben King - Netflix

From Digital Spy

Stateless tells the extraordinary story of a mentally ill Australian resident who is mistakenly locked up in a detention centre. Immigration officials failed to consider her psychiatric issues or conduct a proper investigation into her case. What makes it so astonishing is that it's actually based on real events.

Cornelia Rau was born in Germany but her family came to Australia when she was just 18 months old. She was vivacious and bubbly, though there were times when she became anxious and restless. Her life changed when she took a break from her job as an airline hostess and became involved in a cult called Kenja Communication.

Her sister, Chris Rau, talked to the press about the impact they had.

"It was while she was with them that she started getting sick. We couldn't figure out how she got so ill."

Cult leader Ken Dyers listened to members' secrets and made them feel like he could see into their souls. But he could also break them down. Dyers told Rau that she hadn't lived up to expectations and lacked any artistic talent. This completely shattered her psyche. She became someone who couldn't function in society. Years later, she still talked about the cult and how Dyers sexually assaulted her. It was a claim many former members made.

The show effectively highlights how Sofie Werner, the character based on Rau, completely unravelled and tried to disappear so she could escape from the cult. But it omits and changes many details about her story.

Photo credit: Ben King - Netflix
Photo credit: Ben King - Netflix

Rau's mental health issues meant that she kept travelling to different places without telling anyone and took terrible risks. In the six years before she was detained, she constantly disappeared, though she usually ended up contacting her family. Her behaviour was erratic: she jumped off a moving train in Italy and bit officers who stopped her getting on a flight to Indonesia. In Stateless, the timeline is condensed. She becomes ill, tries to disappear and then almost immediately gets locked up in a detention centre.

Rau was in and out of psychiatric facilities for years. She kept getting worse because she hated taking her medication. This isn't focused on in the series at all. The catalyst for her disappearance from a psychiatric hospital, just before she was detained, was a community treatment order. It stated that once she was released, she had to take medication as an outpatient. So she discharged herself and went hitchhiking. She feared medication almost as much as she feared the cult.

Whilst hitchhiking she looked lost and disoriented so locals called the police. Rau told them that she was a German citizen and gave several different names. In an interview with 60 Minutes, she admitted that she lied because she was frightened of getting captured by the cult.

Immigration officers were even more ineffective than those depicted on the show. Shortly after she was first detained, the honorary German consul stated that Rau spoke German fluently but had a childlike vocabulary. After further investigation, the German authorities told immigration that she was most likely an Australian resident who had left Germany as a child. None of this is in Stateless.

Mick Palmer, the former Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, led the inquiry into how Immigration had made so many mistakes. He was bewildered that Immigration officials never considered the possibility that she was Australian.

"[They were] fixed on process and apparently oblivious to the outcomes achieved."

Australia's Department of Immigrant kept poor records, didn't investigate properly and mismanaged the case. Rau was in prison for six months before she was taken to the detention centre, even though prison was meant to be a last resort.

Photo credit: Ben King - Netflix
Photo credit: Ben King - Netflix

Immigration officials also failed to treat her psychological issues. Their failure was once again much worse than in Stateless. In the show, she's seen by one psychologist who indicates that she should be transferred to a psychiatric hospital. Rau was actually seen by several psychiatrists. The first doctors who saw her said that she behaved oddly but wasn't mentally ill. Later, several psychiatrists suggested that she should be assessed at a psychiatric hospital but their concerns were largely ignored.

Rau's mental health deteriorated further. She stared blankly into space, screamed at the guards and cried all the time. The series depicts her mental breakdown. What it doesn't show is that she was kept in solitary confinement in prison for long periods of time. In fact, it doesn't mention her time in prison at all.

She also spent a lot of time in solitary confinement in the detention centre. This was for a much longer period of time than in the show's chronology. The guards thought she had behaviour problems and was playing up, especially as the detention centre's psychologist stated that she had a severe personality disorder.

The Sydney Morning Herald quoted the psychologist's diagnosis:

"[She] push[es] the boundaries in order to draw others toward her on a constant basis."

This meant she was disciplined and not treated. Soon after the psychologist's verdict, she was placed in Red One, a compound for badly behaved detainees. This happened shortly after she arrived. In the show, she's only placed in Red One, much later. Rau was the only woman in the compound. There were security cameras everywhere even in the bathroom. She hated being alone but was locked in her room for several hours every day.

In 2005, after ten months of being locked up, she was finally released. The show presents a fictitious account of what happened.

In the series, a former colleague at the airline vaguely recognises Sofie Werner, the character based on Rau, when she's taken on a flight back to detention following an implausible escape. He informs her sister who talks to immigration. This leads to Werner's release. It's only then that a government official tells a journalist about Werner's situation.

In reality, several detainees raised their concerns about Rau to asylum advocates. The story was picked up by two Australian newspapers: The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. The Raus were on holiday. But a friend saw the article in the Herald and thought the mystery woman could be Cornelia Rau. Her mother sent a picture to the police who contacted immigration officials at the centre. Cornelia was then quickly transferred to a psych ward.

Rau was given $2.6 million in compensation. In the immediate aftermath of her release, she kept insisting she was a German hitchhiker. Over time, her mental health slowly improved but she's had a number of relapses. Her lawyer Claire O'Connor kept in contact with her and gave ABC an update on Rau's state of mind.

"She goes to classes, she takes part in the physical things she likes to do, swimming and sport. She's certainly in a better place than when she got out of detention."

Rau doesn't remember her time in detention at all. But in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald, her sister talked about how the experience had "caused irreversible neurological damage" for Cornelia.

Her case caused a huge outcry and drew attention to the plight of detainees. The Palmer Inquiry was launched to investigate. It found a lot of failings in the way the Immigration Department worked. Some reforms were made but they weren't far reaching and have mostly been reversed. The system is pretty much the same as it was when Rau was detained, 15 years ago.

Stateless puts the Immigration Department in the spotlight again. Producer Cate Blanchett hopes that it "will prompt people to rethink how... we all are responding to the current displacement crisis".

Stateless is available to stream on Netflix.


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