Lawsuit could cost millions
AUSTRALIA: Northern Territory taxpayers could end up footing a compensation bill worth millions of dollars after a class action was launched by former inmates of Darwin’s Don Dale Detention Centre over alleged abuse in youth detention centres.
Legal firm Maurice Blackburn is encouraging hundreds of inmates who may have been assaulted by guards or subjected to unreasonable periods of isolation or restraint over the past decade to join the action.
The lawsuit is being led by Aaron Hyde, 20, and Dylan Jenkings, an 18-year-old who claims he was tear-gassed in custody as recently as last April.
Jenkings, who is now in an adult jail, claims he was punched in the back of the head, kicked and beaten by guards with batons and shields last year.
Hyde, who is also serving time at Darwin’s Holtze adult prison, alleges he was forced to urinate in his clothes after being handcuffed to a fence for an hour with his arms above his head in 2012.
He was then allegedly stripped to his underwear and placed into Don Dale’s notorious behavioural management unit for up to three weeks.
Hyde allegedly spent the first night in the isolation cell naked, without a mattress or bedding, and was told by a female guard to masturbate for warmth.
With no access to water in the cell, Hyde claims he was forced to drink out of the toilet bowl and was only allowed out to shower for 15 minutes each day.
‘‘This type of abuse isn’t an odd, isolated event ... it amounts to torture,’’ Maurice Blackburn class action principal Ben Slade said.
‘‘No-one denies these kids may have broken the law, but they didn’t deserve to be broken by the law.’’
At age 19, Hyde killed his best friend when he ran a red light and crashed a stolen car after a drugfuelled crime spree.
His mother Tracey made no excuses for the crimes, but said she was heartbroken and horrified to learn the extent of his alleged physical and psychological abuse behind bars.
Hyde first entered youth detention at age 15 for theft, and his mother wonders whether his reoffending escalated because of his ordeal in youth detention.
‘‘How can a child be subjected to treatment like that and be expected to rehabilitate?’’ she said.
‘‘We’ve seen our son change completely. Luckily, I’m seeing that young man come back now.’’
She said her son had been tutoring other inmates in Holtze and learning skills so he could get a job once he was released. She also called for better post-release support services.
Between August 2006 and the end of 2016, more than 1000 juveniles were in the Norther Territory’s youth prison system, and almost 70 per cent claim to have suffered mistreatment.
Slade said the federal court action could result in a taxpayer compensation bill in the millions, and he expected the proceedings to take about two years.
It is the third civil court action that has been brought against the NT government. - AAP