Chief minister Adam Giles said the government would drop suit for $360,000 in damages, but it has not done so

The Northern Territory government is yet to formally rescind legal action against two Aboriginal boys teargassed in Don Dale detention centre, a week after the chief minister, Adam Giles, said the government would drop its suit.

The Territory government was claiming more than $200,000 damages against one boy and more than $160,000 against another for damage allegedly done to Don Dale youth detention centre, outside Darwin, during two escape attempts in the 12 months after the boys were tear gassed.

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Six Aboriginal boys were teargassed in the behavioural management unit at Don Dale on 21 August 2014, following what the Giles government at the time called a “riot” but has since been referred to as a “protest”. Footage of the incident was obtained by the ABC’s Four Corners, and was one of the catalysts for the establishment of a royal commission into youth detention and child protection in the Territory.



The cases of four boys, who are suing the Territory government for general, aggravated, and exemplary damages for the “injury, loss and damage” caused by the “extreme distress” and “humiliation” they allege they suffered at the hands of prison guards, were listed before the supreme court in Darwin on Friday. Their names are suppressed.

Solicitors for the Territory government are yet to file amended paperwork for two of those cases to rescind the counter-claim. Maria Pikoulos, solicitor for the government, told Guardian Australia updated documents would be filed “in due course”.

A spokesman for Giles said he still intended to drop the countersuit. Last week Giles said he would not settle the claims against the government because he did not “believe taxpayer money should be going towards windfall payouts to prisoners”.

Among the claims levied against the government is an allegation that a prison guard at Berrimah, a maximum security adult jail where the boys were held after being teargassed, grabbed a boy by the throat and held him against the wall, shouting “we don’t fight fair. I will strap you in a chair for days” and “your mum must be proud of you”.

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According to documents filed with the supreme court, the boys claim that they were all placed in the behavioural management unit at Don Dale on 4 August, 2014, two days after escaping from the centre.

On 21 August 2014, they protested about their conditions in the unit, which their lawyer, Northern Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (Naaja) managing civil solicitor Philippa Martin alleged included being locked in a dirty, unhygienic cell for 23 hours a day, being made to eat their meals in their cells, being denied soap and a towel for showering, and having to use a toilet that was not private.

One of the six detainees held at the BMU, which included Dylan Voller and Jack Roper, who were featured in the Four Corners program, escaped their cell at 7.50pm, and at 8pm staff at Don Dale instituted the “Code Amber” emergency protocol.

Dog squad police in riot gear arrived at 8.34pm and at 9.13pm staff sprayed tear gas through the cells, on the authorisation of the Commissioner of Corrective services.

Naaja alleges the the use of attack dogs and tear gas “intentionally or recklessly caused the plaintiff an imminent fear of personal safety and further and imminent fear of direct harm,” constituting an assault, and that the use of teargas was an “intentional trespass” to their clients’ persons that was “intended to cause harm, or was reckless to the harm it caused,” and constituted battery.

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It argued the NT government was vicariously liable for the actions of all Department of Correctional Services staff, a claim the government has denied.

Naaja also alleged that all four boys suffered a second assault and battery by being handcuffed in the prison transfer van from Don Dale to Berrimah after being teargassed, and that three of them suffered four more instances of assault and battery by being handcuffed, shackled and hooded to walk from their solitary cells in Berrimah to the prison’s medical bay the day after being teargassed.

It also alleged three of the boys were handcuffed, shackled and hooded for transfer from Berrimah prison to Holtze, another adult prison, on 25 August 2014, and that one of them suffered a further assault and battery the following April, when he was allegedly hooded and his wrists zip tied at Don Dale.

“Correctional officers did not remove the zip ties from the plaintiff, the plaintiff had to manoeuvre his arms from behind his back, to his front and bite the zip ties off,” court documents said.

In its response to all four cases, filed with the court on 4 July, the Territory government said the “protest” at Don Dale on 21 August had caused “significant damage,” that the Code Amber procedure and use of teargas had been “reasonable and necessary” to “maintain discipline at the detention centre” and “to maintain order and ensure the safe custody and protection of all persons within the precincts of the detention centre”.

It argued that all of the actions of guards which Naaja had construed as assault were “reasonable and necessary” and that the centres authorised the use of force “only where absolutely necessary, and required that the minimum force proportionate to those situations was to be applied”.

It denied the claim by one of the boys that he was grabbed by the throat by prison officers, saying the guard held the boy against the wall because he believed there was “an imminent threat to his [the guard’s] personal safety and an imminent threat of physical harm”. The government also said the boy had threatened suicide and had just been moved to a safe cell at the time.

All four cases have been listed for mention on Thursday.