Guards at the Nauru detention centre may have paid for sex with refugees in the community and circulated sex tapes of their encounters, a former case manager on the island has alleged.

The shocking allegations are contained in a submission by Charlotte Wilson, a former Save the Children case manager at the Nauru detention centre from January 2014 to February 2015.

A Senate inquiry is investigating conditions and serious allegations at the Australian-run facility on the island.

Wilson alleged that both Australian and Nauruan guards on the island – who work for the company Wilson Security, subcontracted by Transfield Services – “frequently abused their positions of power” at the centre. She said it was “common knowledge” there was “bartering and trading, including of sexual favours, within the camp”.

Some of the allegations about trading sexual favours for showers and drugs were substantiated in a report by the former integrity commissioner Philip Moss.



But in an allegation not previously disclosed in Moss’s report, Wilson also said she had been told there were sex tapes which had been circulated of some of these sexual encounters.

“I was told that this was acknowledged in management meetings between service providers and that it was also established that these acts had been filmed and circulated around Wilson’s staff,” she said. “I was also told that because prostitution is legal on Nauru that no action was being taken against the staff members involved.

“I firmly believe that the level of trauma that asylum seekers have been subjected to has caused profound damage to nearly every single man, woman and child who has been arbitrarily interned in Nauru.”

She also outlined concerns about the serious conflict of interest posed by Wilson Security in its role at the centre. She alleged that asylum seekers withheld information from these reports because they feared retribution.

“It is my belief that information was withheld by asylum seekers who were fearful of retribution from security staff over any complaints,” she said. “Any incident report or information report that was submitted went through the Wilson chain of management to investigate.”

Another submission received from a current staff member on the island has detailed a series of alleged failures by the Nauruan police force (NPF) to investigate allegations of sexual assault.

The current employee – who submitted anonymously because of feared retribution – outlined allegations of a recent incident where the Nauru police initially denied an Iranian woman had been sexually assaulted.

“She was found naked and beaten around 9pm on the main road,” the submission said. “A government minister actually found her and took her to the police station. From there, she was taken to the RON hospital and examined.

“She was returned to RPC1 [regional processing centre] by the police at 3am. The NPF did not take photos of the victim, nor was a rape kit utilised.

“The female Wilson guard assigned to the victim had to be removed from duty as she could not stop crying. It was evident that the victim had been assaulted due to visible injuries.

“The NPF denied the assault had taken place, despite the victim spending over five hours in their care.”

The submission said not a single sexual assault had been investigated by the police. It also alleged that video footage existed of a Nauruan “engaging in a drug deal” at the detention centre.

The submission said that in another incident an intoxicated police officer “tried to break down the front gate of the house of 14 unaccompanied refugee minors while yelling racial abuse at them”. The minors did not lodge a complaint because they believed it would not be investigated adequately.

The inquiry has received dozens of submissions from former staff at the centre. One submission from a former child protection worker, Viktoria Vibhakar, alleged cases of abuse of asylum seekers’ children as young as two.

Another submission from a former security guard claimed that the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young was the subject of sweeping surveillance to monitor her movements on the island.