Two boys who were teargassed in Don Dale juvenile detention centre are being pursued by the NT government for damages over an escape attempt

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The Northern Territory government is suing two boys who were allegedly abused at the Don Dale detention centre for more than $200,000, alleging the boys damaged the detention centre in two escape attempts in the 12-months after being teargassed in August 2014.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, announced a royal commission into Northern Territory juvenile detention on Thursday, after ABC’s Four Corners program revealed footage of a boy hooded and restrained in detention.

The program showed footage of six children being teargassed at the detention centre on 21 August 2014, prompting wide public condemnation.

All six have filed suits against the NT government for their treatment at Don Dale, alleging that the teargassing incident, and other occasions when they were handcuffed or shackled, amounted to battery.

The NT government has denied in all cases that it is vicariously liable for the actions of corrections officers.

The Northern Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (Naaja), which is acting for four of the boys, filed amended statements of claim with the supreme court in Darwin in June.

Court documents seen by Guardian Australia show the NT government responded to two of the writs with a counter-claim, alleging two of the boys, whose identities are subject to a suppression order, participated in subsequent “riots” at the centre, which caused “significant damage”.

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Both boys are alleged to have “participated in a riot and attempted escape” on 31 May 2015, an incident the government alleged caused $89,000 in damage, including holes to the ceiling and walls, damaged furniture, graffiti on the walls, destroyed computers and the corridor being flooded by a fire hose.

The two boys are also alleged to have caused $74,025.60 in damage to the security roller doors at the detention centre on 1 June 2015, when a stolen motor vehicle they were travelling in hit the doors at speed.

Lawyers for the boys have conceded limited involvement in both events but denied they were liable for any damage.

The government is pursuing an additional $45,320 in damages from one of the boys, who they say stole a contractor’s car on 24 February 2015, and drove it into the centre’s security fence.

Naaja accepted the boy had driven into the fence, but said the government “failed to establish a system that adequately managed the risk of detainees stealing motor vehicles belonging to contractors”.

In response to the claims over the incidents in May and June, the boys’ lawyers said the incidents would not have occurred if the government had not kept the detainees in “poor and restrictive conditions” and not subjected them to being teargassed, hooded, handcuffed and shackled (the government denied the use of shackles).

The NT government is taking legal action against two of the boys who were teargassed but the government has dismissed reports it is a countersuit.



“This is not a counter-move,” a spokesman for the corrections department told Guardian Australia.

A spokesman from the Northern Territory’s attorney general’s department told Guardian Australia the department would not comment on “something that is before a royal commission”.

The federal MP for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon, said the Northern Territory government should abandon the claim.

“How could you be so punitive? And secondly why wouldn’t you wait until this royal commission’s done its work?,” he told Guardian Australia at the Garma festival in north-east Arnhem Land.

He said suing the boys was “validating their mistreatment”.

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Snowdon also questioned the decision to appoint Brian Ross Martin as commissioner, given his long history and association with the Northern Territory. Martin was still a part of the justice system during the period covered by the royal commission.



Snowdon had earlier told the Garma audience there was no excuse for what Australians had seen on TV on Monday night.

“And to understand the history of the children involved, to understand their family situation, understand their own health needs, and what’s happened to them over the course of their life – the system has failed them. These young people are victims and what we need to make sure is that we stop that cycle of victimisation. If it’s OK to spend $80,000 or $100,000 a year on incarcerating someone, why can’t we spend that ... on that person at the front end, and prevent it happening in the first place?”

The former Liberal Indigenous affairs minister Fred Chaney said the most consistent thing he had seen over the years from government was a lack of respect for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory.

“When we draw in our breaths and weep at what we saw on telelvision last week, that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” he told the Garma audience. “An iceberg of disrespect.”

He said if the Labor opposition leader, Michael Gunner, sitting on the panel with him, could lead a government that could show respect to the Aboriignal citizens of the Northern Territory, that would be “an enormous change”.