WARNING: This story contains graphic content that may upset some readers.

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced a Royal Commission into the treatment of children at a Northern Territory juvenile detention centre exposed in a shocking ABC report that aired Monday night.

The program, which showed images and video of children being tear gassed and one hooded and cuffed to a mechanical chair, prompted Mr Turnbull to open discussions with other Federal Government figures and call for a “swift inquiry” to be established.

“Like all Australians I was deeply shocked,” Mr Turnbull told ABC radio. “I was shocked by the images and treatment of children.”

Mr Turnbull said he had spoken with Attorney-General George Brandis, Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles, Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion and Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs who all agreed an inquiry needed to be established “swiftly”.

“We will be establishing a Royal Commission into the events in this centre and we intend to do so jointly,” he said.

“We want to know how this came about, we want to know what lessons can be learned from it, we want to know why.”

Mr Turnbull described the situation at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin as a “shocking state of affairs”.

“Clearly there has been mistreatment of young people,” he said.

He said the Royal Commission would focus on the facility and would not be expanded at this stage to other centres.

“There may be other matters connected to that to be looked into, it’s very important with inquiries that they have a clear focus,” he said.

Among the shocking images that prompted the Prime Minister’s decision was a horrific video of an Australian teenager strapped into a mechanical restraint chair, wearing a “spit hood”.

The disturbing footage, which aired on the ABC’s Four Corners program, was part of an investigation into the mistreatment and abuse of youths at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin.

The boy in the footage was identified as Dylan Voller, a 17-year-old boy who was a detainee at the centre.

On the day where Mr Voller was strapped down to a chair, he was handcuffed and hooded, and strapped down for two hours after he threatened to hurt himself while in the adult prison.

He suffered multiple incidents of alleged abuse over a five-year period from October 2010.

He is also one of six boys held in isolation cells at the detention centre, where they were tear-gassed in 2014.

The footage sparked calls for federal government intervention from both the Northern Territory Government and the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs, who said the conditions were worse than those she had seen in asylum seeker detention centres.

In a statement released last night, NT Chief Minister Adam Giles said he was disgusted by what he saw on the program and would seek advice on establishing a Royal Commission to investigate the matters raised.

Four Corners obtained footage of teens in 2014 at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre and again in 2015 in the old Berrimah adult prison that replaced Don Dale.

In Don Dale, teens kept in the isolation wing known as the Behavioural Management Unit (BMU) were allegedly locked in their tiny cells for almost 24 hours a day with no running water, and little natural light.

In the footage, Mr Voller was ordered by guards to walk backwards into an isolation cell before asking the guards why his mattress was taken away.

Prison officers on duty were heard saying Mr Voller had misbehaved by chewing on his mattress.

The prison officers filmed him being strapped into the chair by his ankles, wrists, shoulders and neck while wearing a ‘spit hood’ to stop him spitting on them.

He was left in the room for almost two hours by himself.

When the guards returned he was still in the chair with the restrictive spit hood still on.

Since he was just 11, Mr Voller has been charged with offences including aggravated assault and robbery.

He is being held at Darwin’s adult prison now. His lawyers claim he has been subjected to ongoing assaults and institutionalisation.

In more footage obtained by Four Corners from other incidents of alleged abuse, Mr Voller was thrown across his cell, kneed and knocked to the ground, stripped naked and sent to solitary confinement. He was also held face down for three minutes in a hogtie position by one guard.

The program also showed shocking footage of children being tear gassed, which was described as a “riot” at the time by media.

It was previously reported that boys had escaped their cells in the isolation wing of the prison, and were threatening staff.

All six boys were exposed to the teargas. Five of the teenage boys were still locked inside their cells, and not all of them were misbehaving at the time to warrant such extreme discipline.

After the tear gassing incident, the Don Dale Detention Centre was closed and all children were moved to the Berrimah adult prison.

While the NT Government commissioned an independent report into the incident, NT Children’s Commissioner Colleen Gwynne told Four Corners there are still issues with youth detention in the Northern Territory.

“They’re being shackled to chairs a la Guantánamo Bay,” barrister John Lawrence told the ABC.

“This is actually happening in Australia in 2016.”

The NT Government’s tear-gassing and “torture” of children in detention at Don Dale is a “national disgrace that demands a national inquiry”, the Sydney-based law firm representing two of the youths said.

Peter O’Brien, a lawyer representing two boys suing the NT Government for alleged detention centre abuse within the NT Supreme Court released a statement, saying: “The Four Corners program on the horrific treatment of children has exposed a national disgrace that demands a national inquiry.

“A Royal Commission into the treatment of children in Northern Territory detention is essential to determine the extent and impact of the abuse, to determine why this abuse was allowed to occur, and who knew about it,” he said.

“The abuse is chronic and appears systematic. Our clients have suffered at the hands of those charged to protect them,” he added.

“The treatment of these children is a national disgrace. They are the most vulnerable members of society, and yet the footage shown on Four Corners reveals the most appalling behaviour being perpetrated against them.”

A Change.org petition was also been set up, calling for a Royal Commission into the “chronic child abuse in NT youth detention”.

On the ABC’s Q & A program, Australian’s human rights chief Gillian Triggs called for a government inquiry into the facility.

“We certainly need some kind of government-based independent commission,” she said.

Ms Triggs said the footage of the detention centres was “extremely distressing”.

“Sadly, I have never seen conditions of that kind and I have never seen people treated in that way. I think it’s something that as the experts were calling for, we clearly need some kind of investigation into this.”

Correctional Services Minister John Elferrink said he had not seen many of the videos including one where guards were saying “I’ll pulverise the f***er” as a young man in isolation was bagging at windows.

“That demonstrates a lack of training,” he told Four Corners. “When matters come to me I make sure they’re investigated.” Since 2014 the government has extended staff training from four days to eight weeks.

Lawyers and human rights activists have called for the facility to be shut down for good and called on the federal government to intervene.

Comments are now closed on this article