Teenager tells royal commission: ‘Those officers could have done anything to me for those hours, and I couldn’t have done anything about it’

Royal commission into the protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory

The Australian teenager who was teargassed by guards while locked in a cell and then strapped into a restraint chair by his ankles, wrist and neck, felt “defenceless” and panicked during the ordeals, he told a national inquiry in Darwin on Monday.

“Those officers could have done anything to me for those hours, and I couldn’t have done anything about it,” Dylan Voller said.

Voller, now 19 and serving the remainder of a three-year sentence in an adult prison, appeared before the royal commission into the protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory on Monday. It is expected the NT government will dispute some of his testimony later in the hearing.

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In July Voller and a number of other juvenile detainees were the subject of a shocking TV report on conditions and mistreatment inside NT detention centres. In August 2014 he and five others were teargassed by guards in the high-security isolation unit of the Don Dale centre after one boy got out of his cell and began causing damage.

“I didn’t think we were going to be teargassed, because you’re not allowed teargas in Don Dale,” Voller told the commission.

He described putting toilet paper in the lock of his cell because he thought the guards were going to bring in a dog he could hear barking outside, and hoped the jammed lock might delay it.

“My eyes were burning, I couldn’t hardly see anything,” he said of the teargas. He and four others who were in their cells were subject to the teargas for up to eight minutes. In September the other four launched civil action against the NT government over the incident.

Eventually the boys were taken from cells, handcuffed, laid on the concrete outside and hosed down. They were then transferred to the adult prison. Voller was later transferred to the Alice Springs adult prison, where he was restrained in the chair. The images of that treatment received global attention after they were broadcast on ABC TV.

“I felt defenceless at the time, like there was nothing I could do. I could tell them it was hurting and I was even vomiting in my mouth a couple of times but they didn’t care,” he said. “I asked if they could turn the shower on me because I was getting dizzy from panicking a lot.”

Voller accused the officer who was holding the camera of ceasing filming in order to “agitate” him, before turning the camera back on.

“There were times I’d panic and I just wanted to get out of there and I’d do anything I could to get out of there … but there’s no way you can pull yourself out of it no matter how strong you are.”

He said the spithood was put on incorrectly, with the tight elastic around his neck, not over his nose, and he believed that was extra punishment.

He had earlier told the hearing he had been a known “spitter” at guards.

“It was a disgusting thing that I did. I do regret it, but it became a mechanism,” he said. “With the things they were doing to me, I had no defence.”

Voller was restrained in the chair for almost two hours.

“There was a point I was sick of fighting … I couldn’t even cry. At the end of it I couldn’t even talk. My body shut down, I couldn’t be bothered fighting any more, I just sat there.

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“I felt scared. Being put in the restraint chair was one of the most scary things that’s ever happened to me. That and the teargassing.”

He said there was “no responsible person there to say ‘that’s enough’”, to get him out. “I couldn’t drink water, my mouth was getting dry, I was dehydrated. It was getting to the point I thought they were going to leave me in there all night.”

Peter Callaghan, the counsel assisting the commission, had earlier taken Voller through footage of incidents he was involved in. The first showed him being struck by a guard. Voller said he was thrown into isolation afterwards, and the guard remained walking around and looking into his cell.

Evidence was revealed on Monday that Voller spent 90 days of his 210-day sentence in an isolation unit, including his final 24.

Counsel asked how that prepared him for returning to normal life.

“It didn’t,” Voller said.

He told the commission he feared he would be beaten up or killed during another incident when guards covered up the camera before entering his cell and threatening to break his arm.

Voller ended his testimony by reading a message to the commission. He said the problems went beyond youth detention to the whole justice system.

Part of Dylan Voller’s oral statement to the commission

“One of the biggest problems we face is the fact we are being further punished whilst in prison. Being sentenced by the judge to do our time for our crime is our punishment, not the continued mental and physical abuse we continue to cop while we’re here,” he said.

“As a victim and a young man I feel upset and let down by the system that these bad things were allowed to go on for so long. I really want to see these things change that it never happens to anyone else again.”



In earlier testimony on Monday, Voller revealed new allegations of abuse and mistreatment during his time in detention, including being denied food, water and clothing as a form of punishment.

He also described being handcuffed and driven for 1,500km in a last-minute transfer from Alice Springs to Darwin, during which he had no air-conditioning and was not allowed to take a toilet break for long periods.

Legal representatives of the Northern Territory government and other groups had sought to restrict publication of some of Voller’s testimony, and had earlier raised concerns over insufficient preparation time to respond to his allegations.

The hearings continue.