Six former inmates of Magill Youth Training Centre sue SA government over alleged sexual abuse in the former facility

Six men have come forward claiming they were repeatedly sexually abused, as children, at a notorious Magill youth detention facility – describing it as “hell on earth”.

A demolished SA youth detention centre once reported to the United Nations as “a living human rights abuse” was “a pedophile’s playground” where children were sexually abused on a nightly basis, former inmates claim.

The Advertiser can reveal six men held, as children, in the Magill Training Centre have sent letters of demand to the state government, seeking compensation for repeated sexual assaults.

Each of the men was remanded to the centre, which operated from 1869 to 2012, at different times and were unknown to one another – but each alleges near-identical abuse.

They also accuse the same guards of perpetrating that abuse, claiming it began immediately upon their arrival and continued each night until they were released.

The men further claim they were warned, by other and longer-serving detainees, not to complain “otherwise it will just get worse”.

An inmate in his quarters at the Magill Training Centre, December 1991. Picture: Russell Millard

Lawyer and survivors advocate Andrew Carpenter, who is representing the men, said those given “short sentences” at Magill actually received “life sentences” of trauma.

“Over the years, Magill has been known by many names – but the brave people who’ve come forward describe it as ‘hell on earth’,” he said.

“Magill was not only a place where people were sentenced to be abused by those acting in positions of authority, it turned into a pedophile’s playground.

“Many young boys and girls were sentenced there with targets on their backs, and were sexually abused by a series of opportunistic people in positions of power.”

The sign outside the Centre in March 1986. Picture: Campbell Brodie

The front of the facility in 2008. Picture: Greg Higgs

Known initially as the Boys Reformatory Centre, the facility was also called the McNally Training Centre and SA Youth Training Centre during its 143-year history.

It was first investigated over allegations of child abuse, ranging from sexual assaults to poor conditions and harsh treatment of detainees, in the late 1940s.

A commission of inquiry held between 2004 and 2008 reported “horrendous” allegations of abuse and “threats made to the children if they disclosed what had occurred”.

“Many of the people who told the inquiry they were sexually abused while in state care said they still suffer the long-term effects,” it reported.

“Those effects include difficulty to disclose the abuse, even as adults.”

The facility’s solitary confinement cell during its time as the McNally Training Centre. Picture: Supplied

An interior hallway in September 1998. Picture: Supplied

In 2009, Australia’s Youth Representative to the United Nations called the Magill facility “the worst of its kind” and a “living human rights abuse”.

That prompted a campaign calling for the government to close the centre, claiming it contravened the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Twelve months after its closure, the centre was slated for demolition, which began in December 2012 and gave rise to a 250-site housing development.

In 2014, a 19-year-old former detainee sued the government for $100,000 claiming he had been sexually abused eight years earlier.

A galah perches on the facility’s interior security fencing. Picture: Supplied

On Thursday, Mr Carpenter said the government had been sent letters on behalf of four of the former detainees, with two more being finalised.

“All six people have the exact same stories, name the exact same guards, and each was there at different times independent of one another

All were abused on intake, and then on an almost nightly basis – in the same place, by the same offenders, in the same kinds of ways

Some of the complainants say that older children who had been at Magill for some time already told them ‘don’t complain, just go with it, otherwise it will just get worse’.”

A Department of Human Services spokeswoman said it was “aware of a civil claim in relation to an individual’s contact with the youth justice system between 1997 and 2001”.

“As the matter is currently active, the department is unavailable to provide any further detail,” she said.