Former Ashley Youth Detention Centre worker charged with 11 rapes

A former worker from the Ashley Youth Detention Centre has been charged with serious sexual offences – including 11 rapes. DETAILS >>>

Ashley Youth Detention Centre near Westbury in northern Tasmania.

A former worker from the Ashley Youth Detention Centre has been charged with a serious of serious sexual offences — including 11 rapes.

The 64-year-old man will appear in court next month charged with offences including child sexual abuse after being arrested and charged by detectives from Tasmania Police’s Taskforce Artemis.

The man will appear in the Launceston Magistrates Court on June 11 to face charges of 11 counts of rape, three counts of indecent assault and two counts of indecency.

Ashley Youth Detention Centre. PICTURE: CHRIS KIDD

Tasmania Police Commissioner Donna Adams said the charges against the man relate to three victim-survivors and stemmed directly from matters that were investigated as a result of the Commission of Inquiry.

A statement issued late on Friday said some instances of abuse are alleged to have taken place between 1974 and 1982, while another instance of abuse is alleged to have occurred at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre between 1990 and 2021 while the man was an employee.

Taskforce Artemis is a specialist police team investigating child abuse allegations from the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings.

Ashley Youth Detention Centre was one of the key focuses of the Commission, which ran from 2021 to 2023.

Regina Weiss barrister. Recommendations of Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry hearings in Hobart. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Respected Tasmanian barrister Regina Weiss last week told a parliamentary committee the Shared Capability and Centralised Investigation Unit had 13 signed and completed statements, with a further 19 in various stages of completion, relating to alleged conduct by employees at AYDC from 1994 to the present.

Nine of those statements have been provided to Tasmania Police.

More than 40 Tasmanian public servants remain suspended from the workplace for alleged child sexual abuse and related conduct, with investigators continuing to receive fresh allegations every month, the head of the state’s service has revealed.

Since October 2020, 111 Tasmanian state servants had been suspended due to allegations of child sexual abuse, 24 employees had either been terminated, resigned, or their contract expired; 41 remained suspended; while 42 workers had been investigated and returned to duty.

In November last year, Justice Stephen Estcourt approved a $75m settlement of the state’s first class action, brought by former Ashley detainees who suffered abuse at the centre.

Under the terms of the agreement between the claimants and the state of Tasmania, 129 former detainees from between 1961 to 2021 were expected to share payments expected to be between $200,000 and $1m.

Specific allegations included the use of degrading strip-search procedures, forcibly applied scabies treatments that caused burns to detainees’ bodies including their genitalia, failure to provide appropriate medical treatment and the use of isolation and beatings as punishment.

The centre has repeatedly drawn the attention of international human rights bodies, including the United Nationals Committee against Torture. Then Premier Peter Gutwein said Ashley would shut within three years after hearing the graphic account of a staffer-turned-whistleblower in September 2021.

Leah Bromfield, Marcia Neave and Robert Benjamin commissioner. Commission of Inquiry closing statements in Hobart. Picture: ABC/pool

The Commission of Inquiry’s final report, contained 191 recommendation including that Ashley be closed.

“For decades, some children and young people detained at Ashley Youth Detention Centre experienced systematic harm and abuse, a horrific blight on Tasmania,” the Commission’s final report said.

‘This uncomfortable truth must be documented and acknowledged.

“We consider it is not fit for purpose as a youth detention facility and should be shut down as soon as possible

The government announced this week that a replacement facility, at Pontville north of Hobart, would be open in late 2027.

* Reports can be made directly to police on 131 444, or by visiting a police station or Arch https://arch.tas.gov.au/.

* You can also report anonymously to Crime Stoppers Tasmania on 1800 333 000 or crimestopperstas.com.au

* Any concerns or incidents involving government employees can be reported directly to the Integrity Commission or the Office of the Independent Regulator.

Originally published as Former Ashley Youth Detention Centre worker charged with 11 rapes