Frank Baxter Juvenile Justice Centre riot Kariong: Detainee sentenced over role
Shocking details of a riot at a Central Coast juvenile justice centre have been revealed — with detainees breaking into the unit housing sexual offenders and using everything from table arms to a guitar to beat inmates — as one of the detainees was sentenced in court.
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Alarming details from the riot at Frank Baxter Juvenile Justice Centre last year have been revealed, with detainees breaking into the unit housing sexual offenders and using everything from table arms to a guitar and tennis racquet to beat inmates.
In one instance, one of the detainees pulled down the pants of an inmate while others whacked him around the bottom.
The details emerged in Gosford Local Court on Friday as a 19-year-old has become one of the first to be sentenced over the Kariong riot which took place on July 21 2019 and lasted more than 21 hours.
Inmates and guards were injured with six taken to hospital with stab wounds and facial injuries. The group of detainees surrendered on July 22, and 21 people were charged over the incident.
Magistrate Elizabeth Ellis sentenced one of the offenders, who cannot be named, to two years and six months, with a non-parole period of 18 months.
He was facing charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company of others, two counts of reckless wounding in company and damage to property at the justice centre.
His defence stated he was not a “main player” in the riot, however facts revealed he was armed with a metal pole during the ordeal and pulled the pants of an inmate down while other detainees beat him.
The court heard the offender, who was released from his room by fellow detainees during the riot, wished he hadn’t become involved in the incident and walked away much sooner.
Magistrate Ellis read from the agreed facts, which stated that a group of detainees from the Katandra Unit threatened and overpowered staff members with metal table legs before stealing a set of keys.
“The group used keys to access various other areas of the facility where they proceeded to damage property, threaten staff and release other detainees from their rooms,” the facts stated.
The group released detainees from two other units before 18 of them entered the Nurrunga Unit which housed some inmates serving sexual offenders. One of the unit inmates heard someone say “get out you f**king pissy (a term for a sexual offender)”.
The group opened the doors of three rooms and beat the inmates with items such as a metal crutch, tennis racquet, metal detector, guitar and a wooden branch, along with stomping and kicking them. One detainee let off a fire extinguisher in one of the rooms.
One of the inmates tried to ward the group off, arming himself with a shampoo bottle inside a sock and a pen.
The victims sustained injuries including a fractured hand, collapsed lung, deep lacerations, bruising and soft tissue injuries.
At 9.30pm the group of detainees entered another unit where they barricaded themselves inside, trashed the premises and accessed the rooftop where many of them spent the night.
They surrendered the following day and the State Government called for an urgent review into the incident.