Justice department launch bid to avoid charges over prison guard bashing
Victoria’s justice department has been accused of failing to keep workers safe at the trouble-plagued Malmsbury youth justice centre. But a potential deal may mean the department could escape charges even if they admit they were in the wrong.
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Victoria’s justice department wants criminal charges over its alleged failure to keep workers safe at the trouble-plagued Malmsbury youth justice centre to be dealt with by making a promise it would not happen again.
The department is negotiating with WorkSafe to withdraw the charges and instead allow it to sign an enforceable undertaking.
Such an agreement means they acknowledge they were in the wrong. But they will avoid any conviction or penalty.
The workplace watchdog charged the department with two breaches of the Occupational, Health and Safety Act for failing to maintain a working environment that was safe and without risks to health in October last year.
The charges relate to a female detention worker who was almost scalped and knocked unconscious when a teen detainee hit her in the head with a guitar at Malmsbury in January 2018. She sustained a 12cm wound to her head so deep she had to have emergency surgery in hospital.
Guitars are easily accessed by youth in detention but they have been used as weapons in multiple violent assaults.
The centre has been plagued with violent incidents in recent years, but the attack on the officer has been described as one of the worst in the juvenile justice system’s history.
Staff’s concerns to management about the escalating violence of the 17-year-old brute responsible in the four months before the attack were allegedly ignored. Authorities had failed to control him, as he had also been involved in nine other violent assaults in youth detention.
The teen was jailed for 26 months over the 10 attacks.
Government lawyers have been in discussions with WorkSafe since November about signing the enforceable undertaking in lieu of prosecution. When the case returned to Melbourne Magistrates Court last week, Steve Bell, for the department, said they had submitted a draft agreement to WorkSafe on June 22.
But WorkSafe has rejected it and further discussions were needed to finalise the terms and conditions.
Obligations in an undertaking can include that they write an apology, publish a notice in the newspaper and take preventive actions.
They could also be made to make a donation to a charity, implement further training of staff and managers as well as policies and procedures around the storage of guitars.
Mr Bell told the court that if the EU does not get ticked off, then they would be applying for the case to remain in the lower court where penalties are less.
The case was adjourned to January.
WorkSafe’s website describes an enforceable undertaking as “a written commitment to do certain things in a set time frame”.
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