Legal saga over Don Dale detention centre drags on as teen inmates granted special leave to High Court

FOUR former Don Dale inmates who were awarded a combined $53,000 in compensation for minor acts of mistreatment in the detention centre will have their bid for more compensation heard in the High Court.

Inside Don Dale detention centre. Picture: Keri Megelus

FOUR former Don Dale inmates who were awarded a combined $53,000 in compensation for minor acts of mistreatment in the detention centre will have their bid for more compensation heard in the High Court.

Josiah Binsaris, Leroy O’Shea, Keiran Webster and a fourth former teenage criminal who can’t be named, were on Friday granted special leave to have the appeal of their largely unsuccessful claim for compensation heard by a panel of judges sitting on Australia’s highest court.

THE DON DALE SAGA

• TEARGASSED teens now all hardened adult criminals
• NEW detention centre to be built next to Holtze Prison
• ARMED police called in to quell Don Dale riot
• CONTROVERSIAL Don Dale case to end with secret settlement

The case revolves largely around the teargassing of the then-teenagers in 2014, video footage of which featured prominently in the ABC 4 Corners documentary which prompted former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former chief minister Adam Giles to announce the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory.

Royal commissioners Margaret White and Mick Gooda inspect a cell in the BMU at Darwin's old Don Dale Youth Detention Centre. PICTURE: Amos Aikman

Supreme Court Justice Judith Kelly in 2017 found the tear-gassing to be a “reasonable and necessary” use of force.

A subsequent appeal to the Northern Territory Court of Appeal was also rejected.

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The teens all rejected $150,000 settlement offers on the eve of the Supreme Court civil trial, and were subsequently awarded between $12,000 and $17,000, but were also hit with a bill to cover the bulk of the government’s legal fees.