Teens awarded payout after suing NT Government over mistreatment and teargassing in Don Dale ordered to pay government’s legal costs

FOUR teenage criminals who sued the Territory Government over mistreatment in Don Dale in 2017 are unlikely to receive a cent of their payout, largely because of their own greed

A high security sector at Don Dale detention centre

FOUR teenage criminals who sued the Territory Government over mistreatment in Don Dale in 2017 are unlikely to receive a cent, largely because of their own greed.

The teenagers – all of whom have committed serious offences as adults but who can’t be named – were on Monday ­ordered to pay the Government’s legal costs.

Justice Judith Kelly awarded the Government “indemnity” costs for the nine-day hearing, meaning the teenagers will have to pay for the Government’s Sydney barrister David McLure SC, as well as the full cost of the Government’s in-house barristers and solicitors who worked on the trial.

The Government’s precise costs are not set out but will easily dwarf the $53,000 the teenagers were awarded.

The teenagers will also have to pay the Government’s “standard” costs during the preparation of the hearing, when they rejected “very generous offers of settlement”.

Letters sent from the teens’ legal team to the Government show each wanted between $200,000 and $350,000, plus public or written apologies.

The Government made a counteroffer of $135,000 plus legal costs, which the teens ­rejected, in turn offering to ­settle for between $200,000 and $250,000 each.

A final offer, on the eve of the trial, to settle for $150,000 each, was rejected.

Justice Kelly said the teenagers were “unreasonable in the circumstances” to reject the six-figure offers and made counteroffers “totally disproportionate to any amount of damages likely to have been awarded to the plaintiffs”.

Justice Kelly found the tear-gassing of the four teens was “reasonable and necessary” in the circumstances.

The tear-gassing formed the centrepiece of an ABC Four Corners documentary, which prompted a Royal ­Commission.

The relatively minor sums awarded to the teens were for acts of battery, such as handcuffing them behind their backs rather than in front, or applying shackles and ­spithoods.

Current and former detainees are separately suing the Government in a class action and a human rights abuse case.