Teens at centre of $70m NT royal commission now hardened adult criminals
ALL six Don Dale inmates whose ‘reasonable and necessary’ tear-gassing prompted the $70 million NT Royal Commission have gone on to commit serious crimes as adults since suing the Territory government for mistreatment behind bars
Northern Territory
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ALL six Don Dale inmates whose “reasonable and necessary” tear-gassing prompted the $70 million NT Royal Commission have gone on to commit serious crimes as adults since suing the Territory government for mistreatment behind bars.
The lifting of a suppression order yesterday means the NT News can identify criminals Kieran Webster, Josiah Binsaris and Leroy O’Shea as three of the teens who were in 2017 awarded between $12,000 and $17,000 in compensation for being shackled, handcuffed and spit-hooded in detention.
The name of a fourth criminal — known as EA — remains the subject of a New South Wales District Court suppression order.
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The four are planning to take the Territory government to the High Court in a bid to eke out more compensation.
Unlike notorious former inmates Dylan Voller and Jake Roper — who both settled their claims for $50,000 payouts — the three have until yesterday had their identities as plaintiffs suing the Territory government protected by a suppression order, while continuing to amass serious criminal records.
Voller and Roper applied to have suppression orders lifted on their names so they could take part in the ABC’s 4 Corners documentary, “Australia’s Shame”.
Justice Southwood yesterday said: “Now that they are adults, there is no evidence that the (four former detainees) have been rehabilitated and that identifying them with their prior offences will cause undue hardship or prejudice.”
“There is no evidence that they have good prospects of rehabilitation.”
“ … it is in the interests of justice that they be identified.”
***
Webster, now 20, is serving a four year jail sentence for an October 2017 crime spree he took part in after being awake for a week and a half during a meth bender.
Webster’s offending, which took place seven months after he was awarded compensation, culminated in the then-18-year-old threatening a cafe owner with an execution-style killing if he did not hand over car keys and money.
The crime spree involved an unsuccessful ram raid on the Airport Tavern in a stolen Mazda, followed by the tomahawk-armed robbery of a cafe at the Jape Homemaker village in Millner, during which Webster, wearing a balaclava, forced his victim to his knees and demanded money.
Justice Peter Barr said in June last year that Webster’s victim was “terrified and in fear for his life”.
Webster was 15 in August 2014 when guards sprayed tear gas into the detention centre’s now-notorious behaviour management unit.
At the time, he had no history of violent offending.
His rap sheet then included 18 charges of unlawfully using a motor vehicle, 20 charges of stealing and 12 charges of aggravated unlawful entry.
The civil trial heard Webster was sitting passively in his cell while Roper was trashing the unit’s enclosed exercise yard.
Justice Kelly found Webster lacked credit as a witness, in part because of a false claimed he did not threaten guards during a mass escape earlier in August 2014, a few weeks before the tear-gassing.
“The CCTV footage of that incident shows otherwise,” Justice Kelly said.
***
Binsaris, now 19, is serving a five year and ten month sentence after escaping Don Dale on the cusp of his 18th birthday in 2017, and going on a three day crime spree up and down the Stuart Hwy with two other teen criminals.
The 2017 escape from Don Dale was Binsaris’s fourth escape.
Among his rap sheet at the time of the 2014 tear-gassing were two of those escapes — including jumping the dock at court in March 2014 — 17 unlawful entries, 17 counts of stealing, and seven charges of unlawfully using a motor vehicle.
Binsaris, who was awarded $12,000 and who was 15 when he was tear-gassed, also had a tendency for violence, having racked up charges of resisting police, recklessly endangering serious harm and carrying a prohibited weapon.
Guards in March 2014 had overheard Binsaris and another detainee plotting to escape Don Dale by attacking a female guard and stealing her keys.
Binsaris’s notorious 2017 escape and crime spree began with the theft of knives, grog and ammunition from a house at Knuckey Lagoon and continued with the thefts of a Toyota Hilux, a Suzuki hatchback, and the robbery of a Toyota LandCruiser.
During the spree, Binsaris repeatedly rammed other cars, including police cars.
Even after he was arrested and being checked in Royal Darwin Hospital, Binsaris violently tried to break free from police and had to be tackled to the ground.
Binsaris’s thuggery has not stopped despite being transferred to Holtze Prison on his 18th birthday.
When the troublesome prisoner was told he was to be placed on an intensive management scheme, which would see him lose his TV and his right to purchase snacks, Binsaris declared the decision “bullsh*t” and belted prison guard Nicholas Chalkley, an attack which prompted eight members of the Immediate Action Team to storm his cell.
Chalkley suffered bruising and swelling from the attack, and had to be cleared by a doctor before returning to work.
***
EA, now 20, whose extended family of notorious petty crooks, is nearing the end of a two year and six month jail sentence in New South Wales after taking part in a violent, cross-border crime following Jermaine Austral’s escape from Alice Springs jail in 2017.
Broken Hill magistrate Geoff Dunlevy at the time found EA was “in dire need of assistance with regards to the misuse of alcohol and other drugs”.
The court heard he had been awake for four days on a meth bender when arrested.
According to the Broken Hill Barrier Daily Truth, EA’s lawyer at the time, Tom Saunders said his client was “making very risky, very stupid decisions” stealing cars and fleeing from police before he decided to surrender, in fear of being shot.
“In all their drug-fuelled craziness, they had a moment of clarity,” Mr Saunders said.
EA, 16 at the time of the tear-gassing, was awarded $12,000 and was Binsaris’s cell mate the night of the tear-gassing.
His criminal record stretched back to age 11 and by the time of the tear-gassing he had committed seven unlawful uses of motor vehicles, 10 trespasses, seven aggravated unlawful entries, two escapes from detention or custody and 20 counts of stealing.
Justice Judith Kelly in 2017 described EA’s behaviour as a detainee as “extremely problematic”, having committed five assaults on staff within the six months leading up to the tear-gassing.
In the hours before the tear-gassing, EA and Binsaris smashed a hole in the steel mesh on their cell door using part of a light fitting.
Then Corrections Commissioner Ken Middlebrook said of EA and Binsaris following an escape in 2015: “These are young people that have no respect for lawful behaviour either in the community or while here in custody”.
***
O’Shea, now 22, has been in and out of jail ever since the tear-gassing on drug, property and weapons charges.
In 2017, he was given an 11 months suspended jail sentence for leading a high speed police chase in a stolen car while unlicensed.
At the time, Prosecutor Ian Rowbottam said: “Few people would be saddened to see offenders lose their lives but the courts need to say enough is enough when innocent people’s lives are endangered.”
In 2016, when sentenced on a string of drugs, weapons and stealing charges, including trying to bring a large kitchen knife through security at Darwin Local Court, Judge Elisabeth Armitage told O’Shea: “Maybe you were not treated the way you should have been in Don Dale, but this is now your future.”
“So whatever has happened in the past, no doubt there are things you have to deal
with (and) come to terms with, the fact is whether or not you continue to commit
offences is in your hands.”
O’Shea, who was awarded $12,000, failed to heed the warning, and has since been jailed on counterfeit money, stealing, and traffic offences.
O’Shea was last in court in March on charges of stealing and breaching bail.
The lifting of the suppression orders, allowing the public to know the three teens’ identities, comes as Territory Families Minister Dale Wakefield has flagged controversial which would prevent any public scrutiny of the Territory’s beleaguered youth justice system.
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