Corrections staff have been forgotten about in the NT youth justice saga

As the final chapter of the NT youth justice saga looks to be coming to an end, it is the corrections staff who have been horribly damaged and will receive no compensation, writes MATT CUNNINGHAM.

Many correctional staff and youth justice officers have had their lives up-ended. Picture: Keri Megelus

• NT government to pay out hundreds of former NT youth detainees in $35 million class action settlement

THE final chapter in the sorry saga of youth detention in the NT was probably written this week.

Five years after the Royal Commission was announced, the NT Government agreed to an out-of-court settlement that will see $35m paid to up 1200 former detainees as part of a class action over their treatment in the youth justice system since 2006.

Some have since expressed their concern this figure appears to dwarf the payments made to victims of crime.

But there’s one group of people who’ve been horribly damaged by this whole affair, who will receive no compensation at all.

Their reputations have been destroyed, their families fractured, and their lives up-ended, all for following the directions of their political masters who then wipe their hands of the issues when they inevitably go wrong.

Armed officers are seen inside Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Berrimah on Friday, April 19, 2019. Picture: Keri Megelus

They’re the hardworking correctional staff and youth justice officers, and their persecution continues to this day.

Consider the case of Victor Williams. He was put in charge of the “new” Don Dale Detention Centre (the old adult prison) after the detainees were moved there following the infamous tear gassing incident in 2014.

Williams, an Aboriginal man, managed to develop a strong rapport with the mostly-Indigenous children and restore good order to the facility despite the challenges of the less-than-ideal piece of infrastructure he was required to work within.

But when a dangerous teenage criminal escaped from Don Dale in 2017, Williams was sacked as the Superintendent. His crime? Failing to put the detainee in the High Security Unit cells – the same ones that once housed the Territory’s worse adult prisoners, and the same ones Royal Commissioner Margaret White had made clear to him during a visit a few months earlier, were no place to be locking up children.

So how has Don Dale fared since Williams’ departure? Well, 18 months after he left there was a major disturbance and a large part of the centre was burned to the ground.

Remarkably, some have been treated even worse than Williams.

In 2015, Ken Middlebrook was forced to resign over a major controversy. His crime? Being too lenient on an Aboriginal prisoner.

Middlebrook had allowed convicted murderer and rapist Edward Horrell – who had been professionally assessed and deemed of low risk – to participate in a work program while at the Datjala camp in Nhulunbuy.

When Horrell escaped, a media frenzy followed, and Chief Minister Adam Giles told Middlebrook it was time to go.

His resignation came as the Labor Opposition went to town over the murderer on the loose in Gove.

The Don Dale youth detention centre in 2019. Picture: Glenn Campbell

There’s no sentiment in politics when a “tough-on-crime” election is just around the corner.

Michael Gunner continued those claims after winning office, when defending his own government over the breakouts at Don Dale.

Gunner said that unlike the former CLP Government, Labor had not had an “axe-murdering rapist” on the loose in Nhulunbuy.

His government then somehow forget to tell the public about a serious escape from the grounds of the Alice Springs prison involving a mentally-impaired man (being held in a maximum security cell there because the Government has never built a proper mental-health facility) who once killed a family member.

The man escaped from the health centre on the prison grounds, stole a car, drove it 5km running an unsuspecting couple off the road in the process, before crashing the vehicle.

Then Attorney-General and Health Minister Natasha Fyles was told of the incident, as was at least one member of Mr Gunner’s staff.

But somehow the Chief Minister says he was never informed until nine months later when it made the media.

For a man who holds such an important position, Mr Gunner has an uncanny knack for being kept in the dark.

Meanwhile, after being effectively sacked in 2015, Middlebrook became one of the demons of Don Dale when the now notorious Four Corners program went to air just four weeks before the 2016 election.

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First effectively sacked for being too lenient on an Aboriginal prisoner, he was now persecuted for being too hard on Indigenous detainees who he’d allowed to be tear gassed amid a disturbance in a dilapidated building that was in danger of burning down if he didn’t act in a hurry.

But Middlebrook’s persecution didn’t end there. Close observers of Territory politics would know the Alice Springs Correctional Centre was mysteriously without a permanent superintendent for almost nine months.

The job had been advertised last September and by December an independent panel had selected a standout applicant for the job. But the applicant wasn’t appointed.

Instead he was asked to answer further questions about his past. When he did that, he was asked to provide further referees. And when it was clear to the Department of Attorney-General and Justice it had no other option, Ken Middlebrook was finally offered the job.

But instead of being offered a standard four-year contract, Middlebrook was offered just two, and told there would need to be some kind of public relations-type engagement with stakeholders to ensure they were OK with his appointment.

What was he supposed to do? Issue a press released that said “I’m sorry the Henderson government didn’t listen to me when I told them to build a new youth justice facility as part of their $1.8bn prison, forcing me to order the tear gassing of kids in a rundown old building that wouldn’t be fit to hold your dog?”

Little wonder that when the job was finally offered, Middlebrook declined.

Now, the Government is building the new youth justice facility at the same place Middlebrook recommended more than a decade ago. If only they’d listened to him then.

Meanwhile, Corrections is a complete shambles. Commissioner Scott McNairn has been on leave (that’s a story for another day) and morale is at its lowest.

Perhaps it’s time our corrections officers considered a class action?