Four Don Dale teens awarded almost $1m in damages from NT government

Nine years after four teenagers were unlawfully exposed to gas while detained in Don Dale, a court has ordered the NT government to pay them damages.

Four Aboriginal teenagers who were unlawfully tear gassed in Darwin’s notorious Don Dale detention centre have been awarded almost $1m in damages from the NT government.

Kieran Webster, Josiah Binsaris and Leroy O’Shea and another boy who cannot be named were all detained at the centre when they were exposed to the gas after it was deployed to subdue another youth in August 2014.

After a series of appeals, the High Court ruled in July 2020 the use of the gas was unlawful and remitted the case back to the NT Supreme Court where Justice Jenny Blokland last week awarded the teens a total of $960,000.

A window at the old Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in Darwin that featured in the infamous tear gas incident. Amos Aikman/The Australian

In handing down her decision on Friday, Justice Blokland noted that despite the ruling by Australia’s highest court, “there has not been any acknowledgment by the defendant that what took place in relation to the CS gas was unlawful” and “nor has there been an apology”.

“The Northern Territory as defendant at that time allowed an environment to exist where senior officers did not know the extent of their powers when dealing with some of the most vulnerable in the community,” she said.

“The defendant has the right, indeed the obligation, to hold children and young people in detention on remand or to serve sentences imposed by the courts. With that right or obligation comes a high level of responsibility.

“The fact the officers of the defendant did not know that a particular weapon used in the detention centre was unlawful, meant the defendant failed in some of its most fundamental duty to keep detainees safe.”

Four teenagers were detained in Don Dale when they were unlawfully tear gassed. Picture: (A)manda Parkinson

In awarding general, aggravated and exemplary damages Justice Blokland said “the conditions which gave rise to this unlawful use of force perpetrated on youths in a Detention Centre for whose safety and wellbeing the defendant was responsible must never be allowed to happen again”.

“I accept the difficulties the youth justice officers experienced, however the defendant must take responsibility for putting them in that position or creating the conditions where they thought they had no option but to resort to unlawful, unreasonable and excessive force,” she said.

“The mode of force used should not have been in the range of options available but it is the Northern Territory as the defendant who bears that responsibility.

“Young people in custody must be protected from exposure to such danger. This is fundamental.”