NT Corrections officers accused of using spit hoods ‘punitively’ against epileptic grandfather Wayne Hunt
Territory prison guards have been accused of using a spit hood punitively, dangerously, and unnecessarily against a disabled man in the grips of a medical emergency. WARNING: Distressing.
Territory prison guards have been accused of using a spit hood punitively, dangerously, and unnecessarily against a disabled man in the grips of a medical emergency.
In a coronial inquest members of the Darwin Correctional Centre’s Immediate Action Team (IAT) were grilled over their use of force against a 56-year-old grandfather shortly after he suffered a violent seizure.
Wayne Hunt died from a catastrophic brain bleed on August 31, 2024, three days after he was pinned to the ground, sedated, handcuffed, strapped to a wheelchair, and put in a spit hood by prison workers.
Mr Hunt was in the controversial restraint device for minutes, with the bag remaining on his head even as he was stripped naked in an ‘at risk’ cell.
Over four days of evidence, coroner Elisabeth Armitage has heard that the grandfather’s post-seizure behaviour was mistaken for a ‘non compliance’ by Corrections officers, despite prison nurses flagging that he had suffered a recent fit.
All three IAT members who gave evidence were granted certificates exempting them from potential criminal charges, including for assault, if the coroner ruled it that they used an inappropriate level of force while they escorted Mr Hunt to the medical clinic.
The court heard that Mr Hunt was not able to control his body, with his head ‘lolling about’ as he continued to drool and cough as he was pinned to the ground by Corrections officers.
Distressing footage was played of the 56-year-old breathing heavily and yelling incoherently, including crying out “dad” as he was restrained.
Multiple officers conceded it was clear Mr Hunt was clearly not in control of himself, yet body cam footage captured them yelling “stop resisting”, swearing, and calling him a “f**kwit”.
“Don’t you f**king spit. If you spit they’re going to put a hood on you,” the most senior IAT member told the epileptic man.
The IAT members — also known as the ‘Turtles’ for their body armour — repeated that the use of the restraint was justified because they had warned Mr Hunt to “stop spitting”, regardless of whether his drooling was “voluntary or involuntary”.
All IAT members conceded that there was no evidence that Mr Hunt was intentionally trying to spit.
“I can tell you my perception of what was occurring, was that he was being held face down on the ground by a large number of people, and if there was any spittle coming from his mouth, it was onto the ground,” Ms Armitage stated.
Counsel Assisting the coroner, Mary Chalmers also said given that they were dealing with an unwell, disorientated man recovering from a seizure, aggressive directions to “stop f**king spitting” was not an effective de-escalation strategy.
Ms Chalmers accused IAT members of using the restraint as a punishment against the man they claimed was being “non-compliant”, with body cam footage capturing one escorting officer telling Mr Hunt: “You can’t be trusted not to spit.”
“That application of the spithood was punitive, wasn’t it?” she said.
“It was a punishment … ‘We’ve given you all these directions, you can’t be trusted not to spit’, and on goes the spithood.”
The officer rejected this, saying “it is an accoutrement given to us to protect us”.
“It sounds it, but it’s not a punishment tool. We don’t put it on prisoners when they’re acting up,” he said.
However the IAT member who applied the spithood conceded that the handcuffed and sedated man was drooling as he slumped forward, with the saliva not directed at any specific officer.
“Spit would come out of his mouth … towards the ground,” he said.
Ms Chalmers said given this, there was “no credible risk” to the officers, and the application of the spit hood on the epileptic man was “medically dangerous”.
“There’s no credible risk of spittle somehow going down, out and around and coming up into a prison officer’s mouth or eyes,” she said.
“There was no real reason to put a spithood on at that time.”
An IAT member said there was “joint consensus” for him to put Mr Hunt in the spithood, saying “there was no objection”.
But Ms Armitage said Mr Hunt may have objected, had the sedated and medically compromised man been able to.
A prison nurse said she also would have pushed to remove the spit hood from her patient, as he had a sedative which could depress his breathing, and officers would not be able to see if he was struggling to breathe or choking.
An IAT member maintained that the controversial restraint device did not restrict breathing, and officers would be able to “feel” him starting to asphyxiate.
“They don’t actually restrict breathing, it’s covered with holes and you can still get lots of air,” he said.
The NT Ombudsman has called spit hoods an “inherently hazardous protective option” while the United Nations has labelled them a ‘torture device’.
The Turtles all defended the use of the spithood, with the senior IAT member saying “bodily fluids is something we have to manage”.
“We’ve got to wait for test results to come back, you’ve got to be mindful around your own children, because we don’t know what these prisoners potentially had”.
But Ms Armitage highlighted that despite hospital workers, aged care staff, disability and mental health workers facing the risk of people spitting, none of these places used spit hoods.
The NT Ombudsman’s investigation into NT Police’s spit hoods on children found that the evidence showed that the restraints were “ineffective in protecting against transmissible diseases”, and the risk of transmission from spitting was ‘negligible’ and ‘very low to non-existent’.
The coronial continues on Friday.
