Wayne Hunt death in custody inquest investigates use of spit hood on epileptic grandfather in Darwin Correctional Centre
The coroner has said there was no evidence of a Territory grandfather intentionally spitting on guards as he drooled and convulsed in a Darwin prison cell. WARNING: Distressing.
A grandfather who was drooling during a violent epileptic seizure was bound in a spithood, despite no evidence of him intentionally trying to spit on prison guards.
On Tuesday, NT coroner Elisabeth Armitage interrogated the use of the controversial restraint device on 56-year-old Wayne Hunt shortly after he suffered a seizure in Darwin Correctional Centre on August 29, 2024,
The grandfather suffered a seizure less than 72 hours after returning to custody, following his sentence being appealed over the tragic dangerous driving accident which killed an 11-year-old boy days before Christmas in 2022.
Through tears, Mr Hunt’s former cellmate Ian Bennett described their bittersweet reunion in Darwin Correctional Centre on August 29, 2024, with Mr Hunt greeting him with a cheeky “you old prick” before they embraced and cried together.
But within 20 minutes of arriving in his cell, Mr Bennett said his friend started to “convulse” and “foam at the mouth” .
Mr Bennett said he immediately called the guards to report Mr Hunt was “having a fit”, comforting his friend in his lap while waiting for health workers and officers to arrive.
Corrections officers told the coroner Mr Hunt was “violently resistant”, with three of the first guards to respond pinning him face down on the ground and telling him to “calm down” as he flailed his arms and leg while screaming.
But counsel assisting the coroner Mary Chalmers questioned that the one-legged man having a seizure was “resistant”.
Mr Bennett also rejected his friend was “fighting” the guards, saying he was moving erratically in the grips of his medical emergency.
“The lights were on but no one was home,” he said.
“All I could hear was screaming and moaning.”
A junior Corrections officer said the handcuffs made Mr Hunt “easier to handle”, but acknowledged he continued to flail with the metal cutting into his wrists causing him to bleed.
His superior said there was no sign of Mr Hunt spitting during the seizure, with only evidence of him drooling, coughing and foaming at the mouth.
Despite this he was put in a spit hood — a restraint the NT Ombudsman has called an “inherently hazardous protective option” and the United Nations has called a ‘torture device’.
The device has been banned in South Australia, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, with Australian Federal Police, Queensland Police also prohibiting their use.
Spit hoods were previously banned against Territory kids in Youth Justice, and briefly NT Police were prohibited on using the restraints on children, however they have since been reintroduced.
In the latest Estimates Corrections Minister Gerard Maley revealed spit hoods were used 16 times in 2024-25, including 13 times in Darwin Correctional Centre, and twice in the Alice Springs watchhouse.
The coroner was told the Immediate Action Team (IAT) — known to prisoners as the ‘Turtles’ because of their body armour — was called to respond to the incident, and were the ones to put Mr Hunt in a spit hood.
A junior Corrections Officer defended the use of the spithood.
The officer said: “If you got too close, you would have got spit on you”.
But Ms Armitage clarified there was no evidence Mr Hunt was intentionally spitting.
“To spit is one thing, to have spray or saliva coming out of your mouth in the context of a seizure is another thing,” Ms Armitage said.
There were no prison records of Mr Hunt spitting, while Ms Chalmers showed body cam footage which showed the handcuffed, wheelchair-bound, and sedated man’s head “lolling” and “flopping around”.
The footage showed Mr Hunt breathing heavily, groaning and yelling indecipherably as Corrections officers warned him to “sit up“, “sit still”, with one telling him “keep your f—king foot up and don’t be a f—kwit”.
A junior officer stopped the body cam for a moment when Mr Hunt was slumped over in the wheelchair, and maintained this was when he attempted to spit at a guard.
Another officer said he heard someone saying: ‘He’s spitting, get the hood on him”.
But Ms Chalmers said this was not in his incident report from that day, and accused him of “inventing things in the witness box”.
The coroner has heard rather than being taken to the medical rooms for a post seizure medical assessment, Mr Hunt was put on suicide watch.
A junior officer — who had only been in Corrections for three weeks — said he was never told Mr Hunt had just suffered a seizure while monitoring him and five others in the ‘at risk’ cells.
The Corrections department representative, Michael McCarthy has conceded prison guards acted “unprofessionally” as Mr Hunt was carried from his cell, bound to a wheelchair and spit-hooded while bleeding from his handcuffs.
A prison registered nurse said it was known post-seizure recovery periods often included aggressive or erratic behaviour.
All three first-response Corrections officers have said they had no specific seizure training, outside basic First Aid courses.
The inquest continues on Wednesday.
