Guards watching movies and ‘resting’ night Cleveland Dodd found in cell

WA Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia on Friday released an interim report into what happened at Perth’s high-security unit for juveniles on Ocotber 11.

Cleveland Dodd and his mum Nadene. An interim internal inquiry found has found a litany of errors and breaches on the night 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd was found in his cell at Perth's notorious Unit 18 for juvenile detainees.

Control room guards were watching movies and “resting” with the lights off when a colleague found 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd close to death in his Perth cell.

The Aboriginal boy had minutes earlier used the intercom to tell the control room precisely how he would take his own life at the notorious Unit 18 for the state’s most challenging juvenile detainees. He died six days later at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital.

West Australian Corrective Services Minister Paul Papalia on Friday released an interim report into what happened during the evening of October 11 and in the early hours of October 12 when Dodd fatally self-harmed at the high-security unit for juveniles inside Perth’s maximum security men’s prison, Casuarina.

The report reveals an astonishing lack of regard for workplace rules including those intended to prevent suicide. Even if they had not been watching movies and possibly asleep, it would have been impossible for guards in the control room in the early hours of October 12 to have seen the moment Dodd attempted suicide because he had totally obscured the camera in his cell with moist toilet paper at 2.55pm the previous day.

The report says that when the paper fell off at 12.33am on October 12, Dodd replaced it. Someone should have gone immediately into his cell to clear the screen but this did not happen.

Mr Papalia said on Friday there was a well-intentioned but misguided practice of allowing detainees to cover the cameras in their cells for privacy.

“Cleveland should be alive today,” Mr Papalia said.

“The fact he is not is without question a devastating tragedy. Put simply, we let him down.”

The report finds Dodd was able to harm himself using a damaged roof vent that management had known about for more than three weeks. It has been 32 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody recommended that prisoners be held only in cells without hanging points.

The officer in charge that night has been stood aside amid questions about his behaviour, ­including that he emerged from his office not fully dressed after Dodd was discovered. The state’s Corruption and Crime Commission is investigating.

The report says the guard who found Dodd went immediately to the office of his boss – the officer in charge – for the cell keys. There, he turned on the light to speak to the officer in charge and took the keys. Only the officer in charge has cell keys on any given shift because juveniles had been repeatedly and successfully attacking guards to steal their keys and let others out for riots.

The guard returned to Dodd’s cell, where the report says he grabbed Dodd around the waist, taking the weight of his body “whilst pulling the ligature down from the ceiling vent”. The guard did CPR on Dodd. As this is happening, the officer in charge can be seen leaving his office while buttoning up his shirt. He arrives 39 seconds after the guard who began CPR.

he Australian has been told the officer in charge is yet to give his version of events.

The interim report finds there was a window of 12 minutes from the last time Dodd was seen alive by a guard who spoke to him through the viewing hatch to his cell and the moment the same guard checked on him at 1.40:55am. However the guard then had to get the keys and he entered the cell at 1.42:28am, meaning there was an overall window of 14 minutes and 20 seconds from the time Dodd was seen unharmed to the time the guard breached his cell to help him.

There were five guards and one nurse on duty at the time. Only two of the five guards were wearing mandatory body-worn cameras. The guard who found Dodd was not carrying a radio.

Mr Papalia said the workforce needed cultural change. He has appointed former WA assistant police commissioner Brad Royce to oversee reforms.

If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, call Lifeline (13 11 14) or the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467), or see a doctor.