Teargassing Don Dale detainees ‘unlawful’, High Court rules

Four former detainees teargassed in the youth detention centre in Darwin are entitled to damages, High Court rules.

Don Dale youth detention centre in Darwin. Picture: Glen Campbell

Northern Territory taxpayers will have to pay damages to four Aboriginal teenagers controversially tear-gassed at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre in 2014 after the High Court overturned a lower court finding that the actions by prison officers were legal.

Justice Judith Kelly in 2017 ruled in a civil decision of the Supreme Court of the NT that the use of tear gas was both reasonable and necessary. Appeals on behalf of the four were dismissed by the Court of Appeal, with costs awarded against them.

But lawyers for the group obtained permission to take their cases to the High Court, which unanimously held that all were entitled to damages for battery. The High Court also found, by majority decision, that the “deliberate and intentional use (of tear gas) … was not lawful”.

The High Court sent the teenagers’ cases back to the Supreme Court of the NT for another judge to assess what damages should be awarded. It also ordered the Northern Territory to cover the group’s legal costs.

The four youngsters, all of whom were aged between 15 and 17 years at the time of the 2014 incident but are now adults, were among six youths being detained in Don Dale’s Behavioural Management Unit when one of them escaped from his cell. After a protracted stand-off, youth justice officers called in prison guards, who deployed tear gas to bring the situation under control.

In her 2017 decision, Justice Kelly awarded each of the four damages of between $12,000 and $17,000 for the “extreme distress, humiliation and immediate physical effects” of being handcuffed, shackled and spit-hooded on two journeys between Don Dale Youth Detention Centre and Darwin Correctional Precinct — a distance of about 15 km. The court-awarded damages were at least ten times lower than what lawyers for the quartet at one stage reportedly sought and significantly below what the NT government is understood to have offered during pre-trial settlement negotiations.

It was last year revealed that all six youngsters tear-gassed at Don Dale in 2014 had gone on to commit or be charged with serious crimes including armed robbery, carjacking, stealing and injuring a prison officer. Two of the six were involved in crime sprees that covered large distances, wasted resources and endangered lives.