WARNING: This story discusses incidents of self-harm and contains the name and image of an Indigenous person who has died.
The coroner probing Western Australia’s first recorded death in juvenile detention has rejected a bid to narrow the scope of his investigation, or call the current and former Corrective Services Ministers to give evidence.
Coroner Philip Urquhart has so far heard around 30 days of evidence as he tries to understand the death of 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd a week after he self-harmed inside Unit 18 – a youth detention unit hastily opened inside an adult prison.
But David Leigh, representing the Justice Department, earlier this week argued some of that evidence should be disregarded.
Mr Leigh wanted a new interpretation of the laws governing inquests in WA, restricting coroners to only hearing evidence relevant to “the cause or circumstances” of a person’s death.
That would have stopped Coroner Urquhart, or any coroner in future inquests, from hearing evidence about the care or treatment provided to people in the care of the state.
Coroner Philip Urquhart has been critical of the Department of Justice during the inquest. (ABC News: James Carmody)
But Coroner Urquhart today rejected that interpretation, saying it was inconsistent with the reason the Coroners Act was amended following the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody to require coroners to comment on the treatment of people in care.
“I am not prepared to radically depart from the practice of this court and the interpretation of its powers that has been in place for nearly 30 years,” he said.
Ministers won’t be called
Coroner Urquhart said he would not be calling Bill Johnston, who was Corrective Services Minister when Unit 18 opened, or Paul Papalia who was minister when Cleveland died, saying it was not clear he had the power to summons them.
“It could be seen as making the executive answerable to the judiciary and thereby potentially challenging the separation of powers,” he said.
However, both Gary Budge – who was the Acting Corrective Services Commissioner when Unit 18 opened – and the Department’s Director Strategic Communications Sue Short, will be called to give evidence.
Lawyers for Cleveland’s mother also succeeded in their application to have former Commissioner Mike Reynolds called back to the stand, following an interview with the ABC where he blamed the state government for issues in youth justice.
Cleveland Dodd was the first child to die in juvenile detention in WA. (Supplied: Family)
Christine Ginbey, who was the Deputy Commissioner responsible for youth justice when Unit 18 opened and when Cleveland died, had been excused from giving evidence on health grounds but may be called back.
Family pain
Suicide prevention advocate Gerry Georgatos, who has been supporting Cleveland’s family, said not calling Mr Johnston or Mr Papalia to give evidence was “more pain for the family”, saying the family “consider the Ministers ultimately responsible”.
“In my view, if we don’t hear from the ministers we will never know the whole truth,” he said outside court.
Mr Georgatos says Cleveland’s family consider the current and former corrective services ministers “ultimately respoinsible” for his death. (
ABC News: Briana Shepherd
)
“We have to know who made the ultimate decisions, how much they knew, if they enabled any of the alleged toxic culture in [Corrective Services] and if we don’t get all this on the record, then the systemic disarray can’t be fixed.”
Final inquest hearings are scheduled for early December, with Coroner Urquhart not expected to hand down his findings until mid-next year at the earliest.
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