Cleveland Dodd inquest: Coroner urges top Justice official to move to close Unit 18 ‘as a matter of urgency’

The coroner presiding Cleveland Dodd’s inquest has urged a top Department of Justice official to push for Unit 18’s closure as soon as possible “as a matter of urgency”. Douglas Coyne took the stand for the second day on Monday at the expedited inquest into the 16-year-old detainee’s self-harming death in October last year. The superintendent at the time, now the department’s acting assistant commissioner for young people, was repeatedly asked on Friday why the high-security wing within the adult Casuarina Prison could not be shut now. Its opening was hastily arranged — taking just nine days to put in place after access to the site was granted and children moved from Banksia Hill Detention Centre following a huge riot in May 2022 that caused $22 million worth of damage. “The risk is still high at this point in time,” Mr Coyne said on Friday, saying work still needed to be done at Banksia Hill to reduce damage, fence-climbing and cell escapes. Under intense questioning by counsel assisting the coroner Anthony Crocker that continued on Monday, Mr Coyne said he had not yet spoken to his immediate superior about closing Unit 18. It was initially flagged for shuttering after 12 months but was not his only focus, Mr Coyne said. He was asked what could be more important and eventually replied “Umm, yes” when asked if it was his top priority, promising to return from the weekend with information about what work needed to be done after admitting he wasn’t across all the details. It turned out that Unit 18 detainees could be returned to Banksia Hill once an IT project at a wing named Jasper, estimated to take the next four months, was completed. Mr Coyne said he would consider relocating the handful of Unit 18 detainees to Jasper, subject to a risk assessment, liaising with Banksia Hill staff. Mr Crocker repeatedly urged him to commit to getting the IT work fast-tracked, saying the rapid opening of the unit showed that “when the department needs to move quickly, it is possible”. “Stuff was happening at all times of the day and night and weekends. Why isn’t there the same urgency about closing the place and getting it ready?” Mr Crocker asked. “Why can’t you give a direction when you finish your evidence? “You want it done yesterday. Are you going to do that?” Mr Coyne replied: “Yes”. State Solicitor’s Office lawyer David Leigh then objected, saying it was “not proper” to ask Mr Coyne for such commitments. “Why not?” coroner Phil Urquhart responded. “Mr Crocker’s questions are entirely appropriate.” Mr Leigh soon objected again after Mr Crocker asked Mr Coyne if he understood why some might be cynical that Unit 18’s closure was his number one priority. The SSO lawyer opposed “comments that are going to make digs, like ‘is this dinkum’?”. That was one of Mr Crocker’s questions on Friday. Mr Urquhart again allowed the line of questioning, asking Mr Leigh if he was suggesting that seeking commitments from Mr Coyne was outside his scope. “What if I was to find Unit 18 should never have been opened?” the coroner added. “He was the superintendent at the time of Cleveland’s incident. He is a very relevant witness.” Mr Coyne, a 37-year corrections veteran, said he had left his post as Greenough Regional Prison superintendent “because I wanted to help youth justice”. He said he could understand cynicism around his commitment to close Unit 18, saying he would ask to get the work on Jasper sped up. But he personally couldn’t close it. “That’s well and truly above my level,” Mr Coyne said. “Banksia Hill needs to be fully across all the potential issues so we don’t fall into the same mistakes we made moving into Unit 18.” These included inadequate services, education and staffing. “I will commit to doing everything I can,” Mr Coyne said. The coroner pressed further. “As a matter of urgency?” he asked. Mr Coyne replied: “Yes”. He also concurred that Unit 18 had been operating unlawfully by locking detainees in their cells for up to 24 hours a day, as twice determined by the Supreme Court and already admitted at the inquest by former director-general Adam Tomison. “I failed. They needed to get an hour (statutory minimum) out of cell and I didn’t achieve that,” Mr Coyne said. He agreed with Mr Crocker saying that the department knew it was acting unlawfully “almost every day” and that if Cleveland had not died and the inquest held, “all of this would remain unknown to the public ... that secret would remain”. “It would remain unknown, yes,” Mr Coyne admitted. He agreed it was possible that if he sounded the alarm loud enough so it reached the corrective services minister and Dr Tomison, the unit may have got the resources it needed and Cleveland may still be alive. Earlier on Monday, child and adolescent psychiatrist Gosia Wojnarowska testified that the teen had a court-ordered diagnosis by a neuropsychologist in 2021 for major depressive disorder but was not treated at Unit 18. His death was the first recorded of a child in youth detention in WA’s history. Lifeline 13 11 14