Cleveland Dodd inquest: Former prisons boss admits embarrassment after Minister told ‘blatant lies’ on Unit 18

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Cleveland Dodd inquest: Former prisons boss admits embarrassment after Minister told ‘blatant *****’ on Unit 18

The Department of Justice “blatantly lied” about how Unit 18 would operate in a briefing note to the minister that the former director-general now says he’s embarrassed to have signed.

The inaccuracies were not disputed at the inquest into the ******** ****** of Aboriginal teenager Cleveland Dodd on Friday when Adam Tomison testified for the third day and counsel assisting the coroner Anthony Crocker combed through various documents promising great things for the youth detention wing.

Unit 18 was opened in July 2022 within the maximum security, ****** male Casuarina Prison as the department “decamped” its most difficult cohort of youths from Banksia Hill Detention Centre.

The documents — letters to the boys who were moved, letters to their carers, a media statement and the briefing note to then corrective services minister Bill Johnston — detailed a full suite of services that would be available to the teens.

There was talk of “therapeutic interventions”, Aboriginal ******** services and other support, activities, education and abundant opportunities for social and official visits.

But Unit 18 opened without so much as a nurse on site and none of the observation cells that were required given it housed deeply troubled boys, including at the highest level of the at-risk management system.

“It is simply wrong, misleading and deceptive to describe it as a full suite of programs, do you agree?” Mr Crocker asked Dr Tomison and he concurred.

“It’s just incomprehensible that the department would lie to people like that.”

Camera IconIn bombshell testimony during the first tranche of the inquest, the court was told Cleveland (pictured) threatened to harm himself eight times on his final, tragic night in the notorious facility. Credit: Unknown/Supplied

Over three days of evidence this week, Dr Tomison has conveyed that he did not get bogged down in the day-to-day operating detail, instead relying on his senior lieutenants to be across the nitty gritty and convey the upshot to him accurately.

Mr Crocker said he understood that, but the buck stopped with Dr Tomison, who admitted when pressed that if the minister was presented with the truth about Unit 18 in the briefing note, he would not have approved the facility “without further work”.

Dr Tomison said he could “not believe” he signed off on the briefing note.

“I remember feeling ‘this sounds good’. The model sounded okay.

“I relied on information that’s clearly not correct.”

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Camera IconDr Tomison broke down in tears on Thursday, saying it was ‘extremely hard’ to deal with knowing he was ‘the guy hurting kids’ in youth detention. Credit: Daniel Wilkins/The West ***********

Coroner Phil Urquhart then asked Dr Tomison if he was embarrassed and he responded: “Absolutely”.

Mr Urquhart said it was “one thing to paint a rosy picture” to the detainees, carers and other “stakeholders” but it was “quite another” to mislead the minister.

“That’s unacceptable, is it not?” the coroner asked Dr Tomison, who replied: “It is.”

“This document should not have gone to the minister in this form,” he conceded.

Mr Crocker described the ***** as “grievous” and said Mr Tomison’s admission put the inquest in “an extraordinary position”.

Dr Tomison concurred it had.

He indicated he mainly relied on Christine Ginbey — the department’s then commissioner for young people who has had her portfolio reduced to women in the shake-up after Cleveland’s ******.

She had flagged it would be a struggle to secure all of the promised services, which made the lying “so much more egregious”, Mr Crocker said.

It also emerged at the inquest that Mr Johnston did not see the operating model for Unit 18 before signing off on its establishment.

Remarkably, Dr Tomison admitted he hadn’t seen the document either — until he appeared before the WA Coroner’s Court this week.

He said it was “not unusual” for someone in his busy role not to have sighted it and he had been otherwise briefed on the plans.

Then, David Leigh from the State Solicitor’s Office, appearing on behalf of the department, said he would seek to clarify if the operating model was “an approved document”.

Mr Urquhart said it would be “extraordinary” if the facility didn’t actually have such a critical blueprint, two years after opening.

“I hope there is one … the mystery deepens,” the coroner said.

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