A warning this story contains some distressing content. It discusses self-harm and includes the image of an Indigenous person who has died. A former Western Australia justice boss has continued testifying at the inquest into the death of Cleveland Dodd the first child to die in custody in Western Australia.
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00:00Adam Thomason, who'd been at the helm of the department for seven years until he resigned
00:07late last year, was being questioned around the creation of the unit back in 2022, as
00:13well as some of the communication that was sent out immediately before and after.
00:18This included things like media statements and letters sent to young people who were
00:22going to be transferred there, and their caretakers, and included statements such as that the unit
00:29was safe, and actually safer than the Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centre, which is the
00:35main youth detention facility in the state, and the detainees that were going to be transferred
00:40there would receive the same level of services as those at Banksia Hill.
00:46From the evidence that we'd heard today, as well as early in the inquest, that wasn't
00:50true, and some members of the department at the time would have known that was the case.
00:57Dr. Thomason had agreed under questioning that this was deceptive and misleading, and
01:03actually when the counsel assisting the coroner, Anthony Crocker, put to him, it's just incomprehensible
01:09that the department would lie to people like that, Dr. Thomason replied yes.
01:15Now, somewhat more extraordinarily is the fact that the court was told there was a briefing
01:21that was sent to the then minister, Corrective Services Minister Bill Johnston, to approve
01:27the controversial facility, which included information that Dr. Thomason had conceded
01:33was blatant lies.
01:34Dr. Thomason said that he would have approved all these things, but at the time he genuinely
01:40believed the information in them were correct, and he said that he acted under information
01:46that he would have received from the deputy commissioner, Christine Jimby, as well as
01:51the former commissioner, Mike Reynolds.
01:54We don't know at this stage whether they knew that it was true or not, but we will hear
01:58from them later in the inquest next week.