A probationary correctional worker has told an inquest that she was coerced into working as a senior officer in the troubled youth wing of an adult prison.

April 9, 2024

A probationary corrections worker had to fill in as the senior officer in the troubled youth wing of an adult prison where an Indigenous teenager harmed himself, an inquest has been told

Cleveland Dodd was found unresponsive in the early hours of October 12, 2023, inside his cell in Unit 18 in Perth’s Casuarina Prison, becoming the first juvenile to die in detention in Western Australia.

The 16-year-old had made eight threats to self-harm in the hours before he was discovered and transported to hospital, where he died eight days later.

Youth custodial officer Nina Hayden told a coroner in Perth she was given no training and about two hours notice before being thrust into the role.

“I got called before my shift and told there was no senior officer for the night and could I fill the role,” she said on Tuesday.

“I remember not being sure if I wanted to do that with the little experience I had.”

Ms Hayden said a senior officer from the previous shift showed her how to fill in a series of reports before leaving her to oversee detainees and staff for the night shift.

She said she felt flustered, anxious and could not say no when she arrived at the unit the following day and was asked to step into the senior officer role for a second shift.

Asked by counsel assisting Anthony Crocker if she felt it was fair or a good way to allocate her, Ms Hayden replied no and said she would have liked an induction.

She also said youth custodial officers weren’t told about a detainee’s status on a system that rates their risk of self-harm – known as the At-Risk Management System – and had to look up the information for themselves.

Ms Hayden started crying when CCTV footage recorded in Unit 18 the night Cleveland harmed himself was played to the court.

It showed her calling triple-zero after Cleveland was found and later escorting paramedics through Unit 18 to his cell.

The inquest exploring his treatment in the unit and the Department of Justice’s procedures and policies has heard there were a string of failures on the night.

These included the base radio that enables communications between the unit and the prison being switched off.

Asked why this had happened, Ms Hayden said it should have been on and it may have been switched off to cut out noisy radio chatter in the control room.

Some staff, including Ms Hayden and the officer who found Cleveland, were also not wearing personal radios, in contravention of department policy, which were used to communicate with the unit’s control room and raise the alarm when incidents occurred.

Cleveland was agitated on the night he harmed himself and had made multiple calls asking for medical treatment and drinking water, but staff were reluctant to open detainees’ cell doors at night “due to staffing numbers and risk issues”.

He also covered a CCTV camera in his cell with tissue paper, blocking the view of correctional staff monitoring him, but they didn’t bother to uncover it until they were fighting to save his life.

Ms Hayden said a lot of cell cameras were blocked a lot of the time or scratched, obscuring the vision, and agreed it would be helpful if staff knew which detainees had blocked their cameras when they started a shift.

The inquest continues.