Conditions inside a youth wing of an adult prison where a teenager fatally harmed himself have been described by a nurse who worked there as a “war zone”.

April 10, 2024

A nurse who tried to save an Indigenous teen after harmed himself in the youth wing of an adult prison has told an inquest the unit was like a war zone and conditions were inhumane.

Cleveland Dodd was found unresponsive in the early hours of October 12, 2023, inside his cell in Unit 18 at 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 and multiple requests for medical treatment and drinking water in the hours before he was discovered and transported to hospital, where he died eight days later.

A coronial inquest into his death in Perth on Wednesday heard the situation in the unit was so bad before the incident, that registered nurse Fiona Bain started keeping a diary of events to preserve her mental health.

She agreed she was overwhelmed and that staff were working on the frontline of a war zone.

The coroner heard the unit did not have a clinical treatment area and Ms Bain felt she was only there to “pick up the pieces” and there was a “huge” staff turnover.

Ms Bain also said some detainees were held in their cells without running water for more than 22 hours per day.

They also ate their meals and toileted in the cells, which were described as disgusting, dirty and grimy, but could not wash themselves.

“Leftover food in there, the smell of urine, faeces, sweat, a lot of graffiti, damage to cells,” she said.

Ms Bain agreed the cells were unliveable, inhumane and an “appalling state of affairs”.

She also told the coroner some senior officers “shrugged their shoulders” and did nothing when detainees covered the cameras in their cells or scratched them, as Cleveland had done before fatally harming himself.

It prevented staff in the unit’s control room from being able to check on their welfare, and was an issue for detainees who required increased monitoring after they threatened to harm themselves.

Ms Bain said the problem was so widespread before October 2023 that it was common to see most of the cell camera screens in the control room blanked out, and youth custodial officers often escalated the issue to senior officers.

She also said there were instances when senior officers said there was nothing that could be done and declined to escalate the issue.