A coronial inquest into the death of the first young person to die in detention in western Australia is expected to reveal its preliminary findings. A warning, this story discusses incidents of self-harm and contains the name and image of an indigenous person who has died.
00:00Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are advised that this video may contain images and voices of people who have died.
00:10The WA Coroner's Court has spent more than a year investigating the first recorded death in the state's youth detention system,
00:17but that probe is now coming to its end.
00:20It's been looking into the death of 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd, who self-harmed inside of his cell in a makeshift youth detention facility set up inside a maximum-security adult prison.
00:30He died a week later.
00:33Yesterday, lawyers in the case were making their closing submissions.
00:37Perhaps the most significant coming from the Justice Department itself through its lawyer, Tim Russell.
00:42The department apologising to Cleveland's family, saying he never should have died while in the state's care.
00:49Mr Russell also accepted a range of failings by the department, including not providing Cleveland enough time out of his cell,
00:55not doing enough to stop detainees covering up cameras, and not providing him water on the night he died when he asked for it six times.
01:05Counsel Assisting has proposed 25 recommendations that the coroner should, in his view, make in this case.
01:12Twenty of them relate to the Department of Justice.
01:15Their lawyer, Mr Russell, says the department supports all but three of them.
01:20One of those is the immediate closure of Unit 18, where Cleveland died.
01:25Unit 18 will close when we don't need it anymore, which is as soon as possible,
01:29but you have to build the facility that is the purpose-designed facility to house what is a really challenging cohort.
01:36It's unclear when that's going to happen.
01:38Last month, the state budget only included money for planning and early works on that new facility.
01:45No money for construction.
01:47The coroner is expected to hand down some preliminary findings this afternoon.
