‘We want truth:’ Inquest to deliver findings on death of Cleveland Dodd, 16 – the first child to die in West Australian custody

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this story contains the name and image of a deceased Indigenous person. A coronial inquest is due to hand down its findings into Western Australia’s first death inside a juvenile detention centre. Cleveland Dodd, 16, self-harmed inside Unit 18 on October 12, 2023. He had been held on remand inside the facility for about three months when a guard found him unresponsive in his cell, which was attached to an adult maximum security prison. Cleveland was rushed to hospital where he was reunited with his family before he took his last breath a week later. The inquest into Cleveland’s death began in April last year and was the longest-running coronial inquest held in Western Australia, ending in July. The inquest revealed Cleveland endured months of isolation, deprivation and neglect under the care of Western Australia’s juvenile justice system. The coroner was told Cleveland had been refused bail on the day he self-harmed and multiple times had told officers he would kill himself. He also asked for water about a dozen times but never received any. An officer working at the time told the inquest that he was never informed the teen had threatened to harm, and he failed to check on Cleveland regularly through the night. He also claimed he was instructed not to give Cleveland any more water because he had already been given six cups throughout the day. It was also revealed Cleveland was kept inside his cell for more than 20 hours most days while he was incarcerated and received about three hours of eduction on occasional days during his detention. Coroner Philip Urquhart handed down an early assessment on December 8, hinting he may recommend Unit 18 be shut down. The unit was set up in a hurry at a wing of Casuarina Prison after a riot at Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre caused millions of dollars of damage to the facility. The WA government has started work on a new $158m facility to detain juveniles in custody that will replace Unit 18, but it is expected it will be at least three years before work is complete. The facility was promised in the wake of Cleveland’s death, but Unit 18 could remain operational until at least 2028. Staff described the unit as “inhumane” and a “war zone like” where people could not be kept safe. The inquest was told detainees were held up to 22 hours a day inside disgusting, grimy cells that smelt of faeces, urine and sweat and were without running water. Cleveland’s mother Nadene Dodd said her son was tortured during the final months of his life inside Unit 18 and wants it permanently shut down. She said her family felt anxious and were bracing themselves to prepare for whatever the coroner says when he hands down his findings. “It has been more than two years without my son, and no findings can ever bring him home,” she told NewsWire. “We want truth, not excuses. We want honesty, not bullshit. We want Cleveland’s suffering accounted for and for no other child or family to go through what he did. “We suffer always.” Ms Dodd said it had been traumatising reliving Cleveland’s last months and hearing evidence during the inquest about how many warnings there were before her son died. “Every step of the cruel process has reopened wounds,” she said. “But I’ve held strong because Cleveland deserves the truth. He cannot speak anymore, so I must.” Ms Dodd collapsed when she was told Cleveland had self-harmed and rushed to the hospital to be with him. “When I got to the hospital, seeing him lying there – my boy who should’ve been safe – was something no parent should ever live through,” she said. “I held his hand and prayed he would breathe again. I told him I loved him and that he wasn’t alone. Those moments will stay with me for the rest of my life.” She hopes the inquest finds the truth, that Cleveland should never have been kept in those conditions and he was failed over and over. “I hope it names the wrongs, failures, the cruelty, the neglect. I hope they call out that Cleveland’s death was preventable,” she said. “(I want) change. Real change. I want Unit 18, where my son was tortured, closed permanently. I want no more children punished instead of helped. “I want cultural healing, proper care, mental-health support, and a system that cares. If Cleveland’s death leads to protecting others, then his story will live on. “A disappointing outcome would be more language about ‘lessons learned’ with nothing changed on the ground. That would break me all over again. “If the findings blame no one. If they soften what happened. If they let the system walk away untouched.” Ms Dodd said real justice would be if Cleveland was still alive, but since that cannot happen, justice now meant accountability. “It means shutting down the places that harmed him. It means keeping children safe. It means the state admitting what happened to him was wrong. That’s the closest to justice that is left,” she said. Social justice advocate Gerry Georgatos has shared hundreds of conversations with Ms Dodd since Cleveland died and has published a book Cleveland Dodd: Child of the Desert Sunrise. Mr Georgatos believes the inquest should lead to the immediate closure of Unit 18 and the dismantling of punitive youth detention practices in favour of specialist community-based therapeutic hubs based on Country. “Cleveland’s death is one of the clearest indictments of a system that harms children instead of helping them. What should happen is structural reform, not cosmetic adjustments,” he said. Mr Georgatos anticipates the coroner will call for the closure of Unit 18 when he hands down his findings into Cleveland’s death. “But governments too often opt for incrementalism,” he said. “They promise change without transforming or replacing the architecture.”