Brave whistleblowers expose one of Australia's worst child abuse scandals | 60 Minutes Australia

what you're about to see is a blight on this country a shameful episode in our recent history that powerful people have either ignored or worse tried to cover up and it's likely would have remained a dark secret but for the courage of brave whistleblowers one of them is alicia and she's made the tough and dangerous decision to speak up and shine a light on this disgrace she's done it because she knows no matter the cost or consequence there is nothing more important than protecting children it might be in a beautiful part of the world the rich farming land outside de lorraine in northern tasmania but there's nothing nice about the ashley youth detention centre it's a prison of shame here good didn't stand a chance against evil people have been harmed children have been harmed out at ashley for a hundred years its history is horrific and dark and and scary it's been 18 months since alicia left the prison on stress leave despite still serving as a public official she's decided to blow the whistle on what's really happening [Music] inside that's it and this is the first time you've been back since you've left what are you feeling um exactly the same as i felt every day when i left work i guess just that it's completely inhumane and wrong that there's children in that facility [Music] i've said to them that i believe them and i've said to them that i'll do everything that i can to help and um i will if it wasn't for whistleblowers like alicia it's unlikely we'd know what really went on here how vulnerable children were mentally tortured and sexually abused their basic rights ignored by a cabal of staff it's scary to speak out against people when you know what they're capable of i'm absolutely terrified but you're going to come and stand up and tell the truth in october 2019 alicia took a job at ashley hoping to help kids rehabilitate rather than re-offend a lot of them have come from really difficult homes and backgrounds they're ticking every box for vulnerabilities but within a few weeks of the job she knew something was amiss she began to suspect members of staff at agendas that didn't involve helping the young inmates at first it was the way they spoke that concerned her what did you hear them say they've been called little little shits useless pieces of [ __ ] i was present when one of the managers of the center told a child that if he didn't do xyz he was going to turn him into an owl and i said what does that mean and he said i'm going to cave his face in sorry he said he's going to turn him into an owl correct which meant that he was going to cave his face in yes hearing the way that they were spoken about was very distressing for me and that was something that set off huge alarm bells it was a much bigger job than i was prepared for but it wasn't just verbal abuse alicia also quickly discovered a young female inmate had been left alone by staff and sexually assaulted by male inmates she was horrifically harmed what happened to her they were unattended for so long that the boys were able to organize someone to be a watch or a guard at the door and the other boys took turns sexually abusing her was that reported to senior staff at the center yes it was were police called in no they went the victim was one of many that alicia found out about under tasmanian law we can't identify the children and teenagers who've been locked up here but we can say that there are hundreds of alleged victims over many decades another victim who we'll call rachel was reminded to ashley in 2012. her story is as horrific as it is common at the youth prison i was 14 and the first time i went in there was for stealing a bag of doritos sling a bag of chips yeah you sent to jail yep three months do you remember your first day inside yeah i remember i was the first girl that had been in there for about a year so i remember there was a lot of um comments um the boys are very excited to see me a few weeks into her imprisonment she complained of being sick but instead of the staff calling a doctor or a nurse she was examined by an unqualified male staff member rachel knew instantly that this wasn't right he got me just to lie on the couch and basically proceeded to feel around areas that i now know were nowhere near my appendix um and then didn't take me to the nurse afterwards um yeah it was a sexual assault yeah it was um yeah and i yeah i felt violated and it was really uncomfortable and yeah it wasn't what i asked for i needed medical assistance did you feel like you could say anything while this man was no why not no um because in that moment like i don't know being a child and having an adult tell you to do something like i don't know i just didn't feel like i was in a position where i could kind of talk up or ask for help or anything rachel told a female youth worker about the assault who helped her complain to the ombudsman but she says the only punishment the male staff member received was two weeks paid leave he sexually assaulted you and got two weeks paid leave yeah and then came back yeah and kept working with you yep rachel's story isn't unusual there was never a time he was around me where he didn't touch me inappropriately this former detainee we'll call andrea says abuse was routine she recalls one male staff member who couldn't keep his hands to himself he would grab my bum and he would do night shift and i'd be in a shower he would unlock my window in my bathroom and stare at you in the shower did you have the ability to say stop or yeah i would and would he stop no he'd just laugh many years have passed now why do you think this guy's conduct towards you has stayed with you for so long um i feel my main problem was management's handling of it like obviously it was gross and horrible what happened to us and in there but the way management handled it and hid everything we now know that teens and children were subjected to abuse for decades at the ashley youth detention center and that some staff were well aware of it in fact when alicia went to work there she discovered that covering up mistreatment was an expected part of the job what did staff tell you about what happens to staff who rocked the boat or speak out about allegations straight away and i was shocked by the the openness and the brazenness about these comments it was like what happens in ashley stays in ashley basically you've gotta fit in or [ __ ] off but i was also told as time went on that was that um in regards to myself from a colleague that snitches get stitches snitches get stitches which was a warning to you if you spoke the bitter reprisals yeah that i would be physically harmed when you tried to raise allegations internally of kids being sexually assaulted what was the general response from senior management i can't say that there was a single incident that i reported that was responded to in a remotely appropriate way for the children [Music] in the end alicia decided she had no other choice but to become a whistleblower you're describing the alleged rape of young inmates it's not alleged if the footage exists we've seen the footage yes it's a place that was meant to help steer teens and kids away from trouble towards the straight and narrow but ashley youth jail in tasmania's north instead put them at greater risk thanks to brave whistleblowers like alicia it's now known as a place where one of australia's worst child abuse scandals occurred many decades of abuse and it's time to let the light in yeah i i absolutely that's a big big job but it needs to happen [Music] in october 2019 alicia started working at ashley prison but a few weeks into the job she became concerned about vulnerable young inmates being left alone with older prisoners known to be predators alicia says she reviewed shocking cctv showing rape in this case those two boys did end up in this unit and ended up alone with two older offenders who [Music] forced them to remove their pants and they proceeded to penetrate them with a bottle and on the footage of this incident once it was over the the two boys kind of got up and what really broke my heart was that um they pulled up their trap pants you know they actually issued track pants as high as they could and they pulled the thing and they did all these like double knots as tight as they could and ran out of the room you watched that on the cctv i've read the reports and i've yeah so those children every time that i've seen them since then they're tied up tight as possible they were never offered any help even a debrief any any support alicia isn't the only insider raising concerns we've obtained a leaked report written by a psychologist working at ashley in october 2019 she warned senior management that vulnerable inmates were at risk of serious harm because they were getting left alone with possible sex offenders still nothing changed how many credible allegations of sexual assault serious sexual assault involving young children teen inmates did you come to learn of in your six seven months at ashley i don't know a lot more than ten yes what are we talking about what sort of things serious serious beatings that could have easily killed people psychological abuse torture name calling isolation breaches of every single right that a child has of the credible sexual assault allegations you discovered how many were reported to the police the sexual assault allegations none it gets even worse before alicia joined ashley the prison was already on notice that vulnerable young inmates were at clear risk of being raped in 2007 a 14 year old will call andrew was on his second night of remand he was placed in a cell with an older bigger inmate who was locked up for a previous sexual assault andrew didn't stand a chance because unbelievably he was left without any staff watching over him how many staff should have been there two staff members and both disappeared both are gone i was punched to the side of the jaw and then i was i was raped and the feeling to know that like you're left there and there's no help um it's guarding it's gut-wrenching to know that it happened and they allowed it to happen and there was no help there was no justice there was there was nothing i was left violated and bashed they didn't take me to see the nurse until the next day and still to this day i remember exactly how it happened and i still see it in my in my brain because there was no help there was no cancelling after it happened you were 14 years old at the time that's correct this shocking failure was part of a long history in tasmania of covering up abuse and silencing victims but it's the case of this man james griffin that highlights the failings of state agencies to stop child abuse in tasmania so they sent a suspected abuser to a place with even more vulnerable children a known abuser many monsters have worked behind the walls of the ashley youth detention centre one of them was this man james griffin griffin began working at ashley in 2017 but it's how he got the job that's outrageous that's because for years before it was suspected he was a serial child sex offender i was 11 he was 59 and the grooming started at age 11 at age 11. in 2008 tiffany skeggs met child nurse and tasmanian netball volunteer james griffin it wasn't long before he started abusing her he had absolute control over me the exploitation was as far as you can go [Music] now 24 tiffany says her innocence was stolen my life revolved around him i had to be at his beck and call constantly and the more physically abusive part of that was that he would rape me at least two to three times a week and i had to be available for that and how long did that ordeal last until i was 19. what makes tiffany's story even worse is that griffin was on the radar of authorities for years but instead of stopping him he was left to abuse her and other vulnerable children including at the launceston general hospital where he worked at the time multiple complaints suggesting griffin was a pedophile or lodged with police and public sector agencies in tasmania i ended up suffering a new decade because they refused or disregarded and just plainly didn't act on the information they had at the time i was expected to put up with it by everyone not just him tasmanian police the launceston general hospital and netball tasmania all failed to act properly on tip-offs about griffin federal authorities were also tipped off in 2015 that griffin was linked to child exploitation material and was traveling overseas with the minor tiffany says border force officials approached them here at melbourne airport and took possession of both their mobile phones what was on yours and his foams extremely explosive and pornographic material of myself for certain um on my device and his device i know for a fact that there was a particular set of images and videos that in were he and i in his bedroom in his bed and the video the video is a recording of him penetrating me and sexually assaulting me and border force examining your phone it would have it should have been clear to them that this was images of child exploitation absolutely my face was in some of those photos and certainly in the video and how old were you in those photos in video i was 15 in those particular ones how old was he he would have been around 64. borderforce had an opportunity to conduct a forensic phone search but records show only a manual search of griffin's phone was performed tiffany believes they let a pedophile go free what did that mean for you it meant that i still had years of abuse to come that i would never be free of him i would never have another opportunity like that for any authority in this state or this country to help me i was on my own i had defend for myself and continued to be raped by him as did others griffin was free to roam and search for other victims and instead of keeping him away from vulnerable children in 2017 he was transferred to tasmania's youth jail ashley [Music] so they sent a suspected abuser to a place with even more vulnerable children a known abuser no one knows if griffin abused any children or teen inmates at ashley youth jail in 2019 tiffany bravely reported him to police he was charged but killed himself before he faced justice when he took his life did you feel cheated yes why i from the get-go from my very first disclosure had followed the process the proper legal process and done absolutely everything right and in line with that process to ensure we could get a sound conviction and that he would be appropriately punished for his crimes and i never got that and not a single one of his other victims ever got that and we never will we don't have a chance to get justice because the system yet again failed griffin may have wanted the scandal of his abuse to die with him but tiffany wanted justice last year she joined forces with ashley whistleblower alicia who was also trying to expose the failings of state agencies to stop child abuse in tasmania together they would make radical change alicia was the first person in the world that made me feel like i wasn't an alien and if i hadn't met alicia i wouldn't be alive today [Music] tiffany and alicia have become the public face for the battle against child abuse in tasmania in march last year after the scandal about griffin and the ashley jail began to leak then premier peter guttmann called a commission of inquiry into institutional abuse months later he sat down with alicia did you tell him that kids were being assaulted raped bashed abused in ashley yes and that he had a responsibility to protect those kids he had a responsibility to act the following day at 12 p.m he held a press conference to announce that in three years the center would be closed it was a bittersweet victory for alicia it's three more years that kids are being put at risk inside ashley she's hopeful the commission of inquiry will eventually expose the abuse and cover-ups senior lawyer angela sadrinus is leading a class action to sue the state of tasmania on behalf of dozens of victims who say they were abused inside ashley detention centre we've got about 150 claimants who allege abuse at ashley and really it just keeps growing we see more and more people coming forward how can more than 150 people allegedly be seriously abused and the state and ashley get away with it well they've gotten away with it up till now it's actually hard to fathom because any human being the thought of a child being abused is is just so difficult to to deal with do you think there's still predators pedophiles in the system in tasmania today absolutely well apart from anything else we're still getting quite contemporaneous complaints how does it happen um [Music] really across or all sections of the system if you want to call it that there are still gaps and there are still failures across the state 32 officials have been stood down over sex abuse allegations but until there are major reforms to better protect children alicia and tiffany don't feel safe enough to return to live in tasmania for now they find comfort in each other's company and the shared experiences of other victims and whistleblowers what has been the impact on you and your family for speaking up for the young inmates at ashley it's completely upended and destroyed our lives once i removed myself from the site they said oh well it's not safe for you to go back and i thought well you've you've got exactly what you wanted you know i won't be reporting and causing trouble for you any longer but i i didn't stop i kept escalating my reports you haven't stopped no i can't hello i'm liz hayes thanks for watching 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minute segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on now dot com dot iu and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 2,047,524

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, australia, whistleblower, scandal, child abuse, detention, tasmania, ashley youth detention centre, paedophile, prison, jail, exposed, assault, sexual, torture

Id: N__spMr3Ims

Length: 26min 27sec (1587 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 12 2022