A former child detainee, identified as Aaron, alleges he was sexually assaulted at two youth detention centres in Perth, Western Australia. Now in his 30s and serving time in an adult prison, Aaron is preparing to sue the Western Australian government for allegedly breaching its duty of care and negligence causing physical and psychiatric injury.
In sworn affidavits, Aaron alleges that he was sexually abused on two occasions at the now defunct Rangeview detention centre in the early 2000s. He refers to the encounters as “part one and part two”. The first time, he alleges, he was digitally penetrated by a guard at the centre. During the second encounter, he alleges he was raped by the same guard.
Aaron also alleges that he was raped and sexually assaulted in 2005 while incarcerated at the Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre, which opened in 1997. That allegation is not part of his legal action, his lawyer Peter Subramaniam of Chamberlains Law Firm says, because the law firm was unable to access records needed to verify it.
Promise of protection turned to violation
According to Aaron’s account, the abuse began with a promise from a youth justice officer who told the then 12-year-old that he would protect him from “getting bashed”. That promise grew into quiet chats at a table inside the detention centre. It felt like a lifeline for the terrified child, who had been arrested for stealing while living on the streets with his mother and siblings.
Instead, it was a violation. One of the alleged assaults took place when he was ordered to undergo a strip-search by a guard. Subramaniam says Aaron became distressed as he described how his clothes were ripped off. More than 15 years later, it is still difficult to talk about.
The trauma was compounded, Subramaniam says, by Aaron’s belief that the guard had been a “father figure” who would protect him and “loved him”. On a subsequent detention at Rangeview, he says the guard ignored him. “It was just very complicated,” Aaron told Subramaniam. “I just felt very hurt, very betrayed.”
Growing number of claims against WA government
Guardian Australia has spent five months investigating allegations of sexual abuse inside Australia’s youth detention centres. Chamberlains is one of several law firms quietly amassing cases from past detainees who are now suing state and territory governments for negligence, alleging that they failed in their duty of care to protect them from sexual abuse, physical abuse and rape. A class action launched by Levitt Robertson solicitors has amassed more than 100 members, all former Banksia Hill detainees.
In South Australia, police last month charged a 73-year-old man with historical child sexual abuse offences connected to children who had been detained in the now defunct Magill detention centre. Subramaniam says he has seen a growing number of claims alleging rape and sexual assault of children in state custody, dating from 1986 through to 2016. Twenty-two cases concern people who allege they were sexually abused inside the WA youth detention system. Nine of those making these claims are First Nations people.
The allegations span detention centres including Longmore remand centre, Riverbank detention centre, Rangeview and the Banksia Hill centre – the only one still in operation. Rangeview closed in 2012 after repeated concerns were raised about staffing levels and poor management. All of the institutions are members of the national redress scheme, established after the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.
Compensation offers and legal battle
Getting information from the WA government about those cases, Subramaniam says, has been a David and Goliath battle. Simply accessing detainee incarceration records or notes has taken years of freedom of information requests. At times, he says, the process has felt deliberately obstructive.
The state government commonly pushes for cases to settle, he says. The standard offer of compensation is about $75,000, similar to the amount offered under the national redress scheme, despite the matters being separate legal claims. Shockingly, he says he has heard these payments referred to colloquially as “bum money”. The WA government did not respond when asked directly about the use of that term.
“It’s a derogatory term and it’s a term that fits in with a group of litigants or claimants who come from very deprived backgrounds,” Subramaniam says. “We’re carving out a segment of us of our society which we’re denying them any sort of human dignity.”
The WA government has been a signatory to the national redress scheme since 2019. As of 30 June 2025, it has paid out more than $28m to 361 survivors. In its 2025 annual report, the justice department confirmed it was being sued for “a number of historical child sexual abuse claims for damages” unrelated to the redress scheme.
Asked about claims it was obstructing the legal process, the department said it acted “in accordance with the Western Australia Government Whole of Government Guiding Principles for Responding to Civil Litigation and in accordance with its obligations as a model litigant”.
The youth justice system was subject to oversight by external and statutory bodies, it said – including the office of the inspector of custodial services, the WA commissioner for children and young people and the president of the children’s court of Western Australia, “all of whom visit detention facilities regularly and report publicly”. “The Department gives upmost [sic] priority to the safety and wellbeing of young people in its care,” it said.
Former judge calls for inquiry
The former children’s court president and the longest-serving judge of that court, Denis Reynolds, called for an independent inquiry into the management of youth detention in WA, saying: “The machinery of government in WA fails children and particularly vulnerable children.”
Reynolds did not comment on specific allegations of sexual abuse within youth detention but in a statement to Guardian Australia said conditions had become “more punitive and harsh” since the 2013 Banksia Hill riot and the opening of Unit 18, a makeshift youth detention facility within the walls of the maximum-security adult prison at Casuarina. He said both facilities were not “fit for purpose” and the government and the department had “lost their way and no longer consider and treat children as children but rather treat them as adults”.
“The concept that trusting relationships between detainees and detention staff is the best means of security and essential for rehabilitation is no longer applied,” he said. He added that there was a “serious lack of transparency on how child protection and youth justice, including detention facilities, operate” which was “highly undesirable and unacceptable”. “It can and does lead to bad practice and bad culture which are difficult and time consuming to correct.”
For Aaron, that broken trust has had a lifelong impact. Through his lawyers, he says he hopes to get the WA government to recognise that harm. “He wanted to share his story because he wants justice so that he can move forward with his life and his partner,” Subramaniam says. *Name has been changed.
