00:00Well, this was Adam Thomason's second day on the stand, recounting his time as the Director
00:07General of the Department of Justice.
00:08It was a seven-year stint that came to an end earlier this year, but crucially included
00:14much of the problems within youth detention here in WA, as well as the period where Cleveland
00:20Dodd, a 16-year-old boy, self-harmed in his cell and died in hospital a week later.
00:25That was WA's first recorded death in juvenile detention.
00:30Dr. Thomason was giving evidence in quite general terms at points today, and at one
00:37point acknowledged that he had been quite defensive in his response to various issues
00:43that were coming up with the department's handling of those issues in youth detention.
00:49And he broke down crying giving that evidence at one point, saying that after 30 years in
00:54welfare, he was now the guy who was hurting kids.
00:58He said that was hard to deal with, it was hard to reconcile with his own ethics and
01:03his view of who he wanted to be as a professional.
01:07He wanted to do a good job, he said, but they were just failing.
01:11Nothing they were trying to improve the situation in youth detention was working.
01:16This came after yesterday he directly apologised to Cleveland's mum, who's been sitting in
01:21court throughout this inquest.
01:24That's an apology which the family's representatives say they don't really accept, because he was
01:29in a position of power at the time, he could have done something to avoid this, they say,
01:35and he didn't.
01:36Quite interestingly, he also acknowledged that at times the department he was overseeing
01:42was involved in the institutional abuse of children because of the lockdowns that were
01:46happening 23, 24 hours a day at some points.
01:51He said that wasn't child abuse as he saw it, it was institutional abuse and it's really
01:55one of the first times we've heard that level of acknowledgement from the government.
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