00:00Born in 2006, the court transcripts show the boy, who we're calling Ben, had an extraordinarily
00:08difficult time as a child, with a lot of trauma, and was sometimes without his parents.
00:14Ben told a law firm he first went into detention around age 11, he stopped going to school
00:20altogether around age 12, and two years later was in state care.
00:25The teenager's offending continued and escalated, but things started to look up by
00:29late 2022, and with an out-of-home care provider, he has a safe place to live for the first
00:35time in years.
00:37He was focused on his future, and a bright future.
00:42But when a friend came to visit, he offended again, racking up more than a dozen charges,
00:47including terrorising a woman who was home with her three-year-old child, armed with
00:52a metal pole.
00:54He went back to detention, where the offending continued as he participated in a major riot
00:59on New Year's Eve 2022.
01:02They threatened the staff with violence.
01:06He's granted bail, but a few days later, offence again, breaking into several properties in
01:11one night.
01:12Ben's sent back to detention, where conditions are tortuous, according to his lawyer.
01:17It fuels an even bigger riot a few months later.
01:22It's totally, utterly unacceptable.
01:25It's a form of terrorism they're engaged in.
01:27Ben's one of the final seven to be caught as officers point guns at the group's heads.
01:35When he was in court a few months later, things were looking up again, and the judge gave
01:40him a message.
01:41You can do a lot with your life.
01:42You can get out, get a job, work, lead a good life, or you can spend the rest of your life
01:48in jail or dead.
01:51After offending again shortly after his release in April of 2024, Ben wrote to the Children's
01:56Court.
01:57I need to change my ways before I turn 18 in September, because I don't want to enter
02:01or experience the adult system.
02:04Your Honour, I am asking for one last chance today.
02:07The magistrate was impressed, but didn't want to release him, because...
02:11I don't want to set you up to fail.
02:13A month later, his lawyer continued to argue for him to get bail, explaining why he kept
02:18re-offending.
02:19He obviously relapsed when he got out of jail because he was spending a lot of time in detention,
02:24and then couldn't go back into a community, couldn't focus on people who were supposed
02:29to be there to support him.
02:31But he has now got that support.
02:33Eventually he found a place in a rehab program in mid-August and was granted bail, but he
02:38ran away.
02:39It's not clear why.
02:41He was found and put back into detention, his fifth visit in just two years, which takes
02:47us to Thursday, August the 29th.
02:50That afternoon he was out of the cell most of the time until the evening, and over the
02:55course of the evening we know he was checked 10 times by my staff.
03:01On the 11th occasion, just prior to 10pm, he was found unresponsive.
03:05Sadly we couldn't revive the young man.
03:08The ABC's been told by people familiar with Ben's case, but not allowed to speak publicly,
03:14and those involved in his care did as much as they could, but they were let down by the
03:19systems they were working in.
03:21Systems made more complicated as he approached adulthood and aged out of juvenile supports.
03:27They're systems the government is promising to improve, and eventual coronial inquest
03:32might shed light on whether that's happening fast enough.
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