Cleveland Dodd inquest: Arthritic officer who discovered tragic teen didn’t run, have radio, call out for help

The youth custodial officer who found Cleveland Dodd hanging in his cell says he didn’t run to alert authorities because he has arthritic knees and didn’t call out for help as he was in shock and solely focused on that one task. Daniel Torrijos was the first witness to be called in the expedited coronial investigation into the 16-year-old’s death at the notorious Unit 18 in October. He had been chatting with a different detainee — who was on the highest level of the at-risk management system, meaning he had been assessed as being at the greatest risk of self-harming — who had tried to hang himself earlier that day. Mr Torrijos said he was trying to extricate himself from the conversation and had peered in on Cleveland moments earlier but the other boy “wanted to keep yarning”. The YCO of 10 years told the Coroner’s Court on Friday that when he next looked through Cleveland’s viewing hatch, he thought at first “I was seeing things”. “I thought he was playing some sort of trick. I looked at his face and it was still,” he said. “I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing. He was definitely gone.” In CCTV footage shown in court, Mr Torrijos walked at a moderately brisk pace to tell the senior officer, Kyle Mead-Hunter, that he had found the boy hanging from a damaged air vent. “It mightn’t have looked as if I was going quick but it was as quick as I could go,” Mr Torrijos said. “I’ve got arthritic knees. I can’t run.” First he had to turn the light on in Mr Mead-Hunter’s office, who appeared to be emerging “from a reclined position”, counsel assisting the coroner Anthony Crocker said in his opening address. Mr Torrijos said he returned to Cleveland’s cell, again not calling out for help on the way. He was asked why. “I was just in shock. I don’t know,” he replied. “I was just focused on getting (access to the cell). I just wanted to get him down.” Mr Torrijos, like the other officers on shift that night, was not wearing a radio — a breach of Department of Justice policy. If they had been carrying their radios, he could have called in a code red medical emergency, Coroner Phil Urqhuart pointed out. Mr Torrijos had earlier agreed he should have been carrying a radio but questioned “at that time of night whether they would have instantly jumped up”. “Your description of Unit 18 prior to this night was it was chaos and unsuitable for housing detainees . . . an emergency could arise,” the coroner said. “Did it ever cross your mind that not having a radio was going to make it difficult to respond to an emergency?” Mr Torrijos, who had been moved to Unit 18 from Banksia Hill, responded: “I was there for six to eight months and we managed to do the job and nothing happened”. He earlier testified that he didn’t recall “ever wearing a radio there” but they were “always” worn on night shift at Banksia Hill. Mr Torrijos had earlier said Unit 18 was perceived by his colleagues as “set up to fail”, and some Banksia Hill officers refused to go to the unit, even for a one-off shift. “Probably because they knew it was chaos,” he said. The unit was created within the maximum-security adult male Casuarina Prison in July 2022 following a massive riot at Banksia Hill because it had slab walls — not bricks — but it was still not set up for this destructive cohort, the officer said. Early mistakes were made, such as freeing a dozen boys from their cells at once to have breakfast in a common area. “They destroyed the place,” Mr Torrijos said. Mr Torrijos described the cells as so damaged they were “unliveable”, including many toilets that didn’t flush, requiring officers to do it manually using a valve in an exterior utility cupboard. The in-cell CCTV cameras had scratched lenses and were “almost always covered” by detainees with damp toilet paper. That tragic night, the chatty boy at the highest ARMS rating went the entire shift un-monitored via CCTV, Mr Torrijos said. “How could that have happened?” Mr Crocker asked. Mr Torrijos said that at Banksia Hill, children on that rating were constantly observed in purpose-built cells. He said he and other officers had repeatedly complained to superiors about it — and that staff shortages also made it virtually impossible to do physical cell checks as regularly as required under ARMS. But “no one listened to us”. “We were travelling blind a lot of the time at Unit 18,” Mr Torrijos said. “It was an accident waiting to happen. “We just tried to function as best as we could.” Mr Torrijos, who has already given evidence to a separate Corruption and Crime Commission investigation, was asked at the end of Friday’s hearing about “ticking off” welfare checks when they had not been done. He will return for a second day of grilling on Monday, with cross examination yet to commence. The second tranche of the inquest starting July 22 will include testimony from Mr Mead-Hunter, who appeared to be putting on his boots and buttoning up his shirt after Mr Torrijos raised the alarm. Cleveland’s incarcerated father Wayne Gentle watched the testimony on Friday via videolink from Greenough Regional Prison, where he will remain until his sentence ends in June after having a parole bid knocked back. Lifeline 13 11 14