Cigarettes, drugs and alcohol used to bribe teens into fights in youth detention, class action claims

A major class action has been launched over allegations of physical and sexual abuse of children detained at the Parkville Youth Justice Precinct over more than 50 years.

Dozens of guards at the youth correctional facility are accused of having conducted unlawful strip searches of teenage boys, who were also subjected to beatings, solitary confinement and sexual assaults, according to a writ filed against the state government in the Supreme Court.

The court documents include harrowing details of guards allegedly encouraging and sometimes paying young detainees to fight each other, while other staff allegedly failed to intervene or report assaults to authorities.

The legal case coincides with a surge in youth crime across Victoria and unprecedented pressure on the state’s juvenile correctional facilities.

The class action was filed last month by Melbourne solicitor Angela Sdrinis, who was involved in a similar claim on behalf of 129 former detainees at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre in Tasmania which was settled for $75 million in 2024.

Sdrinis said the Victorian claim would apply to former detainees who suffered abuse between 1973 and 2023 at the Parkville Youth Justice Precinct, which was known as the Turana Youth Training Centre until 1993.

“The class action will address alleged systemic operational and governance failures that have left children at Parkville vulnerable to abuse by staff and co-detainees,” Sdrinis said.

“Many class members also allege abuse by other detainees. The prevalence of child-on-child abuse has been reported as significant and a continuing problem in youth detention.”

She said a series of government reviews and the royal commission into child abuse had previously identified widespread mistreatment of detainees at the Parkville facility, while a recent report by a United Nations working group had raised broader concerns about youth detention in Australia.

The royal commission found systemic failures at the state-run youth facility which involved a regime of punishment against inmates, physical and sexual abuse by staff members and a failure to protect vulnerable children.

One of the lead plaintiffs in the class action, who was given the pseudonym CN in court documents, alleges he was sexually assaulted on three occasions by a unit supervisor in 2011 when he was aged 15.

He claims he was also forcibly strip-searched, repeatedly beaten by other guards and placed in isolation as punishment, while also offered inducements to assault other detainees.

“Various officers provided CN with contraband, including cigarettes,