Mr. Love questions the Minister for Corrective Services regarding a discrepancy in the reported response time to a youth suicide attempt at Unit 18, Casuarina Prison. The Minister defends his initial statement, citing reliance on immediate post-incident accounts.

AnsweredQoN 795Legislative Assembly
Asked
7 November 2023
Portfolio
Corrective Services

QuestionView source ↗

YOUTH SUICIDE — UNIT
18, CASUARINA PRISON — RESPONSE TIME
795. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Corrective Services:
I also acknowledge the visitors from
the Cook Islands and wish them the best on their journey and trip here in Western
Australia.
I refer to the minister's
press conference on 12 October on the 16-year-old found unresponsive in unit 18
in which he stated that the boy contacted officers by intercom and then it was
only a matter of minutes before he was checked and found unresponsive. Given
that it has been revealed by the ABC that it was a 16-minute response time,
does the minister accept that he has misled the public and will he correct the
record?

AnswerView source ↗

I thank the member for his question.
On the day of the very sad and tragic incident involving Cleveland Dodd, in the
hours thereafter and in the immediate aftermath, I appeared in front of the
media in the public interest to provide a briefing
on the situation as it was known at that time by the command in Corrective
Services and me. That is what I did. As in all immediate post–critical
incidents, information gathering was based upon mostly personal accounts of
those directly involved. Any other information or access to further detail was
not available to us at the time, so what I gave and what the department
commander's understanding was, was correct.

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