WA Corrective Services commissioner stood down following the death of Cleveland Dodd

Commissioner Mike Reynolds has been replaced while another staff member has been "suspended from duty".

PERTH STOCK

The teenager was found unresponsive in his cell earlier this month. Source: AAP / Aaron Bunch/AAP Image

Warning: this story may be distressing to some readers.

Two employees of Western Australia's corrective services department have been stood down in the wake of the state's first juvenile death in custody last week.

Cleveland Dodd a week earlier at the notorious Unit 18 juvenile detention facility at Casuarina Prison.

He was 16 years old.

Western Australia's minister of police Paul Papalia announced on Wednesday that corrective services' top official, Commissioner Mike Reynolds, had been replaced.

He also confirmed that another staff member had been stood down as part of an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice into the incident.

Questions remain for family

Mr Dodd's family are now trying to ascertain what happened to the teenager before he died.

His grandmother, Glenda Mippy, said she would not be returning to her home of Meekatharra, hundreds of kilometres from Perth, until her family had answers on Mr Dodd's final days.

"Where were the people who were supposed to care for him when all this was going down?" she said, speaking with Channel 10's Narelda Jacobs.

Some media reports have alleged that the guard on duty when Mr Dodd self-harmed was asleep.

Minister Papalia would not confirm those reports when he appeared before media on Wednesday.

Dodd was the first child to die in WA juvenile detention in the state's history.

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Published 25 October 2023 3:32pm
By Dan Butler
Source: NITV


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