Terminally ill man allegedly abused as a child at Ashley detention centre fights to access records

A terminally ill man who alleges he was abused at Tasmania's only youth detention centre decades ago has been told that systemic delays may keep him from receiving his personal records before his death.

For most of his life, Austin* blocked out the time he spent at the Ashley detention centre as a teenager, where he said he experienced sexual abuse and violence.

But a terminal cancer diagnosis has prompted him to tell his story.

Ashley Home for Boys opened in 1926 and became Ashley Youth Detention Centre in 1999.

A few weeks ago, Austin sat down with his sisters, niece and daughter and told them about his upbringing in northern Tasmania and, for the first time, how he came to be placed in Ashley towards the late 1950s.

"We had dinner and all went home and my niece, unbeknownst to me, did a search on Ashley boys' home," he said.

"At the same time my daughter did a search on Ashley boys' home and that's where we came up across that class action and the result of it."

A turning point for the family

Austin, now a resident of Victoria, had never heard of the class action filed in 2022, in which four lead plaintiffs and more than 100 former detainees alleged systemic negligence in the management of the centre, dating back to 1961 up until at least December 2019.

He was shocked to learn that the case was settled in 2024 for $75 million, but some part of him felt validated by it.

"Because then I could talk with my niece and I could talk with my daughter about why I ended up the person I ended up … and that was basically because of the Ashley boys' home," he said.

Austin says he struggled to stay out of trouble with the law and that his trauma has held him back from expressing that immense love he feels for his children.

"You kind of always knew that something was a little bit off, like he was a little bit hands-off as far as parenting [was concerned]," his daughter Emily* said.

For Austin and his family, the news of a potential delay in the release of his records has been gut-wrenching.

"The mental health of men in this country is quite terrible [and] when they're actually prepared to try and deal with some things … then they just get stonewalled," Emily said.

"It's almost like, you know, if we push them to the side they won't follow it up because it's too painful — it hurts."

Quest for records follows recommendation to close Ashley

Austin said he ended up in Ashley after stealing a car while trying to flee his violent stepfather.

"I was basically trying to escape violence all my life and then I got put into a place that was more violent," he said.

In 2023 the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government's Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings recommended that Ashley be closed as soon as possible.

Throughout the course of the inquiry, the commissioners heard "a long history of allegations of child sexual abuse" in the centre and considered that child sexual abuse was "not merely a historical problem for the centre, but remains a live and current risk".

At 81, Austin's memories of the detention centre are still unbearably sharp, but he cannot be sure of exact dates and he does not have any documentation from the time.

The Tasmanian government does have that documentation — Austin's family have been told that a welfare file exists for him — but when they put in a formal request, they were shocked to hear it could take up to eight months.

Potential delays to access records 

Annabelle Ward, a solicitor at Angela Sdrinis Legal, said delays were a common problem for victim-survivors who requested their records and that in most cases the process could take between 12 and 18 months.

"It can be pretty discouraging, because … coming forward as a survivor is a really difficult thing to do, let alone having to deal with a lawyer and then also having to deal with the justice system, which is fraught with its own difficulties," she said.

Ms Ward said that in her experience the Department for Education, Children and Young People did fast-track requests from people who were terminally ill, but there was no standard time-frame for that.

Austin is not sure whether he will lodge a compensation claim, but he would not be able to start that process without his personal records.

Other avenues available to victim-survivors include accessing the National Redress Scheme or a second class action, which Angela Sdrinis Legal is preparing.

"[Once I have the files] I can put it all together," Austin said.

Department 'acutely aware' of urgency

The Department for Education, Children and Young People does prioritise cases for medical reasons but has not been able to say how long an expedited request takes, as it manages a large number of requests.

"The department will always work to prioritise urgent applications wherever possible," a spokesperson said.

"We are acutely aware that for some, the request for information requires immediate action."

The department received $2.9 million in funding over the four years to July 2029 to improve information management and "further reduce the time it takes to provide information to victim-survivors".

Steve Fisher, the chief executive officer of advocacy organisation Beyond Abuse, said while the government process could be very helpful but it did tend to take a long time.

"What concerns me about that is that the person gets further traumatised as the process goes on," he said.

*Names have been changed