The mother of Dylan Voller — the boy whose sickening treatment triggered a royal commission into the Northern Territory’s youth detention — believes the government betrayed her family.
Joanne Voller broke her silence on Monday night when she told the ABC’s 7:30 her son struggled with his temper and when he was just 11 and the NT Department of Children and Families said if she reported him to the police after he broke her window Dylan would get the right treatment.
“At the time he needed counselling to help with his anger issues, but it’s not what he received in jail,” Ms Voller told ABC’s 7.30.
“I was asking for help. I in no way thought he would be hooded and chained to a chair or thrown in isolation for 200 days at a time.
“I really feel like I failed him by ringing the police that day when he broke my window to be honest.”
After a string of incidents Ms Voller said Dylan had “pretty much spent his whole childhood in jail,” and since finding out how her son was treated she in no way thinks that could have helped him reform.
“If I had have done something like they did to my son and that was in the name of caring for my child, I’d be in jail right now,” said Ms Voller.
Dylan is now in an adult prison in Darwin serving time for a serious assault.
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