Five hundred days in solitary: Queensland teenager’s case ‘a major failure of our system’

A Guardian Australia investigation into Cleveland found that lockdowns of young people were so common this year that some children spent months in solitary confinement. Photograph: Scott Radford-Chisholm/The Guardian

An Aboriginal teenager with an intellectual disability was likely locked in solitary confinement for more than 500 days at Queensland’s troubled Cleveland youth detention centre, in a situation described to a court as a “major failure in our system”.

Michael*, now 19, spent more than two years on remand at the Townsville centre while the children’s court dealt with charges related to a violent sexual attack on a 16-year-old girl.