Senior prison official’s court testimony at odds with government spin on Queensland youth detention

Guards at the Cleveland youth centre say it is ‘rare’ for children to spend more than eight hours outside their cells. Photograph: Scott Radford-Chisholm/The Guardian

In a Townsville courtroom last month, a senior manager at the Cleveland youth detention centre sat in the witness box to answer questions about the prison’s systematic use of solitary confinement.

For months, the state government has defended conditions inside Cleveland, in the face of accounts by guards, teachers, youth workers, court documents, judges and children documenting problematic practices.