The federal court has ruled that $27.5m in compensation for Indonesian children falsely imprisoned as adult people smugglers in Australia is “fair and reasonable”.
The Indonesian children, mainly from impoverished fishing villages, were intercepted and detained at the height of the former government’s attempts to deter asylum seeker boats between 2007 and 2013.
Government and police policy dictated that children found on such boats – many of whom had been tricked or coerced to crew the boats on false pretences – be sent home.
The Australian federal police instead relied on a deeply flawed technique to determine age by interpreting wrist X-rays.
That led to the children being detained as adults for extended periods. Many were charged and convicted of criminal offences and locked up in maximum security adult jails.
A Guardian Australia investigation has previously revealed how federal police had information casting doubt on the reliability of the wrist X-ray technique but continued to use it regardless.
Last year, in a major challenge, six of the Indonesians successfully overturned their criminal convictions, which were found to be a miscarriage of justice.
Now, their lawyers Ken Cush and Associates have succeeded in a class action against the commonwealth, alleging unlawful imprisonment, negligence and misfeasance in public office by police.
The federal government had agreed to settle the case for $27.5m, plus legal costs, but the agreement required court approval.
On Friday, Justice Christopher Horan deemed the amount “fair and reasonable” and approved the settlement, though he reduced a payout to the lead plaintiff, Ali Yasmin, from $100,000 to $40,000, despite the government agreeing to pay the higher amount.
Yasmin, then 13, was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of five years’ imprisonment and served time in a maximum security adult jail.
He had alleged that police, by signing a sworn prosecution notice with a false birth date, had committed misfeasance in public office.
Yasmin’s lawyers said he welcomed the compensation and the court’s decision that it was fair and reasonable.
“Mr Yasmin would like to thank the Court for considering and approving the settlement of the class action so promptly before Christmas,” they said. “Mr Yasmin would also like to thank and recognise Mr Colin Singer and Ibu Aat Kaswati for their support and assistance provided to him and the class members for more than a decade and his lawyers at Ken Cush & Associates for helping him to achieve this landmark and life-changing outcome.”
The government has not admitted liability and previously disputed many of the key allegations raised in the case.
The judgment delivered on Friday says there are roughly 240 potential members of the class action, though a process to find more will continued for the next 12 months.
The judgment also shows that the Indonesians who were convicted of adult people smuggling offences were held in adult jails for 28.8 months on average, before being released due to doubts about their age.
Those who were charged but had their prosecutions discontinued spent 6.6 months in adult jails and longer in immigration detention.
Internal records previously revealed by the Guardian show both police and senior government figures knew before the boys were jailed that there were doubts about the technique’s accuracy.
Records show an investigating officer in some of the cases had been involved in a remarkably similar prosecution eight years earlier, during which the court heard that using wrist X-ray evidence to determine age was open to error and “not an exact science”, and that the key reference tool on which it depended should be used with “judicious scepticism”.
Despite those concerns, police altered the dates of birth provided to them by the six children – changing the year of birth, but keeping the month and day – to turn them into adults and make their ages fit the X-ray reports.
