Teen strapped to chair, Dylan Voller, has parole bid rejected

Nick Toscano

The teenager who was filmed being shackled to a mechanical chair in a Darwin detention centre has had his application for parole knocked back.

Dylan Voller, now 18, has been at the centre of allegations of abuse in the Northern Territory's juvenile detention system since he was featured in an explosive Four Corners episode earlier this year that sparked a royal commission.

Shocking and appalling: PM

Lindt siege police response in question

'I said to myself I'm going now'

Port of Melbourne lease secures $9.7b for Victoria

Dashcam owner rammed by Commodore

Indigenous recognition: Yes or No?

Pauline's praise

Crossbench wants Syria bombing inquiry

Shocking and appalling: PM

After disturbing vision emerged of boys being tear gassed and one restrained in the Northern Territory's Don Dale detention centre, Malcolm Turnbull says a Royal Commission into youth abuse is needed. Courtesy ABC News 24, 4 Corners.

The Northern Territory Department of Correctional Services on Thursday confirmed that Voller had made a parole application, but the parole board knocked it back last week.

A spokesman for the department said the board does not disclose its reasons for rejections.

Dylan Voller in a restraining chair in the footage aired on <i>Four Corners</i>. — Dylan Voller in a restraining chair in the footage aired on *Four Corners*.

"For a number of important reasons including protection of victims, maintaining the privacy of a prisoner's family, preserving clinical relationships that have been established between a prisoner and his or her rehabilitation providers, and the safety and wellbeing of the prisoner it is not the normal practice of the Parole Board to publish its reasons for refusing parole," he said.

The spokesman said "detailed reasons" for the decision had been given to lawyers from the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, who represented Voller in his application.

Voller was jailed after reportedly being sentenced in 2014 over a drug-fuelled crime spree in Alice Springs.

This year's Four Corners episode contained footage of repeated assaults, tear-gassings and other alleged abuses of boys at youth detention centres in the NT, including the Don Dale Detention Centre in Darwin.

Footage from 2010 showed Voller, who was 13 at the time, being being thrown across his cell, knocked to the ground, repeatedly stripped naked, and kept in solitary confinement.

Announcing the royal commission into the NT juvenile justice system in July, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he had been "shocked and appalled" by the footage aired.

"Like all Australians, we are shocked by the report ... deeply shocked," he said. "We have moved swiftly to get to the bottom of it."

The royal commission is expected to start hearing from witnesses in coming months.