The Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania has claimed that a 13-year-old girl was wrongfully arrested and detained overnight for breaching a “non-existent” curfew.
Tasmania Police arrested her on Wednesday evening not far from her home in Hobart.
The girl was taken to Hobart Remand Centre where her family claim she was stripped and given other clothes to wear.
She was released the following morning without charge.
Police said they followed “all legislative and procedural protocols” and acted on information about bail conditions supplied by the magistrates court.
Michael Mansell, the land council chairman, said the family are seeking legal advice on the matter.
“I'm told by the grandparents who saw the girl in custody that the police had stripped her of all her clothes – she wasn't told why – and put in a robe,” he told NITV.
“The girl was very upset, obviously traumatised by it.”
He insisted that the girl had “done nothing wrong, broken no law, broken no rules, [and] had not broken any court orders” and suggested that police actions should be scrutinised.
"It is a legitimate question as to why the police did not take the child to her home address which was only a couple of kilometres away from where they picked her up and a lot closer to the parents place than it was to go to the remand centre,” Mr Mansell said.
