Valuable information about the true picture of child sexual abuse allegations at Tasmania's Ashley Youth Detention Centre sat in government records for a "long time" before being pieced together, an inquiry has been told.
The centre, which has operated for more than two decades, has been described at a commission of inquiry into child sexual abuse as having a culture of brutality and dehumanisation.
An Ashley employee, "Lester", was in November 2020 stood down over historical abuse allegations, about 10 months after concerns were first raised to the relevant department by a centre clinical consultant.
Acting Director of People and Culture at the Department of Communities, Jacqueline Allen, gave evidence on Thursday about attempts to find information about Lester in the lead up to his standing down.
She said a state government abuse in care program was mentioned to her in passing.
The program, which ran from 2003-13, paid more than $54 million to 1800 abuse survivors.
"It's my understanding ... that the four rounds of the abuse in state care applications were never put together to paint a picture of who may have been perpetrators of child sexual abuse," Ms Allen said.
"There was definitely valuable intelligence a long time ago in relation to potential perpetrators of child sexual abuse.
"It wasn't until ... those files were got out and put together (that) a bit of a picture, a true picture, as to what may have occurred at Ashley was able to be painted."
The inquiry was told while many of the claims related to abuse at a boys home, which operated prior to Ashley on the same site, they also concerned Ashley staff.
"You can see the same names and the same types of abuse. It's quite confronting," Ms Allen said.
"We see themes coming through now in terms of almost 'opportunities' for abuse, such as strip searches. That's probably the main one."
Former deputy secretary of corporate services at the communities department, Kathy Baker, said records available during searches for information about Lester were "very limited".
"I do recall the team were on hands and knees in basements trying to fossick through records to see what information holdings the department actually had," she said.
The allegation against Lester was reported to police in November 2020.
Ms Baker said in hindsight the department should have reported it earlier.
The state government has in recent days stood by a commitment made in September to shut the centre within three years, despite calls from the national children's commissioner and others to close it immediately
A former detainee, known under the pseudonym Fred, said staff provoked fights between children as "sport".
He suffers post-traumatic stress disorder, "crazy flashbacks" and panic attacks from what he saw and experienced.
"(Workers would tell detainees) 'He said this' and that would cause arguments and therefore fights. They were doing that just for sport, to watch," he told the inquiry.
Fred said he saw three or four staff "jump on" detainees, knee them to the head and bash them on the ground, as well as the violent rape of one detainee by another.
"I saw a female detainee dragged from the shower naked by her hair, placed on the ground and cuffed," he said.
Fred was also held down and strip-searched. He wrote a complaint and slipped it under his unit door but never heard about it again.
"Just close this place down and start again. It is systemic," he said.
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