Australia's Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail

by Phelps, James

  Swain was alive, but sometimes he did not want to be.

  ‘I was useless. At times I just wanted someone to kill me. My memory is still bad, and I remember weird things about that time. I can’t remember coming out of the coma, and I only remember thinking that I had no memory for about two or three weeks, but really six months had been wiped out.’

  Swain can now talk. He stumbles and stutters, but he can talk. He can also walk, cook and shop for himself.

  ‘I even built that kitchen,’ he says, pointing to a shiny new cooktop.

  But Swain will never be the man he was.

  ‘They cut a big piece of my brain out and I will never get it back,’ he says. ‘I am missing the front part that affects speech and some of my movement. I can’t say lots of words, and it took me a year to learn how to walk. Damn, that was hard.’

  Prison Payback

  SPLASH!

  The water slapped against their cold, naked bodies, the ten rioters shivering as they huddled together in a hopeless bid to keep warm.

  ‘Give us some fucking clothes, you dogs!’ one of them screamed. ‘You can’t do this!’

  Wayne Connors, Colin Davis, Craig Lardner, Aaron Maher, Joshua Mansfield, James Paulson, Ronald Priestly, Dwayne Welsh, John Weston and Daniel Barker were all identified as major players in the April 2002 riot. They were the men who stomped, smashed and slapped the officers. They were the inmates who swung sticks and drove didgeridoos. They were the attackers who injured seven guards and put Swain in a coma.

  And now several Corrective Services officers began dishing out jailhouse justice.

  In a gross violation of their human rights, the inmates were stripped naked and doused with buckets of ice-cold water as payback for the riot. They were also assaulted.

  Slap.

  A booming overhead; an open-handed right thudded into an inmate’s ear. He fell to the ground, writhing in agony.

  Bang.

  Another guard, another prisoner, same result: inmate on the ground, a blubbering mess.

  Twelve years after the riot, a former officer involved in the ‘clean-up’, speaking on the condition of anonymity, has now revealed what they were ordered to do to the prisoners after they were herded into a holding cell in the aftermath.

  ‘They were made to feel very uncomfortable and doused with buckets of water every now and then,’ said the officer. ‘We made sure they had that cold feeling and were treated in a way that got some payback. It was payback, plain and simple. They threatened to turn it on if we didn’t give them clothes and whatever else. They carried on a bit, but we were all geared up and ready to go.’

  The officer said he and the team of wardens who were sent to watch the inmates and respond to any further violent behavior were told to breach department policy.

  ‘We were told not to use any video cameras under any circumstance,’ said the officer. ‘Whatever action that took place would not be recorded. Whenever we stepped into the cells, there was no record of it. That is totally against departmental procedure, but that was the order.’

  The officer also claimed the inmates were physically assaulted after making threatening comments while locked in the cell.

  ‘They were left naked and wet until the next day,’ the former officer continued. ‘They went at us and started jumping up and down. They started yelling. Some of these guys knew us by name, and they’d seen us around and knew what we were like. They yelled at us and wouldn’t stop. One of the officers took some serious offence to what was said, and he looked over at us – it was one in, all in. We went down to the cell, opened it up and he gave one of them an overhand slap to the ear. It knocked him pretty much into next year. Another officer got off a shot and the guy dropped straight to the ground. Some of the others came in and gave them a few clips around the ear. It was a case of, If you want to play the game then we will too.

  ‘They all started crying and huddled back up. Even though they were nude, they were all huddled into a group. Paulson and Priestly were crybabies – they were the ones that cried the most. We had broken them by 2am and they were nothing but blubbering babies.’

  The ten men, who all stood trial for the riot with charges ranging from affray to attempted murder, alleged they had been mistreated.

  ‘They complained about it to their legal representative,’ said the officer. ‘I think it was the legal rep that brought it up in court. I was under the impression that if they even mentioned it again or told their legal reps the story again, their lives would not be worth living in jail.’

  Gone Girls

  I push Tim Swain on what he can remember about Priestly and Paulson, about broken table legs and didgeridoos.

  ‘I can remember that,’ Swain says. He stops talking and shakes his head. And then he cries. ‘But it’s what I can’t remember that hurts. There is a huge chunk before the attack that is missing, and that hurts more than remembering the attack. The worst is my kids – I can’t remember anything of my daughters. Their whole childhood has just been wiped out. They were young when it happened, about 11 or 12, and I can’t remember anything about them. It’s gone. It’s all gone …’

  Swain composes himself.

  ‘Sorry, but that really pisses me off,’ he continues. ‘It makes me angry.’

  Swain then turns his mind back to 16 April 2002.

  ‘There were six or seven blokes in the wing that were especially bad. They didn’t like me and they wanted me dead. I think it was a plan to kill me. I’m sure they were after me. They planned to get me. I had problems with them for years, and now they were after me.’

  Swain then breaks out in a smile. He is reflecting on one of his few good memories.

  ‘I’m thinking about when I saw them in court,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘You know, the buggers who did this. They all pleaded not guilty because they thought I couldn’t give evidence, that I couldn’t talk. I practised for hours, and when I got up I managed to say my name. When I walked out past the box, I hit the glass, pointed at them and, you know.’ He sticks his finger up. ‘After that they all pleaded guilty. That felt pretty good.’

  Lessons Learned – Rioting in 2014

  In September 2014, an incident declared in headlines as the ‘Worst Riot At Goulburn In More Than A Decade’ was downplayed by the Department of Corrective Services as a minor disturbance. The stand-off between guards and Yard 6 also caused a stink between the Daily Telegraph and the ABC – the former, who broke the story, claiming religion was a factor, the latter saying it was not. Decide for yourself.

  ‘Hey,’ shouted the inmate to a female guard. ‘Yeah you, you fucking cunt. I’ll chop your head off and post it on the internet. You’re a fucking DOG.’

  The guard was furious and reported the comments to her superior.

  ‘That’s disgusting behaviour,’ said the boss, ‘and I’m sick of this kind of shit. Lay misconduct charges on those involved and send the rest of them a message. Take away their bloody barbecue – it’s a privilege, not a right.’

  And so it began …

  Yard 6, the Koori Yard, is located in C Wing. It holds an average of 30 prisoners at any particular time. The exclusive-to-Goulburn policy of racial segregation sees the Koori Yard nestled between the Islander Yard and the Muslim Yard. Racist? Absolutely. Disputed? Rarely. On 20 September 2014, there were 33 inmates in the yard.

  And boy, were they pissed …

  ‘The barbecue was an excuse,’ said an officer involved in the riot. ‘It gave them a reason to cause shit. The Koori Yard is constantly carrying on. They have an us-against-the-world mentality, and anything that happens to them happens to them because they are black. Officially the incident occurred because the barbecue was taken away, but it was just the spark they needed to set a fire.

  ‘Things like barbecues are a control measure in jail. You give them good things like barbecues when they behave, and you take them away when they don’t. Unfortunately, they can use something like this as an excuse for something bigger.�
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  ‘Fuck you, pricks,’ screamed an inmate, directing his senseless slander through the knotted wire fence. ‘You’re a fucking dog. All of yous are fucking dog scum.’

  Another joined in. ‘Yeah, suck on this,’ he said, pointing at his gyrating pelvis.

  Another joined in. Three then four … and eventually all 35.

  ‘There were half a dozen instigators,’ said a guard, who requested anonymity. ‘It started with just yelling, a lot of carrying on. It was the usual shit.’

  But it kept on going, growing louder, more frequent, more potent.

  ‘They kept at it,’ the officer said, ‘and I think it was thanks to a couple of individuals in particular. Two known agitators were in the yard at the time – Damien [Glenn] Featherstone and Conrad Craig. They had been in and out of Goulburn for the last six years. They are both Muslims who converted to Islam while in jail, and they are both shitbags with big mouths. They are young and angry, but others listen to them.’

  Clunk.

  A tin can landed next to an officer’s foot. The inmate had filled it with urine before throwing it over the barb-wire-topped cyclone fence. Predictably, and uselessly, most of the piss ended up back on him, the rest splashing on the concrete ground and metal fence.

  ‘That’s when it became more than words,’ said the officer. ‘First a tin full of piss and then whatever else they had – milk cartons, food, even shoes. We hadn’t formed into squads yet; we were just monitoring and hoping that it would not escalate.’

  More tins filled with piss and flying shoes sufficed as ‘escalation’.

  ‘It was then that the emergency squads started gearing up. They slapped on armour, grabbed shields and loaded the gas …’

  An officer demanded to know what they wanted. He was met with silence … and a carton of piss.

  ‘The officers on the ground tried talking to them,’ continued the officer. ‘But the crims did not want a bar of it. They refused to talk to anyone other than the prison deputy. They were refusing to muster – they muster at 2.30 every afternoon – and by 2.10 we knew that they were not going to muster for sure. Management came down and tried to talk to them.’

  The inmates refused, while reloading cartons and tins.

  ‘Get the boss,’ they screamed. ‘Get the boss, you fucking DOGS.’

  The call was made to the boss, considering the reason behind the riot was the barbecue.

  ‘He came in in a pair of thongs and a T-shirt,’ said the officer. ‘He was on a day off, but I guess that’s why they pay him the big bucks. It also proves that this wasn’t something minor, as was suggested by some.’

  The boss asked them what was going on, what was wrong and what could he do to make them stop throwing shit and return to their cells.

  ‘It was a tricky situation,’ said the highly experienced guard, ‘because you can’t give them what they want. You can’t capitulate. If you give in to them, you are reinforcing bad behaviour.’

  The manager of security told the inmates that, because of their disgraceful comments to the female guard that morning, they wouldn’t be getting the barbecue back. It’s a privilege, not a right …

  By now the officers had formed into squads. They were all geared up, gassed up and itching to go.

  ‘You just can’t give them a win,’ said the officer. ‘No matter how small. You can’t, because down the line someone will end up getting seriously hurt.’

  The order was given: ‘Shut it down.’

  Clink … Clink … Clink.

  Metal hit metal, the cell locks snapping shut as every inmate in the prison – except those ready to riot – were put away.

  ‘All the other areas of the jail were shut,’ the officer said. ‘Supermax included. The officers from Supermax geared up and came down to help. We were lucky because at this stage it was contained. The spontaneous acts of violence that occur in riots often spread without warning. They can get out of hand very quickly. You need a response team in immediately, and the prison action plan has to be put into place.’

  ‘Allahu akbar,’ came the cry from the Muslim Yard as the now formed-up officers stood in front of wings A, B, C and D. ‘Kill the DOGS!’

  ‘We were left with the four yards in the main wing,’ the officer recalled. ‘The Muslim inmates were at the back, and they were egging the Aboriginals on. Then we had the Islanders next door, looking like they wanted to get involved too.’

  First the Asian inmates mustered; they put their hands up and allowed the guards to lock them away in their cells. They were having no part of this. And then, despite the jihadist-shouting and tough-talking, the Muslims surrendered – not that they ever got started.

  ‘They came to the front of the yard and saw 100 officers in full riot gear and shat their pants,’ the officer continued. ‘A lot of these Lebanese blokes are very brave when the odds are in their favour. But when they saw a couple of squads and knew we weren’t going to muck around, they mustered like good little inmates.’

  The fence shook as the Aboriginal inmate climbed.

  Thud.

  He hit the ground on the other side, then bolted across the small concrete section before scaling the next wire fence.

  Thud.

  He was now standing in another yard, facing 30 angry Islanders.

  ‘Some of them ripped the razor wire,’ the officer said. ‘And one of them went over. The Islanders told him to piss off, but they armed him up before he went back. The Islanders then began throwing stuff over the fence to them, things they could use as projectiles or weapons.’

  The final warning was delivered to the Islanders: Go back to your cells or else.

  Four of the inmates took the threat seriously, one of them the notorious armed robber and hit-and-run murderer William Ngati.

  ‘One of the guys that went back in was the guy that killed Skye [19-month-old Skye Sassine] during a police chase,’ the officer said. ‘He was responsible for creating “Skye’s Law” [legislation that carries a maximum five-year jail sentence for failing to stop for police]. That was a bit of a shock because he was involved in a disturbance recently where he assaulted an officer with a tin of tuna. The other 26 refused to go back in.’

  So the armed and armoured squads were left facing 56 rabid inmates.

  ‘It escalated and got to the point where they were throwing more shit,’ the officer said. ‘Brevilles, toasters – whatever they could find. The instigators were on the roof of an old tin humpy. And, believe it or not, one bloke was running around with a plastic bag over his head. I guess it was a makeshift gas mask, but suffocating yourself probably isn’t the best idea. We all thought that was pretty funny.’

  The proclamation was delivered: ‘I’m giving you a direction to move to the front of the yard and muster. If you fail to comply, force may be used.’

  One of the inmates stopped rampaging to reply, ‘Piss off,’ before getting back to the ripping, tearing and throwing.

  Pop. Pop.

  Two 40-millimetre canisters were shot into the air. They whizzed over the fence.

  Clink. Clink.

  The canisters fell to the concrete, each spewing five pods of noxious, stinging, mucus-inducing gas.

  And the inmates screamed. Oh boy, did they scream.

  ‘The sounds they made were just horrible,’ the Corrections officer continued. ‘Painful. The pods burn a pyrotechnic tear gas, and it’s real nasty stuff. It hits you anywhere you sweat – crotch, eyes, mouth, armpits – anywhere there’s moisture. It stings and it burns. You can’t see, you can’t breathe, and mucus spews out of your mouth and nose. It feels like you’re having an asthma attack.’

  The prisoners screamed, they ran, and they dropped.

  ‘But it was decided it wasn’t having the desired effect because of the size of the yard,’ the officer said. So out came the gas grenades and the ‘foggers’. ‘They sent in a couple of grenades to herd them towards the middle. The two instigators were still on the roof, jumping up and down, untouched by
the gas, so another team went and started clearing them with foggers. The fogger is an aerosol canister. It is highly pressurised and it shoots chlorobenzalmalononitrile. It has a range of about 16 feet, and it is instantaneous.’

  The Mortein for inmates worked.

  ‘It’s like watching bugs drop from the ceiling after hitting them with flyspray. They fell from the roof and into the front of the yard.’

  Crack.

  The lock was snapped and the cavalry charged.

  ‘Anyone that was left standing was chopped down,’ the officer continued. ‘A couple of them decided to fight, but most didn’t. A team went through the front. By then it was just a mass of guys screaming and crying like girls. They didn’t want to be in there anymore.’

  Some begged.

  ‘Lock me up, boss,’ they said. ‘I want to muster. I’m not here to cause trouble.’

  Their pleas were ignored.

  ‘They were told to piss off because they’d had their chance,’ the officer said.

  ‘It was too late. It’s the first time I have seen 35 guys crying like babies. Some of them actually shit their pants. Seriously, they crapped all over themselves.’

  With the inmates, sad and sorry, sitting behind bars, the clean-up began.

  ‘It looked like a war zone,’ said the officer. ‘There was shit everywhere.’ There were also weapons. ‘We found about a dozen shivs in the Muslim Yard. And these were not shivs you could just knock up in the spur of the moment. These had thought and effort put into them, and it was a pretty big indication the Muslim Yard was planning to riot. It could have been a whole lot worse, and there is no doubt it was planned – the barbecue was just an excuse.’

  Fifteen men were charged with rioting, and several officers were given bravery medals for the courage they showed on the day.

  Was this a minor incident? Absolutely not. Was it religiously motivated?

  ‘Yeah, there were Muslim screams,’ the officer said. ‘They were yelling Allahu akbar, and the rear teams were getting threats. They were saying they would execute their families, chop off their heads and post it on YouTube. There were blokes praying before we went in, stuff like that, so there was certainly a religious element. But, really, they rioted because they wanted to. The animals just wanted to go wild.’