Milat

by Clive Small, Tom Gilling

  During Ivan’s trial the families had stayed at Ebony House in Waterfall, a bushland property operated by the Homicide Victims’ Support Group (HVSG). The concept of Ebony House came about after Christine Simpson identified the need for some kind of ‘recovery’ centre for people affected by the murder of a loved one. Christine’s daughter, nine-year-old Ebony Jane, had been murdered. The Simpson family lived in Bargo, a small town about 100 kilometres south-west of Sydney. On 19 August 1992 Ebony left her school bus and was abducted and killed by 29-year-old Andrew Garforth, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, never to be released. Ebony House officially opened in December 1995 after a grant from the government. Although named in memory of Ebony, the house is a memorial to all murder victims.

  The executive director of the HVSG, Martha Jabour, had some years earlier lost her second child, seven-week-old Michael, to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Finding little in the way of support or empathy from the police, Martha saw a need for police training in grief and trauma counselling. After undergoing formal training, Martha became involved with other families, such as the Simpsons, who were campaigning for victim support services. Their efforts led to the establishment of the HVSG.

  ‘For many people experiencing the trauma of the death of a loved one through homicide,’ Martha said, ‘there is sometimes a need to get away from everyday things. Ebony House provides an opportunity for families and friends of homicide victims to get together and provide care and support for each other. All seven families of Ivan Milat’s murder victims stayed here at some point during the trial.’

  Accommodation at Ebony House is free of charge, which made it especially valuable in the backpacker murder case, for which several families had to travel from overseas to attend the trial. Martha said, ‘The families of the backpacker murder victims needed to be in the court to represent their murdered child. They didn’t want people thinking about their child just as a victim of the backpacker murderer; they wanted people to know it was their son or daughter who was part of a loving family and to understand that their children were good, down-to-earth, loving kids.’ Due to the length of the trial, the HVSG received a one-off grant of $10,000 from the New South Wales government to help it meet the costs of supporting the families.

  Most days Martha herself accompanied the families to court. At the end of each day the families would be briefed on the type of evidence that would be given the next day, particularly where it related to their child. Martha pointed out that ‘evidence regarding the circumstances of the murders and post-mortem results were very graphic, as were the pictures that were tendered during the proceedings. Being warned about this evidence allowed the families to make a decision as to whether they wanted to be present or not and, if they did, to prepare themselves for what was to come.’

  When Ebony House was established in 1995 there were 270 members in the HVSG. Twenty years later, there are more than 3100 members. The group has helped bring about significant changes in the criminal justice system, making it more ‘victim-oriented’ and less ‘offender-oriented’. It has lobbied successfully to prevent convicted prisoners from receiving compensation; to expand the definition of those entitled to make victim impact statements; to introduce a Victims’ Compensation Act, a Charter of Victims’ Rights and a Victims’ Rights Act; to have prisoners’ assets seized to pay for victims’ compensation; and to change the knife laws. John Laycock, a former assistant commissioner with 37 years’ experience in the New South Wales Police, commented, ‘At least some of these changes would not have occurred and a lot of families would not have received the support they needed if it hadn’t been for the efforts of the Homicide Victims’ Support Group.’

  Laycock first met Martha in 1994 when she made a presentation to senior police, seeking support for the families and friends of victims of homicides. For the next ten years Laycock strongly supported the HVSG and, after retiring from the police in 2004, became a policing consultant to the group. Along with Martha and other members, Laycock regularly participates in presentations on victim support at the Goulburn Police Academy. Martha sits on the New South Wales State Parole Authority, the Sentencing Council and the Domestic Violence Review Team.

  Due in part to the group’s efforts, the culture of the police and the courts has changed significantly in the two decades since the HVSG was established. Both Martha and Rita O’Malley spoke out in praise of the officers in Task Force Air—especially Rod Lynch, Bob Godden and Steve Leach—who supported the victims’ families in court and in their own time after work and at weekends.

  As a matter of practice, the police now formally advise the HVSG of all murders, enabling it to communicate both with the contact officer and the victim’s family.

  Rita O’Malley and her husband had been together for more than 60 years when Peter passed away in March 2011. After Rita died ten months later, Detective Inspector Andy Waterman of Task Force Air delivered a speech in which he expressed the task force’s appreciation of Rita’s efforts to comfort and support the families of Ivan’s victims.

  19

  DREAMS OF ESCAPE

  It was never Ivan Milat’s intention to live out his days quietly in gaol. His incarceration has been marked by self-harm, tantrums, appeals against his conviction and attempts to escape.

  In March 1997, eight months after his conviction, Ivan met a fellow Maitland gaol inmate, 56-year-old George Savvas. Both men were serving long sentences and both were desperate to break out of the maximum-security gaol. They quickly became friends and began plotting their escape.

  Savvas was a major figure in Sydney’s underworld and had played a significant role in the Sydney gang war of the mid-1980s. At the time, Savvas sat on the Marrickville Council as an independent and described himself as ‘King of Marrickville’, claiming to have police protection. He was in business with another long-time criminal, Barry James McCann, who had been a partner with the notorious former police officer and drug importer, Murray Stewart Riley, in the infiltration of organised crime into licensed clubs in the 1960s. McCann later trafficked heroin with the Mr Asia syndicate before teaming up with Savvas. During an eighteen-month period in the mid- to late 1980s the pair imported more than 100 kilograms of heroin, much of which made its way onto the streets of Cabramatta in Sydney’s west.

  Their operation was beset by greed, drug and cash rip-offs, and violence. Savvas himself was under remand for fraud. Someone who criticised Savvas’s continued role on the Marrickville Council while under remand on criminal charges had his life threatened. Within hours of receiving the threat, his car yard was firebombed. A witness in the fraud case was murdered—shot three times in the back of the head—while the victim, Savvas’s former business partner, was threatened. Savvas was acquitted.

  Around September 1987 more than $2 million worth of heroin belonging to McCann went missing. McCann accused Savvas of stealing it and wanted compensation. Three months later McCann’s body was found in a Marrickville park. He had been shot 25 times. A year later Savvas was charged with the murder, drug importations and trafficking. He beat the murder charge, but was sentenced to 25 years’ gaol for drug trafficking and fined $200,000. In March 1994 Savvas was found guilty of conspiring from Long Bay gaol to import up to 40 kilograms of cocaine from Brazil and 20 kilograms of heroin from Asia, and sentenced to another eighteen years, bringing his total sentence to more than 30 years. After eight years Savvas escaped from the Goulburn Correctional Centre. He was recaptured eight months later and met Milat while both were held in Maitland gaol.

  Their escape plan was a crazed fantasy. They planned to overwhelm their guards, tie them up, steal their uniforms and scale an 8-metre prison wall topped with razor wire and under constant electronic surveillance; they would then slip through gates flanked by armed guards to reach accomplices waiting outside to drive them to freedom. Unfortunately for Savvas and Milat, the gaol authorities got wind of their plan and on 16 May 1997 the men were arrested as they made their move. Savvas hanged hims
elf in his cell later that night: it was the only escape route he had left. The head of Corrective Services, Ron Woodham, told The Sun-Herald, ‘They were prepared to injure or kill anyone who got in their way.’

  While planning his escape, Milat had lodged an appeal, arguing that the photographic evidence against him should have been excluded. In November 1997 he once again dismissed his legal team, telling the court he didn’t want to be represented. The matter was adjourned and, a few months later, the appeal was dismissed.

  In 1999 prison officers searching Milat’s cell found a hacksaw blade hidden in a biscuit packet. Two years later he swallowed razor blades, paper staples and a small metal chain from a pair of nail clippers. Later the same year he swallowed part of the flushing mechanism from the toilet in his cell. In early 2003 he deliberately broke his hand. The same year he complained that the head of Corrective Services, Ron Woodham, was ‘orchestrating’ the media by telling them that ‘only the most dangerous prisoners are housed in here [the Supermax at Goulburn Correctional Centre]’ and that ‘I[’m] in here . . . which means I[’m] regarded as a dangerous prisoner.’ As with all his letters since entering gaol, Milat signed his complaint with his name, followed by a drawing of the sign of The Saint—a stick figure of a man with a halo—from the television series of that name.

  In July 2005 John Marsden, Milat’s former lawyer, told The Daily Telegraph that he believed Milat’s deceased sister, Shirley Soire, had been an accomplice in the backpacker killings. As we know, she had been living with Milat at his Eagle Vale home at the time of his arrest. Inevitably, Marsden’s sensational claims made headlines and I was bombarded with requests for comment. My own opinion was that Ivan would not have trusted either Shirley or any of his brothers to help with the murders. Ivan was a loner, determined to be in control of his own destiny; an accomplice would have been too much of a risk.

  I knew Marsden was suffering from terminal cancer. When I rang him at home, he told me groggily, ‘Clive, I can’t even remember the interview and I don’t know who I was talking to. I was so doped up on morphine and other things I was out of my mind.’ Marsden said virtually the same thing to The Sydney Morning Herald’s Kate McClymont: at the time he named Shirley he was ‘doped to the gills with a double hit of morphine’ and thought he was ‘speaking to a police officer’.

  In late 2005 I visited the Goulburn Supermax. While being taken through the complex by a senior Corrective Services officer, I bumped into Ivan. He was in his day room, which he shared with another prisoner and which was connected to his cell. Ivan’s cell was 4 by 3 metres with a sink, an open shower and a stainless-steel toilet. The bed was a concrete slab with a foam mattress. At the back of the day room was a tiny caged exercise yard.

  I was surprised by the deterioration in his physical and mental condition. Ivan bore little resemblance to the person we had arrested a decade earlier. His unkempt hair was thinning and had turned grey. He was not the fit and wiry man who had stood up in court confidently denying his guilt, but a skinny, stooped figure who looked very fragile. His conversation and mannerisms were those of someone who seemed to know he was no longer in control.

  At first Ivan didn’t appear to notice me as he complained to the officer about conditions in the gaol. I saw him glance in my direction a couple of times, then he turned and looked directly at me.

  ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You’re Clive Small.’

  I said, ‘Yes, I am, Ivan.’

  Ivan immediately began to protest his innocence. ‘The DNA in the hair. Nothing to do with me,’ he said, referring to strands of hair found in the right hand of Joanne Walters. (At first the hair had been identified as belonging to a man, but further examination identified it as Walters’ own hair.)

  Before I could answer, Ivan said, ‘Why are you and your mate Marsden saying Shirley was involved?’

  ‘I never said that,’ I replied.

  ‘You did,’ said Ivan, shaking his finger. ‘You and your mate Marsden. I know what you’re doing.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Ivan,’ I told him. ‘I have never said that Shirley was involved. In fact I know she wasn’t. You killed them all yourself.’

  Ivan hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘So why are you telling them she was involved?’

  It was as close to an admission of guilt as I had ever heard from Ivan. As soon as he finished speaking his whole demeanour changed, as if he had suddenly realised the significance of what he had said. He was silent for a few moments. Then he turned back to the Corrective Services officer and resumed his rant about conditions in the gaol.

  Ivan’s main complaint was that he was not being given enough time in the outdoor exercise yard. He said that the air conditioner was giving him a rash on his forehead and that it would only heal if he was allowed more time in the open air. Ivan’s forehead was raw and covered with scratches, but it had nothing to do with the air conditioner; Ivan had been scraping his forehead against the rough cement wall of his cell.

  Milat filed another appeal in the New South Wales Supreme Court. Representing himself, Milat sought to have his case referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal for an inquiry into his convictions. Such referrals can occur only if there appears to be doubt over the convicted person’s guilt, over mitigating circumstances or over the evidence. A doubt over the guilt of an applicant would arise if there was unease over the material relied on to obtain a conviction. In October 2005 Ivan’s application was refused.

  A few weeks later, Chris Masters and a crew from the ABC’s Four Corners spent several days filming at the Goulburn Supermax. While in the gaol they saw Milat several times in his cell. Milat had also seen them and demanded that prison authorities stop the filming, threatening to set himself on fire if it continued. Masters was told of Milat’s protests, but filming continued. Ivan never carried out his threat.

  Seven months later Milat was again embroiled in controversy when it was found that he had a television and toaster in his prison cell. They were rewards for ‘good behaviour’, for not engaging in acts of disobedience or self-harm and for not being likely to escape. Martha Jabour, executive director of the Homicide Victims’ Support Group, described the privileges as ‘an insult to the families of his victims’. The Daily Telegraph quoted Caroline Clarke’s father, Ian, saying from his home in Northumberland that Milat did not deserve any privileges. ‘He didn’t give any privileges to any of our children. As far as I’m concerned, he can rot,’ Clarke said. ‘I wouldn’t agree to him being given anything. It’s a joke.’

  Within hours of the media furore erupting, Ivan lost his television and toaster and the New South Wales Premier, Morris Iemma, suspended all other rewards. A review of the reward system in the Supermax system was ordered. After his privileges were withdrawn, Milat again threatened suicide. He was moved to a ‘safe cell’ and placed under 24-hour video surveillance.

  Even as Milat complained about his lack of privileges, he was already preparing his next appeal, which was heard in the Supreme Court in December 2006. Essentially it was a repeat of his earlier application, with Ivan arguing that there was unease over the trial judge and his conduct of the trial. Only Ivan felt the unease. The court noted that each of the grounds raised by him had been cited in his earlier petition and fully dealt with. The application was refused.

  Milat lodged yet another appeal. Once again, he wanted his case referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal for an inquiry into his convictions. This time Milat referred to a television program ‘in which Mr Clive Small, a police officer apparently in charge of the investigations of Mr Milat’s crimes, made comments about the matter. Mr Small allegedly said that there was no police evidence to suggest that Mr Milat acted with another person in committing the murders. The Crown prosecutor gave an interview on the same program. He apparently said that it was no part of the Crown case to prove that any person other than Mr Milat was involved in the murders.’

  Milat complained that the trial judge had erred in ruling that the Crown di
d not have to prove whether Milat acted alone or in company. If the Crown couldn’t prove whether or not another person or persons had been involved, he said, then he shouldn’t have been convicted. Milat also complained that he had been denied procedural fairness during the trial. The court found his submissions were without merit and his application to appeal was refused.

  On 26 January 2009 Milat cut off the little finger on his left hand just below the knuckle with a plastic knife, and placed the finger in an envelope padded with newspaper and addressed to New South Wales Supreme Court’s Justice Peter McClellan, who had twice denied his application to appeal. At lock-up time Milat handed the envelope to a prison officer. Four guards escorted him to Goulburn Base Hospital, where he was handcuffed and shackled to a bed, but doctors decided that surgery to reattach the finger was not possible. The next day Milat was returned to the Supermax. Australian Associated Press reported Ron Woodham telling Macquarie Radio, ‘[W]hen you cut a finger off it does hurt . . . He’s back in an observation cell this morning, dressed in a gown, feeling sorry for himself. We believe he’s starting another hunger strike. But he likes his food so it will only last a day or two . . . when he does take his next meal he won’t be getting a knife with it.’

  The Daily Telegraph reported that in a letter to his brother Bill, Milat wrote, ‘I don’t regret it [cutting off my finger], though it was a stupid act . . . in here acts like that is [sic] regarded as normal . . . I wonder if I will have enough time to prove my innocence as time flies, but it takes a long time to get a reply from the authority-courts-government . . . That was a big factor in severing the finger off, to highlight the difficulties of a prisoner who wishes to appeal his case.’