ROBERT (BOB) DYSON

I received a phone call from Bob Dyson last week where he informed me that he was ill and required surgery later this week.

I believe the surgery to be quite serious, yet Bob maintains a very positive outlook which is always helpful in situations such as his.

He is very fortunate that his good wife Liz is extremely supportive and doing everything possible to prepare him for surgery, including preparing special food that he requires prior to his surgery.

Bob was always one of these Prison Officers that remained level headed and gave sound advice.  He enjoyed a joke and a bit of fun, yet when it came to his duties, he took them seriously and carried them out to his utmost ability.  He was senior to me and I always enjoyed working under his supervision.  Bob retired in 1980 as an Assistant Superintendent.

Bob, like all Prison Officers, dealt with his share of extremely hardened, dangerous and ruthless criminals.  One such criminal was Lionel Roy Barlow.  His crimes were beyond belief.  You can read about Barlow and other exploits by Bob Dyson in a number of my eBooks, including my latest eBook, Australia’s Best Prison Stories available on Amazon.

Bob phones me every two or three weeks and we enjoy chatting together about the old, as well as the current, Prison stories.

I wish Bob a successful outcome to his surgery and a speedy recovery.

Peter T Egge

A CLASSIC PRISON TALE

H M GAOL – COOMA

The Mr Mortlock Saga 

A young Frank Hutchen became a Probationary Prison Officer in 1958 and had been posted to HM Gaol Cooma.  He had been brought up at Narrabri in NSW, a rich farming area in the north of the state.   He had left school early and tried his hand at everything from driving trucks to shearing sheep, whatever he put his hands to he excelled at, “If it was worth doing, it was worth doing well” he would often say.  Mr Hutchen and his lovely wife Rose moved kit and caboodle to Cooma to take up this new challenge of becoming a prison officer.

Regardless of who you are, or how good you are, it takes a year or two before you can call yourself a prison officer.   Like most trades or jobs, there are plenty of tricks and intricacies to learn.

It was 1960 and Mr Hutchen was on a set of “B” watches, (midnight until 08.00 hours).   From midnight until about 07.00 hours on the “B” watch at Cooma, only one officer worked in the gaol, completely on his own, as was the case on this particular night.  The Superintendent lived only metres from the front gate and would on occasions check on the officer on duty at irregular hours.

It was about 03.00 hours when Mr Hutchen heard the clang of the steel handle of the bolt to the front gate fall heavily on the steel grill bars.  It was an old trick he had learnt, if the handle was left up, when anyone came through the gate, the clang of metal hitting metal could be heard all over the gaol in the still of the night.

Part of his duties was to check the fire in the boiler house and to stoke the cook’s stoves in the kitchen.   Naturally he would pause there on a cold night to try to put some warmth back into his body.  

Mr Hutchen ran to the corner of the wing and saw Mr Mortlock, the Superintendent, coming through the gate.   He probably got up to go to the toilet in the middle of the night as most older men do and thought to himself, ‘I might go and check on the officer on duty’.  Mr Mortlock locked the gate behind him and headed straight for boiler house, hoping to find Mr Hutchen there, if not, perhaps asleep.  If he thought that, he was barking up the wrong tree, in fact he was barking up the wrong forest as Mr Hutchen had never, and would never sleep in a gaol on night work, to do so would be almost suicidal and very fool hardy.

Having not found Mr Hutchen in the normal places he would find lesser men, Mr Mortlock headed for the cookhouse.  All the time Mr Hutchen had him under surveillance.  Mr Hutchen told me, “I ran back around the wall coming up on the eastern wall where the stairs lead to the kitchen.  “I watched him go up the stairs looking in the kitchen”, but it was all to no avail as Mr Hutchen was not there.   Mr Hutchen continued, “I stood up close to the corner of the wing where the opening came out under the stairs to the eastern wall.  “Mr Mortlock came down the stairs, around under the stairs walking straight out the opening where I was standing.   “As he passed the corner of the wing I stepped out and shoved my gun in his ribs and said, ‘Holt!  ‘Who goes there’?    “Mr Mortlock threw his hands in the air, staggered and began to stumble, at the same time chewing on his cigarette holder”.  Mr Hutchen had to take hold of him by the arm to prevent him from falling over.

To read more about this classic Prison tale, read my short story eBook, Cutting the Bars – Volume 2, available on Amazon.

REHIBILITATION DOES NOT EXIST FOR SEX OFFENDERS

Justice J F Nagle (Deceased)

Photo 1997 – The Border Mail, Albury NSW

“It is wrong to say that one purpose for which offenders are sent to prison is to rehabilitate or cure them?    They are sent to prison by courts on behalf of society for the simple purpose of punishment”.


Justice Nagle 1978.
Royal Commissioner into New South Wales Prisons


Convicted sex offender Arthur Alliband was this week sentenced to a further two years and ten months following yet another sex offence against a young girl.  He had previously been convicted of sex offences against a 14 year old girl.  To make matters worse, the current offences for which he was convicted, had been carried out on his way home from being released on parole from Parklea Prison, a Gaol that I knew well having worked as a Senior Assistant Superintendent at Parklea Prison.

Most common sense psychologists agree that there is no rehabilitation for sex offenders.  Justice Nagle was the controversial Justice who presided over the Royal Commission into New South Wales Prisons in the late 70’s.  Since then, the Prison system has gone to “pot” so to speak.  Yet Justice Nagle made the very strong statement quoted above in his Royal Commission findings in 1978.  Parole in itself is a failure, in particular for violent crimes, drug related offenses and in particular sex offenses.  Perhaps it’s time to change the name from NSW Department of Corrective Services to NSW Department of Prisons to enable the “do-gooders” to have it clear in their head, that these people are placed behind the high brick walls and razor wire for the simple purpose of punishment.  We need our Governments to stand up and protect the public from these individuals who continually commit crimes against our most vulnerable in society.  The Government and courts “just don’t get it”, and shame on them.

To read more on my thoughts about rehabilitation, read my latest eBook, Australia’s Best Prison Stories, available on Amazon.

This I believe.
Peter T Egge

A Murderous Time at Her Majesty’s Gaol Parramatta

Looking back over Mr Kay’s career, by the end of November 1979 he had completed his training course under the guidance of Principal Prison Officer Harry Fieldhouse, and was initially placed at Her Majesty’s Gaol Parramatta as a Probationary Prison Officer.   Right from the get go it appeared to the young Probationary Prison Officer Michael Kay that he was working in a mad house. There was one critical incident after another in the four years he was working at Parramatta Gaol, in fact there were seven murders that occurred at Parramatta Gaol during that time, in addition to other deaths in custody, plus a major riot.   

Mr Kay seemed to be caught up in all of the seven murders in one way or another, some to a lesser degree than others, however to be involved in seven murders, regardless of the fact that he was working in an occupation where it was not uncommon for such tragic episodes to occur, there were so many, that the intricate details of each murder became blurred between one and the next.  Even given the environment in which he was working, it was a substantial series of horrific incidents for such a young officer to deal with. I would compare it to the equivalent of a highway patrol policeman attending fatal car accidents where they just seem to keep occurring without any respite for the police officers’ attending who having to deal with the continual trauma of witnessing regular carnage and death. 

Mr Kay told me, “I remember one, I cannot remember his name, but I remember his face and the blood.  I was in the cell with two ambulance officers who were working on the inmate.  Blood seemed to be coming from numerous holes all over him; they put a set of blow up trousers on him to try to force some blood back to where it was needed most.  Arthur Barton was the Superintendent at the time”.  (Mr Barton was a tallish man with red hair and very fair completion). “He had a stutter problem; he stood at the door and looked at all the blood, and obviously thinking, ‘not another one’, as this was about murder number six or seven, he said, and I remember it as if it was yesterday, stuttering, ‘I hope he doesn’t ffffffffffffucking die!’  Clearly he was thinking he was going to have to do more reports.  I looked up at him and thought to myself, ‘sorry sir, but he is already dead’.  The inmate had his eyes rolled back in his head and had the death shakes, blood was nearly the thickness of the soles of my shoes all over the floor.  I will never forget it.  Clearly he was never going to make it.    Next the prison doctor arrived, Dr Mutton. The ambulance officers looked up as if expecting some wonderful help and the good old doc just stood there and said, ‘Oh my fucking God’.  The ambulance officers went back to work on him, albeit in vain”.

To read more about Michael Kay’s horrific thirty year career in New South Wales Prisons, read my latest eBook Australia’s Best Prison Stories available on Amazon.

PARKLEA PRISON RIOTS 1987 & 1990

Two Riots at Parklea Prison
There were two major riots at Parklea Prison during the time Mr Michael Kay worked there. The first was 13th December 1987 and the second 23rd September 1990.   Prison riots are horrible and extremely dangerous situations to be in.  They normally involve prisoners partaking in alcohol and or drugs and as a result, they are unpredictable and do not consider the consequences of their actions.

During the first riot it seems four prisoners were drunk on a gaol brew, made mainly from fruit and sugar, thanks to the Nagel Royal Commission’s introduction of additional quantities of these rations for all prisoners, and it spread rapidly from there. On seeing five prisoners bash Prison Officer Christopher Holmes to the ground, Prison Officer Robert Jarvis rushed to his fellow officer’s aid.  He was struck several times on the head and lay on the ground unconscious. Once he had regained consciousness, his first memory was being surrounded by 15 other prison officers, all of whom had barricaded themselves in a wing.

There were now 40 or 50 prisoners involved, armed with iron bars, threatening to kill these brave officers who feared for their lives, not surprisingly all believing they would be killed as they were seriously outnumbered by the rampaging prisoners. Being unarmed they were unable to effectively defend themselves. They believed they were destined to die.  A large number of prison officer’s sustained injuries during this horrendous critical incident.

In addition to the officers barricaded in a wing, there were two further officers who were trapped in the office on 3 Wing bottom landing; one was First Class Prison Officer Ian Hall whom I knew from my days working at Parklea Prison, and the other was a relatively junior officer.  It must have been mortifying for these two officers realising that the crims had smashed the glass windows that had surrounded the office. They only had bars that barely covered the windows to protect them from being taken hostage by the erupting prisoners.  Without warning, a prisoner walked into the kitchen directly behind and next to the office, in full view of Mr Hall and his partner.  The crim placed oil and water on the stove to boil in readiness to tip over these defenceless officers holed up in the wing.

The rampaging rioting prisoners caused three million dollars worth of damage at the 

New South Wales tax payers’ expense

To read more about these horrific prison riots and to view more unpublished photographs, read my latest eBook, Australia’s Best Prison Stories, available on Amazon.

This I believe.
Peter T Egge

PARKLEA PRISON – A COMPLETE SHAMBLES

Mr Severin must resign or be sacked

The following is an extract I have lifted directly from the internet via Google.

An investigation is being conducted after a prisoner at the Parklea Correctional Centre, in Sydney's north-west, uploaded a video to YouTube showing him in possession of a knife, a "slasher" and the drug ice.

The man filming the video claims that contraband is being brought into the jail by security guards in exchange for money.

"On a day-to-day basis this place is a dead-set joke, it's a dead-set joke," the inmate says.

"Right now, I've got a mobile phone. Why have I got a mobile phone?  Because screws are bringing mobile phones into the jail for money”.

He then shows the camera, a knife, a "slasher" and a part of a TV that could "rip skin".

"Why am I carrying around a knife like that?  Why does that need to be in my hand at this point in time?" he says.

"Why have I got a slasher?  Why do I need to slash people?"

PHOTO: The man demonstrated the strength of the "slasher" by running it along the cell wall. (YouTube)

He then uses the implement to hack into a wall and says: "That's just an example of what it can do to your throat."

Finally, he holds up a clear bag which he says contains the drug “ice”.

"Why have I got it? Because I can."

The man then declares that the "jail is ruining lives and killing the young people".

He points to another inmate and says: "This man, 50 years of jail, why hasn't the system fixed him?"

"Why? ‘Cause the system has never had a mobile phone broadcast live in every correctional centre."

A spokeswoman from Corrective Services NSW said the incident was being viewed as a "very serious breach of security".

A multi-team investigation has commenced, she said, and CSNSW will meet on Monday with the operator of Parklea Correctional Group, GEO Group.

On Saturday a targeted search operation with 40 staff and nine detection dogs found four mobile phones and chargers, steroid tablets and a number of other contraband items at the jail.

"CSNSW takes a zero-tolerance approach and uses a range of methods to track down and confiscate contraband," the spokeswoman said.

"Inmates go to extraordinary lengths to introduce contraband. Methods include internal secretion, visitor smuggling and lobbing of packages over perimeter fences.

"Any suggestions that contraband is introduced by staff are immediately investigated."

NSW Corrective Services Assistant Commissioner Mark Wilson said they are satisfied the video was shot within the prison but any allegations regarding security personnel need to be investigated.

PHOTO: The man purporting to be a prisoner said he had ice "because I can". (YouTube)

My thoughts:

Of course Mr Severin reacted and took corrective action but only following his attention was drawn to the YouTube downloaded by the prisoner whose voice features in the article. It was not Mr Severin or his ineffective, mal-practicing administration that discovered the shoddy work being carried out by the private contractor GEO Group.  This whole sorry episode has only come to light because a lone prisoner had the foresight and courage to stand up and show the world what a disgrace the NSW prison system has become.   A Royal Commission is desperately needed to sort out the extensive problems caused by this very poorly run prison system.

It is, in my opinion, a complete failure, run by a horde of “do gooder’s”.  This must be turned around, in particular when we have a “lone wolf” prisoner screaming for someone to help fix the shambles the NSW prison system has become under the “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” administration and responsibility of the dud Commissioner Mr Severin.   In short, Mr Severin is a “soft cock” who must be stood down.

This I believe

Peter T Egge

CHARLIE GEDDES

I had lunch with Charlie Geddes last week at the Air Force Club.  It was great to see him and catch up on old times.

You can read all about Charlie Geddes’ exploits at the Cessnock Corrective Centre in my latest eBook Australia’s Best Prison Stories, available from Amazon.