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 Officer Kay’s
traumatic experiences during his long prison career, read my latest Ebook
Australia’s Best Prison Stories, available on Amazon.
