Survey shows 11m people have taken drugs

Positive for Class A substances

4m admit taking class A substances

Prison officers responsible for smuggling into jails

Nearly 4 million people in England and Wales have tried class A drugs - including heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD and magic mushrooms - at least once. The annual British Crime Survey drug findings show that 11 million people, aged between 16 and 59, say they have tried some illegal drug at least once, with 3.5 million saying that they have taken them in the past year.

The figures show that since the launch of the government's drug strategy in 1998, overall use in England and Wales has remained broadly stable. Class A abuse, the most serious, has increased, mainly due to a surge in cocaine use up until 2000, despite the government's now-abandoned target of cutting class A abuse by 25%.

Fresh Home Office research also confirmed the extent of abuse in prisons yesterday, and suggested that prison staff were one route for drugs to get in. The study found that smuggling by uniformed or civilian staff was thought to be "substantially increasing" the availability of heroin and cannabis behind bars.

The figures show a fall in cannabis use in all age groups since the law was relaxed over the past 12 months.

But 9 million people say they have smoked cannabis, 1.75 million of them in the past month.

The picture for class A drugs has been stable over the past year, but there has been a fall in cocaine use and a rise in use of hallucinogens, particularly magic mushrooms.

Two million people say they have tried mushrooms, possibly because, until this summer, the class A drug could be bought legally.

Despite media coverage warning of a crack cocaine epidemic, only 239,000 people have tried the drug, against 1.8 million who have had cocaine. There are said to be about 16,000 regular crack users. It is estimated 200,000 people have used heroin; 21,000 in the past month.

Among young people (aged 16 to 24) the BCS estimates 45% have tried illicit drugs at least once, 26% in the past year and 16% in the past month. A million young people, or one in eight, have used a class A drug.

More generally, cannabis was the most commonly used drug, followed by cocaine, which is now more popular than ecstasy. There is also significant use of amyl nitrate, also called poppers, and amphetamines by young people.

Further Home Office research by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at King's College London shows that heroin, cannabis, non-prescribed medication, and crack cocaine were all in circulation at the six prisons studied.

Main routes of entry were social visits, mail, new prisoners, drugs thrown over the perimeter, and contact after court appearances.

More than half the prison officers and ex-prisoners questioned said staff were responsible for smuggling - the fourth most commonly mentioned route.

"Many of the staff who were interviewed acknowledged that such trafficking goes on, and could substantially increase the amount of illegal drugs available in an establishment," said the report.

At one prison a member of staff had been convicted of supplying drugs and sentenced to seven years.

Once an officer has been persuaded to bring in contraband, he or she is vulnerable to blackmail, the report said.

By Alan Travis posted 31 October 05

People: 'Prisoners' of Drugs'

People who are addicted to heroin usually take the drug because it relieves them of problems such as low self-esteem, distrust and fear of abandonment. They may have poor communication skills & poor relationship skills.

Blunkett's Quest, but is he on drugs?

The legislation is expected to introduce a new definition of "possession" of an illegal drug, making it an offence to have a certain amount in the bloodstream. This is likely to prove controversial - not least because some drugs, such as cannabis, can remain in the bloodstream for weeks.

POSSESSION? OR INVASION?

UK: This absolutely preposterous idea/theory of allowing a person/s to be possibly charged with 'possession', if found to have a drug substance within their bloodstream, just goes to prove such hypocrisies which certain hierarchies feel justifies passing legislation, is another blow for democracy!

Related:

Plea to release Biggs rejected by ruling-class
UK: Home Secretary Charles Clarke has rejected a plea by Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs to be released from prison on compassionate grounds.

Prisons chief hits at 'gross' overcrowding
Martin Narey, a civil servant who has served every Home Secretary since 1989, highlights statistics showing that thousands of mentally ill inmates and a record number of children now constitute a significant part of the prison population.

Clarke faces a fight over probation overhaul
UK: The home secretary, Charles Clarke, yesterday confirmed his plans to abolish 42 local probation boards and instead create "a vibrant mixed economy" in the management of 200,000 offenders in the community.

The devilish advocate
UK: The devilish advocate John Hirst taught himself law in jail, and has never lost a case against the prison service. Erwin James meets up again with the former 'lifer' who won inmates the right to vote.

Racism still rife in jails, five years after the murder of Zahid Mubarek UK: The prison service will be strongly criticised for continued racial discrimination against ethnic minority inmates by the official report from the Zahid Mubarek inquiry.

UK prisoners should get vote, European court rules
UK: Laws setting out who can and cannot take part in elections are to be rewritten after the European court of human rights today ruled in favour of giving British prisoners the right to vote.

Prison plan 'will cut reoffending'
UK: A network of community prisons to help cut the number of criminals who re-offend has been outlined by Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

Clarke to scrap plan to peg prison numbers
UK: The home secretary, Charles Clarke, has said he is to abandon his predecessor's aspiration of pegging the prison population in England and Wales at 80,000. He will also drop plans to put a legal obligation on the judges' sentencing guidelines council to take the size of the prison population - currently 77,000 and rising - into account when laying down the "going rate" for major crimes.

Crowded jails 'boosting suicides'
UK: The chief inspector of prisons warned that an overcrowding crisis in Britain's jails was leading to an increase in prisoner suicides.

Chief justice calls for new approach to law and order
UK: The retiring [ruling class] lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, made a passionate plea for a new approach to law and order which would see a major shift away from punishment towards the solution of problems which generate crime.

Britain's only prison ship ends up on the beach
UK: The last inmates have departed and a skeleton staff is left guarding Britain's only prison ship - in case anyone is minded to break in rather than out.

Throw away the key
The one profession to get results on recidivism has been sacrificed to Labour's desire to lock up criminals in private prisons.

Judges' misdeeds will remain secret
UK: Judges who are disciplined for bad behaviour will not have the findings against them made public under a complaints regime to be launched next year.

Prisoner total rises 15% in six years
England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe, it emerged today. New research indicates that the government's use of prison as its main tool of penal policy has increased by 15% since 1999.

CPS drops prosecution over death in custody
UK: The family of Roger Sylvester, who died after being restrained by police officers, yesterday expressed their disappointment at a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute any of the officers involved.

Prisoner's cell death
UK: A prisoner was found hanged in his cell last week, the Home Office said, fuelling criticism over the soaring number of suicides in custody.

Plans for five new 'superprisons'
Recent figures show a total of 75,550 prisoners were held in 139 jails in England and Wales, nudging up the previous record of April 2004 by just six inmates.

Prison has lost its way - report
UK: Bristol prison is suffering wide-ranging problems because of inconsistent management, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said.

Row over acupuncture for prisoners
UK: The Home Office has responded to criticism over prison inmates who are being offered acupuncture on the NHS in order to relieve stress.

Number of prisoners sent back to jail trebles
UK: The number of prisoners being sent back to jail after release has nearly trebled in the past five years, according to a report published today.

Top judge says crowded prisons cannot break cycle of crime
UK: Reoffending rates after a prison sentence are at an "unacceptably high level" and the failure of the criminal justice system to stop prisoners reoffending should shock the public, England's top judge, [Ruling Class] Lord Woolf, said last week.

All the World's a Prison: History
No doubt many of my readers, even those who are well-educated or widely read, think that the prison -- the place where dark deeds are darkly answered[2] -- is an ancient institution, a barbaric hold-over from barbaric times. In fact, the prison is of relatively recent origin, and this tells us a great deal about the pretentions and realities of modern times, and the wisdom and high degree of development of the ancients.

Decade after inspector left in disgust, report tells of filth
UK: Dirty, mice-infested cells, high levels of self-harm, and widespread bullying over drugs and medications were just some of the damning findings of a report into conditions at Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
Women make up 6% of the prison population in England and Wales. Imprisonment of women should be "virtually abolished", a prison reform group has said.

Youth 'murdered for officers' pleasure'
UK: An Asian teenager was murdered by a white racist after they were placed in the same cell as part of a game to fulfil the "perverted pleasure" of prison officers, a public inquiry heard on Friday.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation [solitary confinement] of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Inquest blames jail for overdose death
UK: An inquest jury returned a verdict itemising a catalogue of faults at Styal prison in Cheshire, concluding that the prison's "failure of duty of care" contributed to the death of Sarah Campbell, 18, who took an overdose of tablets on the first day of her three-year sentence.

Put in the way of self-harm in a place intended to protect others
UK: Sarah Campbell, 18, spent the last hours of her life in the segregation unit of Styal prison, Cheshire. "The seg", as those places are referred to, used to be known as "the block", short for punishment block. [ Seg is a bullshit word for Punishment, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Human Rights Abuse and that is State Terror.]

Britain 'sliding into police state'
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs [false flag police chiefs] said yesterday.

UK solitary confinement
UK: Segregation units are prisons within prisons - the places where the most unchecked brutality is meted out to prisoners. In recent years conditions in high security segregation units have deteriorated, and the use of long-term segregation as a control mechanism has increased.

Inquiry must root out prison racists
UK: It is difficult to imagine a more brutal murder than that of Zahid Mubarek. The 19-year-old was clubbed to death by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offender Institution in the early hours of 21 March 2000. He was due to be released just a few hours later.

Prison suicides soar as jails hire 'babysitters'
UK: Prison officers are being taken off suicide watch and replaced by unqualified 'babysitters' because the system is overwhelmed by an epidemic of self-harm.

Plan to sell off juvenile jails as job lot
UK: The government is to put out to tender all its dedicated juvenile jails that hold children under 18 in a departure in Whitehall's privatisation programme.

Failure to sack 'racist' prison staff condemned
UK: Two prison officers suspended for racism are still on full pay three years after a stash of Nazi memorabilia, neo-fascist literature and Ku Klux Klan-inspired 'nigger-hunting licences' was found in a police raid on their home.

Report slams 'unjust' jailing of women on remand
UK: Six out of 10 women sent to jail while they await trial are acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence, a report published today reveals. Introducing the report, Lady Kennedy QC calls for a complete review of the use of remand and bail for women saying it is "inhumane and unjust".

Concern as UK prison suicides hit record level
UK: More prisoners took their own lives in English jails in August than in any other month since records began, prison reformers said today.

End of years of despair as Holloway closes its doors
But now Holloway prison in north London - where Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, was hanged in 1955 - has been earmarked for closure, along with several other women's prisons, which have been hit by a spate of suicides.

How detox and self-help brought suicide jail back from the brink
UK: Six suicides in 12 months made Styal jail notorious and the Prisons Ombudsman criticised the prison and its staff for serious failures. But things are changing.

Belmarsh detainees consider suicide, says freed man
UK: The first of the Muslim detainees released from Belmarsh high security prison after being held on suspicion of terrorism has told the Guardian his fellow prisoners are suffering such severe mental problems that they constantly consider suicide.

Suicides and unrest have soared, admits Home Office
UK:The already overcrowded prison population is set to go on rising and will top 80,000 within the next three years, a senior Home Office civil servant warned yesterday.

England tops the EU in imprisonment
England and Wales jail more offenders per capita than any other European, Union country, according to new figures.

Restraint methods prone to disaster

Illustration: RESTRAINT ASPHYXIA – SILENT KILLER

UK: In May, 24-year-old Azrar Ayub, a patient at the Edenfield secure mental health unit, part of Prestwich hospital near Manchester, died after being restrained by hospital staff.

Azrar Ayub

It was a tragic reminder of the death of the 38-year-old mental health patient David "Rocky" Bennett in similar circumstances in a Norwich hospital in 1998. Bennett's death caused a public outcry and resulted in an official inquiry, which led earlier this year to the issuing by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) of new guidelines on the use of restraint.

David "Rocky" Bennett

So why, six years after Bennett's death, does it appear that deaths as a result of restraint are still occurring?

First, the big picture. There were 116,000 incidents involving violent or verbal abuse in the NHS in England and Wales in 2002/03. About half were in mental health settings. Many of these would have involved a patient being restrained. It is generally believed that deaths caused by restraint are rare, but there are no reliable figures on injuries or deaths.

Restraint is often regarded by mental health nurses as a vital, if undesirable, measure of last resort for dealing with violence on wards. Establishing why some techniques might lead to injury or death is not easy. Each individual case is different, and a range of factors need to be taken into account - for example, whether staff were trained properly or whether the technique had been applied incompetently.

The Nice guidelines were designed to help guide staff and trusts on what is acceptable, but have been criticised for not going far enough to protect vulnerable mentally ill people against, in particular, prone restraint, where the patient is held face down, and which risks death from asphyxiation.

At a conference called Care or Abuse? last week in Derby, more than 100 mental health professionals, trainers, educators and service users discussed and challenged some of the most controversial and questionable restraint methods. During one dramatic presentation, a former mental health service user recounted - at times in tears - what it was like to come close to death while being held face down on the floor by four nurses when she suffered a "psychotic episode" in 2003.

One mental health trust director called for a ban on methods that, in his view, caused distress or pain to patients. He claimed that at his trust, such methods had been abandoned, leading to a cut in the number and severity of violent incidents. But he was accused by one delegate (a restraint trainer) of being sensationalist. Their exchange illustrated that even after the Bennett inquiry and the Nice guidelines, there is still a fissure in the mental health establishment over what is and what is not ethical and acceptable practice when it comes to restraint.

The conference shed light on why some forms of restraint remain problematic. Some acute mental health services in the UK are managed badly and are short of cash and staff, putting extraordinary pressure on nurses to react to incidents by restraining patients rather than talking to them to defuse potentially violent situations. These difficulties are exacerbated because trusts do not agree on which restraint methods to use or when to apply them.

There are around 2,500 restraint techniques currently being taught by a multitude of private companies, but there has never been a national evaluation to standardise training. Some research has been conducted but it is patchy and the results are far from conclusive. The Department of Health has plans to collect more accurate figures on injuries and deaths caused by restraint, but scepticism persists over their reliability because of fears of under-reporting.

In the absence of robust evidence on physical restraint or injuries caused by it, we are gambling with the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. It is a matter of urgency that we identify what works, what does not, and that we act on it.

By Mary O'Hara posted 27 October 05

Related:

Ohio's Abu Ghraib
In January 2001, Charles Austin and 28 other prisoners filed a lawsuit claiming that Ohio had violated their Eighth Amendment rights. The prisoners argued that medical and psychiatric care and recreation were inadequate at the supermax, and physical restraints were too harsh. Prisoners received medical injections through their narrow food slots, for example, and had both hands handcuffed to the wall during medical exams.

Abu Ghraib, USA
In another incident reported by Amnesty International that happened during McCotter's watch, an inmate at the Utah State Prison "was shackled to a steel board on a cell floor in four-point metal restraints for twelve weeks in 1995. He was removed from the board on average four times a week to shower.

On Solitary Confinement
I have witnessed prison guards from 2002 to 2004, while I was in Angola's even more restrictive punishment unit, who have thrown buckets of ice water (in winter) on men who were in 4- point restraints, wearing only paper gowns.

Baby deaths doctor'breached duty to be fair'

UK: A Home Office pathologist who claimed there was "overwhelming evidence" of a double murder in the Sally Clark baby case undertook "serious and repeated departures" from expected medical standards, a disciplinary panel heard.

Mistakes made by Dr Alan Williams led to "very serious consequences for Mrs Clark and her family", the General Medical Council's professional conduct committee heard.

Dr Williams is accused of serious professional misconduct over postmortem examinations he performed on 12-week-old Christopher Clark in 1996 and eight-week-old Harry two years later.

Mrs Clark was jailed for life for smothering the boys, but had her conviction quashed by the court of appeal after spending three years in prison.

The committee, sitting in London, has already ruled that Dr Williams failed in his duty to consider all possible causes of death and said his postmortem of Christopher was so impaired it could not be considered reliable.

It also ruled he had withheld details of some blood samples taken from Christopher and had originally given the cause of death as lower respiratory tract infection - and "this did not have a proper scientific basis".

The committee is now considering whether the facts of the case amount to serious professional misconduct.

If he is found guilty, Dr Williams could be struck off or have conditions imposed on his medical registration.

Sarah Vaughan-Jones for the GMC, said Dr Williams' cumulative actions fell "far below" standards expected of a medical practitioner.

She said his actions "potentially and actually had very serious consequences on Mrs Clark and her family", and there had been a "breach of an expert's important duty to give fair, accurate and objective evidence" at criminal trials.

Dr Williams had passed blame on to other people and some of his findings had no scientific basis, she said.

In mitigation, James Turner QC, for Dr Williams, said colleagues had heaped praise on the pathologist as being a "caring professional", and "honest professional", who showed great integrity.

There had been no deliberate move to deceive people, he said, adding: "Whatever has gone wrong has gone wrong inadvertently and in good faith and not in the cause of pursuing a crusade or hobbyhorse," against mothers whose children died.

"This is a case where the consequences were a result of an unfortunate combination and coincidence of errors on the part of a variety of individuals and institutions."

Dr Williams denies serious professional misconduct. The hearing continues.

Accused of abuse, but never tried

Mothers Sally Clark and Trupti Patel found themselves in the dock accused of murdering their babies partly on the strength of expert testimony by Sir Roy Meadows. But other families have been forcibly separated thanks to Sir Roy's testimony without police charges ever being brought.

By Just Us posted 3 June 05

Related:

Mother's conviction quashed for killing her children
LONDON - The conviction of a mother convicted six years ago of killing her two children has been quashed by London's Appeal Court.

Experts in child abuse cases face inquiry
UK: The government launched an official inquiry into the quality of expert medical evidence in child abuse cases last Thursday, as the implications of the miscarriage of justice in the Angela Cannings case continued to perplex ministers.

Cot deaths and justice
Did you kill your babies?' A whisper came from the crumpled figure in the dock: 'No.' The whisper grew louder: 'No, no.' It was as if we were witnessing torture in Reading Crown Court. It is hard to imagine a crueller inquisition than that which faced Trupti Patel: a mother loses three babies in cot death and then goes through the hell of being accused of murdering them.

Accused of abuse, but never tried
Mothers Sally Clark and Trupti Patel found themselves in the dock accused of murdering their babies partly on the strength of expert testimony by Sir Roy Meadows. But other families have been forcibly separated thanks to Sir Roy's testimony without police charges ever being brought.

Cot Death Mothers: The Witch Hunt
John Sweeney investigates when mothers, grieving the loss of a child after cot death, are wrongly accused of murder.

Australia

Appeals court told woman's sentence barbaric!
Appeal: Folbigg's lawyers argue her sentence is barbaric.But is she guilty? When she has maintains her innocence? And what about "Meadows law"?

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome! & The Kathleen Folbigg Case
Kathleen Megan Folbigg, 37, is either Australia's worst female serial killer or her case is a serious miscarriage of justice in which an innocent mother has been wrongfully convicted of infanticide.

Folbigg, convicted until proven innocent
Convicted August 2003 for the manslaughter of her eldest child Caleb, and the murder of her next three children, Patrick, Sarah and Laura. Disturbing similarities between the case of Kathleen Folbigg and that of Sally Clark (nb. Other Meadows cases Trupti Patel, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Margaret Smith, Julie Ferris, Maxine Robinson) using "Meadows law" one cot death is tragic, two suspicious, three murder." The Attorney-General in England is reviewing more than 250 cases where a parent may have been wrongly convicted. In other words, Professor Meadows evidence has been totally discredited. There is a furore in England, but no mention in Australian press?

Folbigg may have been innocent
On the other hand, some people simply lied or got it wrong because the system failed, The prosecution is not equal to the defence, professional opinions can be flawed and juries can determine the wrong evidence.

Family tragedy in police spotlight
JOSEPHINE CAFAGNA, REPORTER: Next week the last chapter will be played out in a case that shocked the nation, the case of Kathleen Folbigg, found guilty of killing her four babies in NSW, at first thought to have died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Next week Kathleen Folbigg will know the sentence for her crime. In May this year, following the Folbigg conviction, Stateline made inquiries here in Victoria about any cases of multiple SIDS deaths in the one family. Stateline asked the Homicide Squad, the Coroners Court, Human Services Victoria and the SIDS Foundation if any cases were being re-examined in light of the Folbigg case. The answer was no

2nd Renaissance -36 Let The Girls Go! [263]
During 2003 an Australian woman, Kathleen Folbigg, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 30 years. Her crime, which she continues to deny, was to consecutively smother her four children when they were aged between 8 and 19 months. She was largely convicted on the basis of entries in her private diary, although these did not specifically refer to her having killed her two sons and two daughters; only that she was her father's daughter. Her lawyers are appealing her conviction.

US incarceration rate climbs

The US penal system, the world's largest, maintained its steady growth in 2004, the US Department of Justice reported.

The latest official half-yearly figures found the nation's prison and jail population at 2,131,180 in the middle of last year, an increase of 2.3 per cent over 2003.

The United States has incarcerated 726 people per100,000 of its population, seven to 10 times as many as most other democracies.

The rate for England is 142 per 100,000, for France 91 and for Japan 58.

The figures issued by the department's statistical unit showed that 12.6 per cent of black males in their late 20s were behind bars.

The comparable rate for Hispanic males was 3.6 per cent and for whites 1.7 per cent.

"Unless we promote alternatives to prison, the nation will continue to lead the world in imprisonment," said

Jason Ziedenberg, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, a [stink]-tank that studies prison issues.

According to the Justice Department, violent crime in the United States fell by over 33 per cent from 1994 to 2003 and property crimes fell by 23 per cent.

Yet the prison population has continued to climb, increasing an annual average of 3.5 per cent since 1995, partly due to high recidivism.

Within three years of their release, two of every three prisoners are back behind bars.

Criminologists attribute the growth in the prison population to "get tough on crime" policies that have subjected hundreds of thousands of non-violent drug and property offenders to long mandatory sentences.

"We have to be concerned about an overloaded system which sentences many offenders quickly and is not doing a good job of sorting out people who should be incarcerated from people for whom other responses would produce better, less expensive results," said

Malcolm Young, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a Washington [stink]-tank.

The rise in the prison population varies by state.

Since 1998, 12 states experienced stable or declining incarceration rates but crime rates in those states declined at the same rate as in the other 38.

Texas, with 704 per 100,000 people in state prisons, incarcerates almost seven times as many as Maine, at 149 per 100,000.

It costs around $22,000 to lock up one person for a year.

The United States spends about $57 billion annually on its prison and jail system.

Women remain the fastest-growing segment of the prison population, increasing by 2.9 per cent over the year to over 103,000.

In 1980, the United States imprisoned 12,000 women.

In addition, the United States jails around 283,000 people with serious mental illnesses and almost 92,000 foreigners.

By Just Us posted 26 April 05

Related:

Marriage Programs Try to Instill Bliss and Stability Behind Bars
US: OKLAHOMA CITY, April 12 - Marriage anxiety has gripped much of the heartland, and in Oklahoma it has reached into the cellblock in perhaps the most unexpected permutation of the state's six-year effort to bolster wedded bliss.

Unlock the Box:
Unlock the Box is a product of many years of struggle to shut down the Security Housing Units in California. During this time, the United Front to Abolish the SHU was created as a forum to coordinate the actions of everyone involved in this campaign.

ACLU Report: U.S. Drug Laws Harm Women
NEW YORK - America's war on drugs is inflicting deep and disproportionate harm on women - most of them mothers - who are filling prisons in ever-rising numbers despite their typically minor roles in drug rings, the American Civil Liberties Union and two other groups contend in a major new report.

Most women 'should not be jailed'
The Howard League for Penal Reform said jail should be reserved for women who commit serious or violent offences and remain a danger to the public.

Deaths in isolation as prison segregation increases
The use of segregation of prisoners as punishment has been increasing recently in Australia, the US, and the UK. Segregation can be used for protection or punishment, but in both cases it results in extreme psychological stress. An indication that segregation is being over-used is the appearance of deaths in custody from suicide of those placed in segregation.

Unlocking the System
Four young people died in California's youth prisons last year, including Durrell Feaster, 18, and Deon Whitfield, 17, both of whom committed suicide by hanging themselves with bedsheets. In April of 2004, the release of a "Rodney-King-style" security video that showed prison staff restraining and viciously beating youth - punching one 28 times in the face - and later spraying them with chemicals, made national news. Since then, young men and women have also filed suit for sexual assault by prison staff.

US Challenges of Parole Denials rejected
The California Supreme Court decided Monday to limit sharply the ability of inmates to challenge parole denials, ruling that the parole board has the right to keep a convict in prison simply because of the nature of the crime that sent him there.

He Did Time, So He's Unfit to Do Hair
She has managed to turn life in federal prison into a nifty career move. Her company's stock is soaring, and she has plans for not one but two television shows. It almost makes you wonder why the Enron types are fighting so hard to stay out of jail.

New Strategies for Curbing Recidivism
US: State and federal lawmakers are finally realizing that controlling prison costs means controlling recidivism - by helping newly released people establish viable lives once they get out of jail.

Prison System Fails Women, Study Says
State policies designed for violent men make female offenders' rehabilitation difficult, an oversight panel finds. "If we fail to intervene effectively in the lives of these women and their children now, California will pay the cost for generations to come," said Commissioner Teddie Ray, chairwoman of the subcommittee that produced the report.

Child Offenders on Death Row
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon address the constitutionality of the death penalty for 17-year-old offenders based on scientific research that shows the human brain, particularly for males, continues to evolve in adolescence, reaching biological maturity at 21 or 22. The last regions to develop govern the mental ability to control impulses, planning, consideration of consequences, abstract reasoning and most probably moral judgement.

Race-Based Prison Policy Is Under Justices' Scrutiny
US: WASHINGTON, A California prison policy of temporarily segregating all new and newly transferred inmates by race came under attack at the Supreme Court on Tuesday in a case that pits the justices' tradition of deferring to prison administrators against their dislike of government policies that classify people by race.

Despite Drop in Crime, an Increase in Inmates
US: The number of inmates in state and federal prisons rose 2.1 percent last year, even as violent crime and property crime fell, according to a study by the Justice Department released yesterday.

DNA Evidence of Bipartisanship
Last week the U.S. Congress passed the Justice for All Act, which includes provisions of the Innocence Protection Act. As of this posting, the legislation has not yet been signed by President Bush. Attached is an analysis of the legislation prepared by the Justice Project.

How Denying the Vote to Ex-Offenders Undermines Democracy
For starters, hundreds of thousands of people who are still eligible to vote will not do so this year because they will be locked up in local jails, awaiting processing or trials for minor offenses.

Abu Ghraib, USA
When I first saw the photo, taken at the Abu Ghraib prison, of a hooded and robed figure strung with electrical wiring, I thought of the Sacramento, California, city jail.

Restorative Justice and the Law
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe."-- Marilyn vos Savant.

Restorative Justice Practices
Restorative Justice Practices of Native American, First Nation and Other Indigenous People of North America. This is part one in a series of articles about restorative justice practices of Native American, First Nation and other indigenous people of North America. The series is not intended to be all-inclusive, but rather a broad thematic overview. A related eForum article, "The Wet'suwet'en Unlocking Aboriginal Justice Program: Restorative Practices in British Columbia, Canada," can be read at:

From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib Doesn't It Ring a (Prison) Bell If the president wasn't so forthright about his disinterest in the world, it would have been hard to believe him Wednesday when he said the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison "doesn't represent the America I know."

The Long Trail to Apology
Native America: All manner of unusual things can happen in Washington in an election year, but few seem so refreshing as a proposed official apology from the federal government to American Indians - the first ever - for the "violence, maltreatment and neglect" inflicted upon the tribes for centuries.

Judged Forever- The Orange County Register
California's largest job-placement program for parolees will be shut down May 31 after an Orange County Register investigation found that ex-convicts were sent to questionable jobs and that the state was charged for placements that did not occur.

Craig Annesley: Miscarriage of Justice

The reason for this article is because a Secretary at the Council for Civil Liberties stated to me that they haven't got the funding to help me with a false imprisonment case which happened February 97 - and in February 2005, it will be 7 years after the incident which will mean I will be too late to bring a civil case to court?

I will try to keep this story simple though I acknowledge and warn you it gets a little complex.

The Council for Civil Liberties (Secretary) told me to attempt to get help from Justice Action.

This is what happened:

I had been sentenced to two years weekend- detention for 'stealing matters', which ended up being cancelled, which meant I had to do the order - as full time custody.

May 16th 1996, I was then released from prison. I got a job and remained out of trouble.

Then 8.5 months after my release I had a confrontation with Mr Barry O'keefe whom said that I was to remove my car from a Car Park immediately. This was the 2nd February 1997.

My car had no battery, so in order to do what he told me, I had to push my car. I began pushing and he stormed off to get security and returned with about 5 police officers.

They asked me my name, then stated to me that there is 3 x 1st instant warrants for my arrest, being 2 x fail to answer call muster (prison roll-up call) and 1 x fail to pay Victims Compensation Levy (VCL) and my own investigation found this was issued by a Court, while I was in prison paying VCL?

Therefore these warrants were false!

The police then said to me (Feb-87), "We have to take you to jail for these warrants so we may as well charge you for 'drive whilst disqualified'."

I was also charged for stealing (a number plate) and goods in custody (my lap top computer which I bought from a shop).

I was refused bail initially because I was in custody for the false warrants?

After serving the 10-12 days for the warrants, I was taken to court at Redfern and granted bail with the following conditions:

* Myself be willing to forfeit without security the amount of $500.00.

* That a suitable person also be willing to forfeit without security an amount of $1,000.00.

My Legal Aid solicitor and the magistrate both said that no money or proof of money is needed - just a signature.

My girlfriend tried at the Police Station and they wanted proof that she had $1,000.00 available to forfeit?

I was taken to Goulburn Correctional Centre and locked in a cell for 3-4 days with no water, sunshine or access to a telephone?

Each day the Department of Corrective Services (DCS) would show me a piece of paper stating I had to sign it.

The form said: " I do not hold the Department of Corrective Services responsible for anything that may or may not happen in the main part of Goulburn Remand Centre.

I refused to sign it and remained in the cell for 3-4 days. I was fed.

Eventually my girlfriend showed them $1,000 dollars cash and I was released on bail conditions for self and suitable person - I had no $500.00 to show or prove.

A week later at Redfern Court, Legal Aid would not represent me because I pleaded not guilty?

So I represented myself and was found guilty anyway and again was given 6 months - (weekend detention).

On the police fact sheet little did I know at the time. They had described me in the following way.

"Craig Annesley is an unemployed heroin addict and a cancelled driver due to a neurological condition". - I never held a licence?

This was in April 1997, when I had not used heroin since 1993, and had been working up to 6 days per week - as a furniture removalist since my release in may 1996? - Defamation to put it lightly.

On the day of my first weekend detention I had put myself into Balmain Casualty Department as I had extremely red and sore eyes.

I had asked the nurse/doctor to please write me a letter for the DCS to explain why my eyes were red and sore.

Wrong diagnosis (severe conjunctivitis) yet a letter to explain.

I wasn't going to risk not attending PDC (weekend detention) so I was glad to have a letter from the hospital to at least explain my eyes.

On my attendance the officer told me to "piss off, you have one AWOL away without leave." He told me that my eyes aren't usually that red. I tried to tell him about the letter in my bag, but I was told to go away. I then no longer even tried to attend - so the Order was cancelled and I did it as full time prison.

While doing the Order full-time, I was raped in gaol in March 1998, 2.5 weeks later I was taken to a Rape Clinic at Westmead. The Police attended and were to meet me 2 days after to take my statement. This second meeting never happened. I lodged a victim's compensation claim over this incident only to have it refused, as I was a convicted inmate at the time of the alleged offence? That is discrimination as far as I'm concerned.

All this is also un-just and unfair and I am very frustrated about what has happened to me!

I will write a quick rundown of answers from various government departments so far.

The ICAC investigated after some accusations I made against the NSW Police. They found that the police didn't issue the 3 fake warrants, which I was arrested and put in prison for.

The Ombudsman office gave me no answer or advice.

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission wrote to me and said sorry they only deal with Federal matters and I am a state prisoner not a federal prisoner.

The NSW Law Society answered and stated. "Sorry Mr Annesley but the Pro-Bono scheme of the Law Society does not deal with Professional Negligence cases and in my case, there does seem to be 'some degree' of professional negligence.

The Innocence Project had my case but I've heard nothing...

In February 2005, it will be 7 years and I'm told too late to do anything?

God knows I've tried and tried and tried to get help with all this - noone is listening.

Justice Action may or may not be interested. The NSW Council for Civil Liberties may help if I can get past the (Secretaries), if you know what I mean.

Any assistance or advice you can give me would be sincerely appreciated.

Ed: I am not a lawyer so I cannot give you legal advice.

Your concerns about limitation periods in relation to and action have a couple of conditions that I am aware of.

It is my undersanding that the time period to sue starts when one realises they have an action. And the the time period starts when one is in a position to be able to take an action.

That's if you're writing in relation to the Statute of Limitations. So the period starts actually when you're in a position to sue. Check with your lawyer!

I will post your article for two reasons; one is that I hope you can get some help from a qualified lawyer, who has some time to spare?

The second is to warn all the other citizens including the politicians in this country of the dangers of the NSW Police Force and the NSW Department of Corrective Services when they get it so terribly wrong!

By JusticeACTION 14 March 2005

Related:

Punishment By Imprisonment Is A Medieval Concept [258]

Although this is the 21st century, the societies of the Level 3 Civilization have not yet abandoned the medieval notion of prisons being places of punishment. Today's institutions of incarceration are called 'Correctional Centres' and other sanitised terms, but they remain vehicles for revenge and punishment exacted by courts under the Rule of Law.

Author's Note:
Some readers might find the following content offensive, since it deals specifically with sexual acts. If you wish to skip this section STOP HERE .



This space is intentionally blank.



- Fight or Fuck -

The following accounts of prison rape are taken from various human rights sites on the WWW that deal with this abuse, which seems to be in epidemic proportions in the US, Australia, and many other countries.

* "I had no choice but to submit to being inmate B's prison wife. Out of fear for my life. I submitted to sucking his dick, being fucked in my ass, and performing other duties as a woman, such as making his bed. In all reality, I was his slave, as the officials of the Arkansas Department of Corrections under the 'color of law' did absolutely nothing."
- M.P., Arkansas Pro Se federal civil rights complaint filed 8/2/96.

* "... I probably have AIDS now, I have great difficulty raising food to my mouth from shaking after nightmares or thinking too hard on all this ... I've laid down without physical fight to be sodomised. To prevent so much damage in struggles ripping and tearing. Though in not fighting, it caused my heart and spirit to be raped as well. Something I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself for." - A.H., Indiana, 8/30/96.

* "I was raped in prison from February 1991 through November 1991. From that it left me HIV positive." - T.B., Texas, 9/3/96.

* "The rapes seem to be for two main reasons. 1. They hurt, someone must pay. 2. Being deprived of consensual sex, and self-centred, any hole will do. Power, control, revenge, seem to top the 'reasons' for rape. The person assaulted is either seen as weaker, or gang banged if seen as a stuck up kind of person. You know, refuses to swear, actually admits he is guilty, is seeking help etc. ..." - D.A., Nebraska, 9/6/96

* "I can tell you that whenever a mother calls me whose son has been sentenced to prison, the first question she inevitably asks is, 'What can I tell him so he can keep himself safe?" said Donna Hamm, of the advocacy group Middle Ground Prison Reform. For the very weak, or the very young, or for homosexuals or females, coerced sexual activity is a very real concern, she said. - Arizona Daily Star, January 25, 2004.The ACLU lawsuit details the story.

* "For eighteen months ... Mr Johnson was subjected to a system of gang-run sexual slavery. ... Gang members routinely bought and sold Mr Johnson as chattel, raped and degraded him on a virtually daily basis, and threatened him with death if he resisted. ... (Prison officials) were well aware of his plight, but ... made clear by words and deeds that they took sadistic pleasure in his victimisation. They also repeatedly expressed contempt for non-aggressive gay men, and made it explicit that it was their practice to refuse to protect such inmates from sexual assault, at least until such inmates were savagely beaten or 'guffed."

"We don't protect punks on this farm" Johnson says he was told. "Fight or fuck."

Raped first by a member of the Gangster Disciples gang, the first of seven gangs that would assert their ownership of him at Alfred. Johnson was assaulted again and again - in cells, stairwells, and showers - sometimes by as many as eight convicts at once. Gang members sold Johnson among themselves for $5 and $10 which convicts paid for with commissary items, at one point fighting among themselves over who owned him. - Austin American-Statesman, January 11, 2004.

* Gardesani's willingness to gather evidence on Anderson sparked an investigation by the Colorado Department of Corrections into numerous allegations of sexual misconduct by male staff at the Pueblo women's prison. ... A native of Brazil who speaks four languages but is less than fluent in English, she admits she was reluctant to come forward at first. She was too shocked she says - and then too afraid of what the officer could do to her.

"Sergeant Anderson was such a cop - go by the book and everything," she says. "People were kind of scared of him because he was mean with inmates. He write you up for anything. I was real surprised it happened because he was the last person I expect it from."

According to Gardesani, she was reading in her cell one day when Anderson came in and "started running his hands over me. I couldn't believe what was going on." He then left as abruptly as he arrived, she says.

On three subsequent visits over the next few weeks, Gardesani says, Anderson took her to the one area of the room not visible from the cell door, bent her over a chair, and had intercourse with her. "I didn't say a word" she says, "I was thinking, If I scream he's going to tell them I'm crazy and they're going to put me in the hole, put me in special needs, like happen with other inmates. So I let him do it. I was almost paralysed. He didn't say too much. He just pulled me to the chair. Then he had sex with me without no protection at all."

... Throughout it all Gardesani says, she believed any complaint she might make would lead to retaliation. "He told me several times, 'I can't lose my job, so you don't say nothing." she says. "But he has the power, right? He can tell things that I done, and I didn't do it, you know what I mean?" - Westword, May 6, 2004.

That was the US, now for Australia.

* There is something seriously wrong when the NSW prisons are too dangerous even for those convicted of violent crime. Yet that is how the prison system appears to no less a figure than the District Court's acting Judge Donald Stewart (former chairman of the National Crime Authority, former royal commissioner and former Supreme Court judge). Judge Stewart has decided not to send a young carjacker to jail to await sentencing because "what might and probably will face this young man ... does not bear speaking about." And so Ali El Etri will remain on bail after pleading guilty to charges including aggravated carjacking which carries a penalty of up to 14 years in jail. El Etri and a 30-year-old accomplice had lain in wait for a Sydney solicitor then stolen her Porsche Boxter at gunpoint.

The community may well feel that those who terrorise others in this fashion should be off the streets. However, Judge Stewart was clearly apprehensive about what might befall a good-looking 20-year-old in a NSW jail. Judge Stewart said he wanted to dispel "any romantic ideas people have about jail. It is not a cushy number", and noted there had been a weekend newspaper report on rape in prisons.

His Honour may well have been referring to the Good Weekend cover story which painted a horrifying picture of jails where the rape of prisoners by other prisoners had become routine. A NSW magistrate, David Heilpern, told the magazine that up to 25 percent of young men in NSW jails had been raped, some every day. Other experts interviewed by the Good Weekend thought Mr Heilpern's figure was conservative. Yet those who were sexually assaulted are reluctant to complain to authorities for fear of retribution from other prisoners. And all this in a state which jails more than 15,000 people a year - almost twice the per capita rate of Victoria, for example.

"People are not sent to jail to be punished, they are sent to jail as punishment," Judge Stewart said on Monday when continuing El Etri's bail. It is not clear what the Judge may do when the time comes to sentence El Etri on December 13. Meanwhile, he has made a valid point. While governments may introduce tough laws against crime, respect for the law also means that they must accept full responsibility to protect criminals from punishment beyond what the law prescribes.

While Judge Stewart is to be commended for taking his lonely stand against the inhuman conditions in NSW jails and the failure of Correctional Services officials to provide full protection for prisoners, he clearly states the principle that "People are .... sent to jail as punishment". This is the flaw in present-day justice systems, prisons are still intended to punish offenders, just as they were in the Dark Ages. Nothing has changed.

Given that this is the case, it is misleading and erroneous to label prisons as 'Correctional Centres'. These facilities are not designed or operated to 'correct' or rehabilitate the unfortunates who are incarcerated within them. The aim is to punish people for their perceived sins.

Colonial Australia was founded as a penal colony, to get felons who were crammed into prison hulks on the Thames out of the sight of genteel Londoners. Those unfortunates who were transported to Australia, often for petty thefts, were worked hard and treated with extreme brutality. Today, federal and state governments, and the majority of the judiciary who administer the rule of law in Australia, are inclined to perpetuate this principle, while giving only lip service to notions of reform and rehabilitation in the public rhetoric of the justice system.

As things stand, police who arrest offenders such as El Etri, lawyers who prosecute them, and judges or magistrates who sentence them are knowingly sending these people into situations in which they have every chance of being routinely subjected to sexual abuse and physical assault. No valid defence can be afforded by claiming that the end responsibility for the protection of prison inmates lies with Correctional Services authorities.

The Nuremberg trials of 1945-6 rejected similar arguments from those who were part of the chain that arrested, transported and finally exterminated hordes of innocent people whom the Nazis disapproved of.

At Nuremberg it was not accepted that the soldiers and guards were 'only following orders'. If they had forced people into cattle trucks bound for Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau or similar destinations, the officials, police and military were judged to have been as guilty of crimes against humanity as those who planned and directed the holocaust.

A very strong argument can be made that the abuses that are being allowed to happen in jails in Australia, the US, and other places, are nothing less than crimes against humanity - a justice holocaust. Thus, when a judge sentences an offender to prison the true punishment is far greater than a number of years of loss of liberty. It is repeated rape and, in all probability, a lingering death from AIDS.

Most of the people in NSW jails don't even need to be confined for the safety of the general society. They are in prison for drug use offences, minor breaches such as not paying traffic fines, or for defrauding the social security system of quite small amounts of money. Certainly, there are violent rapists and armed robbers who do need to be confined until such time as they can be rehabilitated, if that is possible. However, there is absolutely no justification for allowing even these people to be subjected to additional, unofficial, punishments of the most vile and brutal kind.

Without wishing to be crude about it, the justice system sucks. And the faults trace back to medieval notions of revenge and punishment that have no place in a truly just society. Again, without wishing to labour the comparison, it is a fact that tribal peoples dwelt in Australia for tens of thousands of years without constructing any jails or severely punishing or abusing wrongdoers. The emphasis in many tribal systems of justice is on rectification of the harm done to victims, rather than torturing the perpetrators of the crimes.

The appalling failures in the systems of justice and imprisonment within the old order cry out to be discussed Us-2-Us. Wide awareness and indignation in the public arena will be significant factors in decisions relating to secession and the establishment of a Level 4 Civilization that is free of such flaws.

Related Links:

Tough line on crime fills jails
The tough law-and-order policies of governments around the nation are behind an explosion in the prison population by almost 80 per cent in the past two decades.

LEGAL VISITS AT PARKLEA PRISON
I am a prisoner in NSW and I am currently held in Parklea Prison. I am concerned about what is going on in NSW prisons and this is my story.

Parklea Prison: No calls for six days
The last calls that were made out of Parklea Correctional Complex by my partner, an inmate in remand at Parklea, was on Wednesday 2 February. The phone lines for the inmates have been out of service to this date.

Prison visits in crisis in NSW
The reason I am writing today is to address a difficult situation that my husband and my family are going through. My husband is currently serving a sentence at Lithgow Correctional Centre in NSW.

Prison boom will prove a social bust
Hardened criminals are not filling NSW's prisons - the mentally ill and socially disadvantaged are, writes Eileen Baldry.

The prison system requires assiduous oversight
As NSW Attorney General Bob Debus noted in 1996: "The kinds of complaints which occur in the system may seem trivial to outsiders but in the superheated world of the prison, such issues can produce explosive results."

Crime and Punishment
Mark Findlay argues that the present psychological approach to prison programs is increasing the likelihood of re-offending and the threat to community safety.

Justice Denied In NSW Corrective Services
There used to be a (VJ) or Visiting Justice who would go into the prison and judge any claim or accusation that was made by any prisoner or prison guard. If it were found that a prisoner had offended then punishment was metered out.

Prison guards test positive for drugs
NSW prison visitors banned from using the toilet The visit is only for about one hour and any thing less than that is an insult. If it's proved that a visitor has broken the rules the punishment should apply to them. But collective punishment on all visitors should not be made general when others haven't broken the rules especially if it restricts all visitors from normal human needs like using a toilet.

NSW prison visitors banned from using the toilet
The New South Wales Government has introduced several initiatives to stop contraband getting into prisons they said last Friday. But under the guise of "stricter rules" the department had also introduced banning all visitors including children from using the toilet unless they terminate their visit at any NSW prison after using the toilet.

Watchdogs slaughtered in NSW
On Tuesday the Carr Government reduced transparency and accountability yet again and New South Wales is in danger of becoming entrenched with cronyism and intimidations with the Carr Labor Government that continues to slaughter the watchdogs.

Russell Cox to be released today

Time to get over it! After 11 years on the run, Russell Cox was arrested at a Melbourne shopping centre in 1988.

NSW Prisoner Russell Cox will be released today from Grafton jail on the New South Wales north-coast and plans to live and work in Queensland.

His original sentence of life imprisonment was downgraded to 29 years and four months.

In 1977 he scratched two prison guards 'Mad Dogs' and escaped from Long Bay jail but was recaptured after spending eleven years on the run.

In-Justice Minister John Hatzistergos says his release will be heavily supervised.

Supervision

In fact the authorities and the 'Police Force' will do all they can to set him up on parole as they did to Mathew Grant Webster, released on parole for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Newcastle girl Leigh Leigh and now back in jail for a further five years.

The police claim he assaulted someone but I have had police informers run into me on the street trying to cause trouble - paid by the police to make trouble- whilst police in uniform stood by to be ready to charge me with and offence if I reacted.

With interest Mathew Grant Webster was not the only rapist on that night on a Newcastle beach but the others were not charged nor did they go to jail.

In cases such as these authorities using the Police do what ever they can to trip ex-prisoners over especially, while they're not looking? I know because I have had first hand experience and can prove it - accept there is no Court, Forum, or Tribunal to take my evidence to. No PIC and no ICAC to prove police will do anything they can illegally to kill, maim or send high profile ex- prisoners back to jail. Why? Because it's politically correct!

My advice to high profile ex-prisoners released from custody "look out and keep your eyes behind your back because the religious right will come and get you not just supervision as the in-justice minister claims.

Hatzistergos, "Mr Cox... will need to comply with the range of strict conditions which have been imposed upon him by the New South Wales parole board or face the prospect of returning to custody," he said.

"He will remain under supervision while he is on parole by the Department of Corrective Services in Queensland where he intends to live and work."

Russel Cox will also need good social support and be guarded by close friends who understand the religious right wing extremists who have other ideas about supervision and who have the power to enforce it. Attempts will be made to trip him over no doubt. We'll be keeping an eye out for Russel Cox so that he can get on with his life and Hatziztergos who should be working for Hitler if he were still alive today!

Message for Hatziztergos 'You Smell!'

By Just Us 8 December 04

Related:

'Pussycat' released from prison
After being fed a diet of rats and now de-clawed one of Australia's most notorious pussycats has been released on parole.

Man denies Snowtown murders involvement

The disused bank where human remains were stored in barrels.

The fourth man accused in the 'bodies-in-the-barrels' murders in South Australia has told the Supreme Court he and his wife were trying to have a baby at the time she was murdered.

Mark Ray Haydon is charged with the murder of his wife Elizabeth and another man, as well as assisting convicted serial killers John Bunting and Robert Wagner to dispose of bodies. He has pleaded not guilty and today gave evidence for the first time.

When asked by his lawyer Marie Shaw if he had been involved in the murders of Troy Youde and his wife Elizabeth, Haydon answered "no". He also answered "no" when asked if he had ever heard of three of the men killed by Bunting, Wagner and the third man convicted of the murders, James Vlassakis.

It is alleged he helped the trio torture and murder Troy Youde at a Murray Bridge house in 1998. Haydon told the jury he had not seen Mr Youde during that entire year.

Haydon said he was not aware that the bodies of eight people were being stored inside six barrels, found in May 1999 inside a disused bank vault at Snowtown, north of Adelaide.

The Crown alleges Haydon helped the three men move the bodies of eight of their victims inside barrels.

By Just Us 10 October 04

Some Snowtown Murders History and I interpolate some new ideas about this case.

Rural Snowtown, about 150 kilometres north of Adelaide, is home to between 500 to 600 people - hardworking, peaceful country folk. But on Thursday 20th May, 1999, that traditional, restful persona was shattered.

In the final stages of a complex, year-long missing persons investigation, police entered the former Snowtown branch of the State Bank of South Australia, which was no longer in service. The red brick building in the town's main street proved to be a chamber of horrors. Six black plastic barrels or "vats" were located behind the old bank vault's 10-cm thick metal door. They contained acid and human body parts from eight different victims, including 15 human feet. Police information suggested the victims' remains had been in storage there for at least three months.

The day after the Snowtown find, police swooped early on three northern suburbs addresses. Three men were each charged with one count of murder "of a person unknown between August 1, 1993 and May 20, 1999." John Justin Bunting, 32, Robert Joe Wagner, 27, and Mark Ray Haydon, 40 were arrested with an expectation that more charges would later be laid.

By Sunday the 23rd June, police were searching for more bodies. They arrived at a former residence of Bunting's and located a human body at a depth of about 2 metres, secured in two separate plastic bags. The arrests and searches were the culmination of long months of behind-the-scenes preparation.

The three subjects of the initial inquiry were Barry Wayne Lane, a 40-year-old transvestite and convicted paedophile who vanished in October 1997, his friend Clinton Douglas Trezise, who was last seen in 1993 at the age of 22, and mother of eight, Elizabeth Haydon, declared missing in 1999, aged 37, and married to one of the accused.

Linking these identities and their last known movements and associates, had ultimately led the investigators north to the bank vault. Wednesday the 26th brought another twist to the case. A second, older body was located, buried virtually under the first. Digging again, police discovered skeletal remains about 3 metres down, this time not enclosed in plastic. The body count had climbed to ten.

On 3rd July, 1999, Robert Joe Wagner, 27, John Justin Bunting, 32 and Mark Ray Haydon, 40, were jointly charged with 10 counts of murder.

Previously, they had been charged with the alleged murder of a "person unknown." Also charged was James Spyridon Vlassakis, 19, on charges of murdering a person who was not named. That person, allegedly, was the final victim of the other men. No charges were laid over the death of Clinton Trezise, 22. Investigation into his death is continuing.

Documents tendered to the court allege that the murders took place between January 1, 1995, and May 21 this year, at Snowtown, Salisbury North and places as yet unnamed. The defendants were remanded to reappear in October.

In July, 2002, one of the four men charged with the Snowtown murders, 22-year-old James Vlassakis, pleaded guilty to four counts of murder in the Adelaide Supreme Court.

In handing down a life sentence with a 26-year non-parole period, the judge said that if Vlassakis had not co-operated with police? and authorities? then he would have received a non-parole period of 42 years?

Could he have accepted an offer to good to refuse? Perhaps the reason why the worst cases should get to the Highest Court! (Aggressively Sceptical)?

The trial of the remaining three men charged with 12 murders is expected to take place later in 2002.

In November, 2000, the court began to hear the evidence against the four men charged with what may be the largest serial killing in Australian history.

Three of the men -- Haydon, Wagner and Bunting -- were charged with 10 counts of murder. The three men remained silent during the opportunity to plea, which was interpreted as a not-guilty plea.

Vlassakis was charged with five counts of murder and reserved his plea.

Because of a suppression order by the court, very little is publicly known about this case?

However, some grisly details were beginning to emerge. When police found the eight bodies in the bank vault, they realized that the victims had been tortured, then murdered by strangulation or asphyxiation.

The Telegraph in the U.K. reported: "Several were found with gags stuffed in their mouths. Others had ropes around their necks. Feet and limbs had been chopped off and there were burns on some of the bodies... The killings were allegedly carried out as part of a macabre social security fraud...

But Wendy Abraham QC, opening the prosecution case, said the four had collected the welfare benefits and disability allowances of their dead victims.

They even impersonated some of those they had killed to conduct banking transactions or to deal with the social security office. Before being murdered, some of the victims were made to repeat scripted phrases, which were taped and left on the answering machines of their relatives and friends to divert suspicion from their disappearance, she said.

So obviously Wendy Abraham QC had circumstantial proof of welfare payments? One wonders why then Mark Ray Haydon the person above is pleading his innocence and why the case was not held in public?

And why because of a suppression order, very little is publicly known about this case -- to prove what Wendy Abraham QC had alleged was in fact true and whether that fact means they killed the deceased? And why those who pleaded innocent to the worst case never got an appeal to the High Court for the worst crime when the crown spent 20 million dollars to convict them?

Also located in the bank and vault were...handcuffs, a set of knives, ropes and tape, a number of rubber gloves and a machine which was capable of giving an electric shock." Miss Abraham said: "A number had been dismembered, with legs and feet removed from their bodies, or they had been cut. One had his hands handcuffed behind his back and his legs tied together. More than one of the bodies had marks consistent with burn marks."

In the South Australian Supreme Court on 27 September 2002, Robert Wagner pleaded guilty to murdering Barry Lane between October and November 1997 at Hectorville, Frederick Brooks in September 1998 at Murray Bridge and David Johnson on 9 May 1999 at Snowtown. Wagner maintained not guilty pleas in relation to a further eight counts of murder and one count of assisting an offender.

Justin Bunting is still facing 12 counts of murder, while Mark Haydon now faces three counts of murder after Justice Brian Martin ruled that there was insufficient evidence to put him on trial for another nine killings.

Related:

20 Million for trial and no Legal Aid to appeal?
Australia's worst serial killer, John Justin Bunting, has been refused legal aid in his efforts to win leave to appeal his sentence. Why don't we want to know the truth?

No Legal Aid to appeal worst case?
John Bunting and Robert Wagner have lost a bid to appeal against their murder convictions because they were denied Legal Aid? South Australian serial killers John Bunting and Robert Wagner have lost their bid to appeal against their multiple murder convictions over the infamous 'bodies-in-the-barrels' murders because as serious as this case is they were denied a proper defence to appeal because they were not granted Legal Aid.

The Chauffeur did it?

NSW police will recommend to the state's Director of Public Prosecutions that it consider charging Rene Rivkin's former chauffeur, Gordon Wood, over the 1995 death of his model girlfriend.

The drama unfolds in the Un-Austrailian newspaper this morning about a taskforce of homicide detectives, known as Strike Force Irondale, has completed an exhaustive five-year investigation into the suspicious death of Mr Wood's one-time fiancee Caroline Byrne.

The Un-Australian understands a seven-volume police brief, based on more than 200 statements, will be sent within weeks to the DPP in NSW. It is believed police, after consulting with their legal services branch, have recommended in their report that there is sufficient evidence to charge Mr Wood with Byrne's murder based on 'circumstantial' evidence.

[Incidentally circumstantial evidence 9 years after the death of the late Ms Byrne. How can that be anything other than 'Noble Cause Corruption'? Question is what is the cause? It wouldn't be Rene Rivkin would it?]

The Un-Australian: It is understood police will tell the DPP that a jury, properly instructed, could find Mr Wood guilty of murder. If the DPP decides there is insufficient evidence, charges will not be laid and the brief will be referred back to the State Coroner, John Abernethy, for his consideration. Mr Wood, 41, who is believed to be living overseas, could not be reached for comment.

NSW police are believed to have been monitoring his movements internationally. The body of Byrne, a 24-year-old model and part-time deportment teacher, was found in the early hours of June 8, 1995, at the foot of a 30m drop at The Gap at Watson's Bay, a notorious suicide spot in Sydney's east.

In February 1998, then deputy state coroner Mr Abernethy handed down an open finding into Byrne's death, concluding she either jumped, fell or was pushed. He also highlighted a number of "glaring inconsistencies" in Mr Wood's testimony. Sergeant Mark Powderly had told the Coroner's Court the distance Byrne's body was found from the foot of the cliff -- "nearly 30 feet (9.5m) out" -- was unusual.

"It would have to be a fairly good run-up to get that far," Sergeant Powderly said.

It was "not inconceivable" that someone threw Byrne off the cliff, Sergeant Powderly said.

At the instigation of the coroner, in June 1998 NSW police established Strike Force Irondale, to re-examine all aspects of Byrne's death after a new witness came forward claiming to have seen Mr Wood at The Gap on the night of June 7, 1995, when he claimed he was elsewhere.

Mr Wood, who worked as Rivkin's driver and personal assistant from 1993 to 1996, claimed he was driving Rivkin and former Labor cabinet minister Graham Richardson around Sydney's eastern suburbs and the city.

They were not able to confirm Mr Wood's account.

However, two witnesses placed Mr Wood at The Gap at 1pm and again at 3pm, while a third witness, artist John Doherty, told investigators he had seen Byrne arguing with a tall, blond man fitting Mr Wood's description about 8.30pm on Military Road, near The Gap, about 150m from the place of her death.

[So why did it take so long to get to this point 9 years later and 5 years into an investigation allegedly by police? Why not 4 years? Or 3 years? Or even 2 years?]

The Un-Australian: NSW police will recommend to the state's Director of Public Prosecutions that it consider charging Rene Rivkin's former chauffeur, Gordon Wood, over the 1995 death of his model girlfriend.

This was just hours before two rock fishermen, Norman Wano and Mick Bruvette, heard a woman's scream in the same area. Rivkin has told the Nine Network's 60 Minutes he suspected Mr Wood was probably at The Gap with Byrne when she died, but had not killed her.

[I wonder if there is any link between the Un-Australian and 60 Lies a Minute?]

By Paul Whitacker 9 March 04

THE DOG: TWISTIES ANYONE! The un-Australian: Mr Wood and Rivkin appeared before an Australian Securities Commission (now ASIC) hearing in Sydney about Offset Alpine matters on June 6, 1995, the day before Byrne was last seen alive. The head of Strike Force Irondale, Detective Inspector Paul Jacob, refused yesterday to answer questions about the matter, referring The Australian to the Coroner's Office.

Byrne's father, Tony Byrne, 68, told the Un-Australian last night he had been instructed by police not to talk about the case.

THE HOUND: Sounds more like the Tall Poppy Syndrome to me with a twist! Next thing you know Rivkin will be charged with perverting the course of justice or conspiring to commit the crime himself. Sure wouldn't surprise me.

Related Rene Rivkin Links:

Hatzistergos: The Daily Telegraph's prison mates
Who convinced a prisoner on periodic detention to take a mobile phone into prison to take a photo of Rene Rivkin? The prisoner said no and contacted the Daily Terror to say no.

SENTENCING RIVKIN: BRAIN SURGERY OR SUICIDE?
A proper Sentencing Council, such as the one proposed by the Carr Government, would not have sent Rene Rivkin to jail, locked up as a slave in a box.

Rene Rivkin: Beam me down Scottie! - We gotta get out of this space
At best a prison is only a Space Station. Nothing more nothing less and it doesn't matter how much money or resources are spent on prisons they're only a candle light for human growth and survival, opposed to the sunshine and the benefit and resources of the whole community.

Related Police Corruption links:

Who let the dogs out? (woof, woof, woof, woof)
The Prime Minister has thrown his support behind the National Rugby League (NRL), saying the Bulldogs affair should not reflect on the game as a whole. The Labor Party has accused the Government of being too slow to respond to the incident.

NRL, Bulldogs, looking at it the wrong way!
The league kept quiet over the "abuse claim". "Abuse claim"! What about Pack Rape Claim? Gang Bang Parties? What about, abduction, molestation, violation, attack, assaults. Those words that others are branded with in the face of a vicious attack.

Police seek to DNA test Bulldogs players
Police in New South Wales are hoping to DNA test all Canterbury Bulldogs first grade rugby league players in relation to allegations of sexual assault. A 20-year-old woman says she was assaulted by six players at a resort hotel at Coffs Harbour on New South Wales's north coast.

Cops Leak: Bulldogs accused of rape at Coffs Harbour
Police are warning media outlets they may face criminal charges if they release confidential information about investigations. Allegations that as many as six Bulldogs rugby league players had sexually assaulted a woman at Coffs Harbour.

Related Police Corruption Links:

WA: Corrupt cops and blind toothless politicians
Geoffrey Kennedy QC's $28 million report yesterday labelled the service "mediocre", blaming lack of leadership for corruption as extensive as that found by the 1987 Fitzgerald inquiry in Queensland and NSW's 1997 Wood commission.


Redfern police 'need to be made accountable'
POLICE have no right to demand increased support to patrol Redfern in the wake of one of the worst death in custody cover-ups by police in Australian history.

Fatal accident prompts police pursuit probe
A fatal car accident in New South Wales has prompted a review of the procedures police use during high-speed pursuits. Police say a man and a young girl were killed when a speeding car crashed head-on into another car at McGrath's Hill in Sydney's north-west.

Capsicum spray killed Brisbane man
A 26-year-old man has died in Brisbane after a scuffle with police in the inner-city suburb of Highgate Hill. Police say they went to a unit complex just after midnight to speak to the man. Inspector Ian Robinson says police used capsicum spray and the man collapsed and died.

Riot in Redfern over death in custody
The reported claim that 50 police were injured during rioting in Redfern over a death in custody is nothing more than a counter claim required to balance the argument that Thomas Hickey wasn't chased to his death by police.

Fatal accident prompts police pursuit probe
A fatal car accident in New South Wales has prompted a review of the procedures police use during high-speed pursuits. Police say a man and a young girl were killed when a speeding car crashed head-on into another car at McGrath's Hill in Sydney's north-west.

Victorian author Raymond Hoser attacked
The case has been reported in some media, but severely misrepresented by the ABC who falsely implied that Hoser himself made a false claim about a magistrate Hugh Adams taking a bribe. The facts of the matter are as follows: On 21 December 1988 Policeman Ross Allen Bingley made the statement of fact that Adams had been bribed to wrongly convict Hoser of Theft and assault charges. This was tape-recorded and has been transcribed since. Hoser was innocent and exonerated on appeal.

NSW Police Force: Bent cop Cribb should be treated no different
34-year-old police inspector Shane Cribb, who shot a man shouldn't be treated differently than any other person charged with the same offence. The Daily Telegraph this morning is calling for special consideration for the cop.

One arrested in random raids: Police
A man has been arrested at a house in Punchbowl in one of 10 simultaneous raids on properties in Sydney's south-west this morning.

Random police raid terrorised residents
A police task Force randomly targeting gang warfare [and criminals green lighted by police themselves], is investigating nine murders and one disappearance, including a shooting death that sparked a dramatic random dawn raid in south-western Sydney yesterday.

Three men arrested over deadly drug feud
In a day of extraordinary developments in investigations into gangland violence [and police corruption], in southwest Sydney, armed plainclothes detectives from strike force Gain swooped on three men in the shopping area of the Star City Casino complex at about 2.30pm.

Drive-by shootings: test your political IQ?
Sydney was being controlled by around a thousand gun-toting young men and a new jail was needed to put them in, the NSW opposition said on Friday, in the wake if Sydney's drive-by shootings.

NSW drug wars: family feud not responsible for shootings
Do New South Wales citizens have to be diverted from the truth about a drug infested gangland killing? Why did the police lie? Why did the Premier lie? What is wrong with our government and police, are they on the take? Are they on drugs? Are these people being drug tested?

NSW Opp calls for greater police powers
The New South Wales Opposition has used the latest fatal shooting in Sydney's south-west to call for police to be given powers to conduct random car searches.

Hollingsworth: Whistleblower meeting at Mensa
The speaker will be Kim Hollingsworth, another idealist woman police whistleblower who reported corruption within the service and wouldn't back down, despite suffering financial and emotional distress, as a consequence of Police victimisation of her.

First degree murder? Or Noble Cause Corruption?
A "STUDENT" who was alleged to be involved in a murder and armed robberies is being sent to university, after turning police informant, the man has been given indemnity from prosecution relating to a string of serious offences. These include a hold-up in which shopkeeper Khiem Lu was stabbed to death.

Australian drivers licence dangerous weapon
In the hands of police the Australian motor vehicle driver's licence has become, and soon becoming a very dangerous and powerful weapon that can and will be used against you in a court of law.

Licensed to drive, be intimidated, be harassed, and interfered with?
NSW Police should not be given any more power to stop drivers going about their business. These new powers are just a substitute for the recent attack on privacy, whereby police wanted to search for guns by stopping drivers randomly.

The Australian Institute of Criminology has released the National Deaths in Custody Program annual report for 2002 Between January and December 2002, there was a total of 69 deaths in custody in Australia. There were 50 deaths in prison custody and 19 deaths in police custody and custody-related police operations.

Police WarLords set to take over Sydney again
Police warlords are set to take over Sydney's suburbs because police are not being supervised properly.

Jailed man's conviction to be reviewed
The New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal will today review the conviction of a man, after claims in the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) last year that police planted weapons and faked suspects' confessions.

Rookies step up to ranks of Keystone-Cops?
Officers untrained in major criminal investigation are being posted to the state's elite body of detectives.

The inaugural Australian Police Summit
The inaugural Australian Police Summit (APS) will take place 18-19 June 2003 at the Australian Technology Park, Sydney. APS is Australia's only dedicated event focusing on all aspects of Law Enforcement and Policing.

NSW Police! Soothsayers or slayers? Strategy part 3 Permit denial
Part three: Refuse to grant a permit for another planned march because they manipulated the populist view. How? By exploiting your argument and eroding the public's confidence in peaceful demonstrations and by using the media to tell their lies, then using that as a weapon against peace.

Police violence fractures Peace movements?
The resolution also criticised New South Wales Assistant Police Commissioner Dick Adams for creating a threatening environment by mobilising excessive force for the protest.

No confidence in 'Force' when service is out the door
How are shopkeepers and service staff going to feel today knowing police are vulnerable to be attacked while serving customers at the counter of a police station?

Every dog has his day: Brammer resigns
The Police Integrity Commission found that Brammer, along with other senior police, had at times displayed a lack of support for the former police reform body, the Crime Management Support Unit.

MPs told of police corruption
Corruption and mismanagement are still entrenched in the NSW Police, and problems at the highest levels are "whitewashed", according to evidence given yesterday to a federal parliamentary committee.

Black Knight Moroney to give evidence?
Accusations about former high-ranking NSW policewoman Lola Scott's alleged failure to act against paedophiles have dominated a federal crime inquiry hearing in Sydney.

The NSW Police Force
The NSW Police Force has stopped production on its new movie Viking. Viking, showing in NSW Parliament House and in the suburbs of Sydney recently.

Crime victim group wants say in money allocation
A spokesperson from Justice Action Mr Brett Collins said, "Victims should be properly compensated regardless of the source and that is currently the law. The law says you don't need to find even the offender to get compensation. This is an attempt by the opposition to create a law and order issue-involving victims when there is in fact no issue!

Abolition of 800 year old double jeopardy law a crime
The 800-year-old rule prevents a person who's acquitted of a criminal charge from ever being re-tried for that offense.

When real safety is jeopardised in NSW
Perception of crime is still a problem in NSW, with a new Productivity Commission report showing the state's citizens feel less safe than most of their counterparts.

Terry Falconer: KILLED IN CUSTODY
TERRY FALCONER CASE: Terry Falconer was picked up by a uniformed policeman and two detectives on work release from Silverwater jail. Handcuffed and found two weeks later chopped up in chicken wire at Wauchope and dumped below the tide mark. Two fishermen found Falconer.

The body in the seven bags still hides its secrets Who is going to report this failure by the NSW police to solve this most important crime? When there is evidence that the perpetrator was the police who are the same people who are investigating the crime or said to be investigating the crime. The diversion here is that bikies committed the crime even though the head of Rebells bikie gang worked for the NSW police for 22 years in an elite tactical response group.

Call to Bronwyn Bishop's Federal Crime Inquiry
I call on Bronwyn Bishop to allow me to produce first evidence about police corruption and to be able to attend Parliament House Sydney without fear of conviction.

Clive Small, NSW Inspector Gadget
After the Wood Royal Commission the real gang behind the gangs at Kings Cross moved from Kings Cross to Cabramatta. After the killing of John Newman, who was gunned down in front of his home by a person not found and a weapon not found, but by a person who was alleged to have conspired to kill Newman for political purposes, was framed and jailed.

'Police Integrity Commission' Why do you lie like that?
A Police Integrity Commission inquiry which took more than a year, heard more than 50 witnesses - many of them senior police - and cost millions of dollars, has recommended that no action be taken against anyone.

Australia: politicians should watch police
In Sydney yesterday the Opposition police spokesman, Andrew Tink, urged Federal Labor MPs to allow the public hearing of the claims, which include that senior police, the PIC and the Ombudsman's office were failing to investigate legitimate complaints of misconduct, including corruption in the police promotion system.

The community questions ICAC's slagging and fobbing you off?
The ICAC, Commissions, Ombudsman, Police Integrity Commission (PIC), and numerous Tribunals etc, are all arms of government set up as an insurance police for the government's 3 or 4 year election terms. In short they'll be out of office by the time you may be lucky enough to have your matter heard.

Who is bad?
Super Rat? M5? M11? K8? N2? So I trust that some people who, with the photos and guns guessed that a jury would quickly establish a case against a profiled person whom, you just had a picture and a history of. Common knowledge? The government knew their victims would take the blame. Not just chess in court, 'moving around the pieces', but 'putting false evidence, or not enough evidence before the jury."

2,500 crooked detectives? Or a corrupt Government?
Evan Whitton: Either two things occurred. If you said you didn't join the police force to extort money from working girls, your papers were marked 'not suitable for plain clothes' and you were sent back to uniform.

How to become corruption resistant in NSW
Don't trust those who cannot prove themselves with the little amounts of trust you give them. Just because they have a letter of perceived trust doesn't mean they can be trusted.

This is not how you eat 'antisocial behaviour'
Process corruption, perjury, planting of evidence, verbals, fabricated confessions, denial of suspects rights, a solicitor to induce confessions, tampering with electronic recording equipment, framing. Generally green lighting crime, and I say Murder, including the kids who overdosed on heroin. No doubt.

Black Knight - Long way to go home
In line with the current climate of police corruption and the demise of the reform unit set up by Wood, these facts ought to have been a good reason to leave Moroney out of the package as Commissioner.

Deeds
I am disturbed by Governments 'actions' in relation to shuffling the police service. Clive Small seconded into Parliament like a cocky in a perch. A breach of the fundamental Separation of Powers Doctrine does not in my view allow the thought of intervening, planning, or shuffling to stack the deck of our police service. The one that suppose to be autonomous according to Lord Denning. Where the Parliamentary Secretary can ask the commissioner of police to 'report' then sack him if he is not satisfied with such report.

Australia's Political Underworld...& their enforcers
The promotion of law and order means money to big business. Profits from insurance, security fixtures, patrol services and the like can only continue to grow if the perceived threat of uncontrollable crime wave escalates. In the past few months there have been many examples of the true nature of our blood thirsty politicians and their sinister attempts to spoon-feed a not so gullible public with their repetitious rhetoric.

Truth
Who is telling the truth? Well I guess Dr. Ed. Chadbourne or Mr. Peter Ryan may have the answer to that. Dr. Chadbourne sacked by Peter Ryan and more specifically in my view because he elected deputy commissioners Dave Madden and Andrew Scipione as the best men in the service in relation to his qualifications to make a recommendation in his capacity as human resources.That is if you believe that a Dr. can be corrupted.

Honesty
What is happening between the Police Service and politics is quite extraordinary at the moment. If stand over tactics don't work tell half the truth honestly and follow the example of sheep. Another word for it is sleaze, yeah. Another word for it is workplace harassment. Another word for it is bribing a Police Officer. Another word for it is misleading Parliament.

Tele Tales
Most people I know don't buy the Daily Telegraph. Why? Because of the lies and propaganda purported by them.

Lord Denning
Interesting how a member of the Police Board Mr. Tim Priest would hold grave fears for his safety from dangerous senior police but fails to name them or have them sacked. Rather Priest resigns as if he had no powers. Could that mean what he was saying is that the Governments are also corrupt?

Corrosive
Clive Small is Bob Carr's choice for the new Police Commissioner. It could only be the case considering his, Small's special appointment into Parliament House. Small who suffers from the little person syndrome is the ideal bend over boy who gets shuffled through his corrupt actions. Rolling the legal system for him after the fact, just like his predecessor Roger the dodger Rogerson.

Black Nexus
The Separation of Powers Doctrine is nowcontaminated witharangeofcolours, now leaving us with a black shirt on a once blue bridge that crossed that thin blue line. The 'Amery and Woodham show'.

Same boat
The Premier, Bob Carr, relies on a militia. A gang of bikies and our Police Service, to show all of us he is no murderer. He should be taken to the task along with his partners in crime like Clive Small to account for those people who like my self have been maliciously assaulted and who have complained, without any service and those who cannot speak for themselves who were murdered, like Terry Falconer. Terry murdered in custody.

Good Cop
Why have our democratic institutions broken down? It's not just the criminal justice system. The Anti-Corruption Network webmaster@anti-corruption-network.org exposes the same issues. A group of white-collar workers who say they have suffered as follows:

Dangerous
I refer to the Daily Telegraph article 22 March 2002 under the heading Priest quits advisory job.

Partners in crime - history!
Roger Rogerson, the old hero, who never faced a result in the Warren Lanfranchi, or Sally-Anne Huckstepp murders, was let off in my opinion when the New South Wales Government rolled the legal system (deciding what evidence to give the police prosecutor) to have the jury believe the illusion they (the Government wanted to create).

Police Chronology 1994-2001
View events in the NSW Police Force since the Wood Royal Commission began in 1994. 1994 May Justice James Wood is appointed Commissioner of the Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service ('WRC').