Knight Calls For Suicides Shakeup
The Age
Thursday April 10, 2003
Hoddle Street mass murderer Julian Knight yesterday criticised Barwon Prison's lack of suicide-prevention techniques while giving evidence at an inquest on a former inmate.
Knight helped prison staff revive Dean Williamson, who was found hanging from a bunk bed in his cell at the maximum-security Banksia unit on November 17, 2000.
Williamson, 31, died two days later in hospital when his life support was turned off.
Williamson had been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his five-year-old son Braddon Park in a Sale motel in July, 1999.
Knight, who is serving a life sentence for killing seven people and injuring 19 in his 1987 Hoddle Street shooting rampage, said there were no programs at Barwon Prison to help inmates identify prisoners likely to attempt suicide or self-harm.
Knight said Williamson ``implied or alluded" suicide on several occasions, but he did not alert prison authorities about the risk for fear of landing Williamson in an observation cell.
Former inmate Christopher Griffiths, who was released from custody in March, 2001, said the use of observation cells as a ``routine response" to a prisoner's threats of suicide was ``a form of punishment, not assistance".
Knight also said he and others who tried to save Williamson were subjected to derogatory comments by prison officers who had not attended the incident, which included: ```What did you do to help him? Hang off his legs?"
But Robert Shepherd, the lawyer for Barwon Prison, said he would not suggest that Knight ``did anything other than act in a skilful, courageous and humane manner".
The inquest continues.
© 2003 The Age