No timeline for upgrade of cells
DECADES after the call to eliminate hanging points in jails, hundreds of ‘old stock’ cells remain in Queensland prisons.
A high ranking prison official has told an inquest more than 300 old cells, including 72 in Townsville, are yet to undergo safety upgrades with no clear timeline locked in for their modification into safer cells.
State Coroner Terry Ryan presided over the mandatory inquest into the prison death of two-time killer John Edward Harris in Townsville on Monday.
Harris was found dead in his private cell at Townsville Correctional Centre on July 4, 2019 exactly four years after he was sentenced for his part in the sadistic torture and murder of 28-year-old mother-of-four Tia Landers in 2014.
Prison officer Dion Foreman was the first of three witnesses to give evidence and told the court he found Harris unresponsive and cold while conducting a mandatory headcount about 4.50am.
Mr Foreman said Harris used items within the cell to hang himself on a ligature point in the single occupancy room.
The death is one of a number of suicides by hanging in Queensland jails and the fourth to go to an inquest in front of Coroner Ryan in 2021. Queensland Corrective Services Assistant Commissioner for the Central and Northern Region Command Peter Shaddock prepared a report for the coroner about the modification of old stock cells across the state.
Giving evidence on Monday, Commissioner Shaddock said 340 ‘old stock’ cells remained across the state including 268 at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre and 72 at Townsville Correctional Centre’s Harold Gregg Protection Units which are used to house prisoners who can’t be kept in the general population.
He said Corrective Services was preparing a “detailed” business case for the Cabinet Budget Review Committee to upgrade the cells.
He estimated it would cost close to $200m to upgrade the 340 cells with the work in Townsville alone pegged to cost about $45m.
“It is quite a comprehensive and complex undertaking,” Mr Shaddock said.
“It’s a removal of potential ligature points. These include flush fittings, light fittings fixtures, intercom systems, radios, changes to the design of the tables, basins, toilets and showers, while also looking at roof structures outside of the cell.”
Additionally, Commissioner Shaddock told the court a safer cell would include no natural openings.
Under questioning from counsel assisting the coroner, Commissioner Shaddock said work to modify the cells to make them safer and reduce the risk of suicide would “only commence with the imprimatur” of the government “irrespective” of the QCS position.
Further, Commissioner Shaddock said the 66 cells at Townsville’s Harold Gregg unit that were upgraded since the then State Coroner recommended the removal of ligature points in 2012 did not meet current standards. “The cells that have been subject to some type of upgrade in the Harold Gregg unit still would need work to bring them up to the latest standards,” he said.
The 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody identified hanging as a primary method of suicide in prisons and sparked the removal of ligature points in cells.