Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants.
It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just absolutely really.
Heamous blood on his clothing the day after the alleged.
Attap on a shallow mud bank and if bit through river.
Basically, I think most of the people are used to me are good people.
I think a really important question we need to ask is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm Amy Maguire and I'm.
Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Welcome to Curtain the podcast. Today, we're going to take you back to the case of Kevin Henry and we're going to be doing it with a very special guest. Now, we've previously told you on this podcast about how we came to know about Kevin's case, How Mardin and I became involved and how we began investigating. But today I want to tell you something a little more personal. Back when I first heard the name Kevin Henry, I called someone very close to me. At that point, I had
no idea about the case. I didn't know what happened. I didn't know what Rockhampton was like. Back then, I was only three years old, and I definitely didn't know if there was any truth in Kevin's claims of innocence. But I thought to us someone I could rely upon, I consider him a reliable witness. And that person is my father, Sterling macchuire. Now I didn't just consider him
a reliable witness because he was my father. I also had another reason, and the reason was this, for the majority of my life, from when I was one until my early twenties, my father had actually worked as a prison officer at Etna Creek Jail, the jail at Kevin Henry had spent the majority of his sentence. He's currently on parole. Dad is a drumble and South Sea Islander man and he grew up his whole life in Rockhampton.
He had known Kevin from when he was incarcerated on non violent offenses as a teenager, and he had actually been there on Judy the night that Kevin Henry was wrongly convicted of rape and murder, all the way back in nine ninety two. He had seen the guards bring him in. So when I heard the name Kevin Henry, I immediately rang my father. And before I had even mentioned the question of innocence or why I had heard about the case, Dad had told me straightway, Yeah, I
was a bit suspicious. All those years that Dad was at jail, all those years in which he was watching Kevin Henry. He thought that there may be questions, there may be reasons to believe him when Kevin protested his innocence, and there were a couple of reasons. He thought that today we're going to bring Dad on the podcast to tell you why. Martin and I interviewed him from Rockampden earlier this week.
Hello listeners out there, I'm Stirling Amy's dad, and yeah, nice to welcome you to the podcast from Darable Country.
And how would you describe yourself? Dad?
Who are you born and bred in Rockampton, Queensland. I'm of Aboriginal and South Sea Islander descent and spent the majority of my life here in Rockampton except for Stintony. Australian Army was down in Sydney down there for a short period. Oh well six year period.
Yeah, so Dad, do you remember when I first asked you about Kevin Henry's case?
Oh, I can remember it. I'm just forget how long ago that is now, it seems to be a fair period, a fair time now since that was, I can remember it, and yeah, it come out of the blue. And one thing with my experience out there in the correctional center is they come across many people over the course of my time out there, and people from all walks of life going to jail convicted of crimes and never really took an interest really and what they were in for
or what happened or anything like that. And so I never asked questions. Really there was none of my business. But different different prisoners would tell me. Some would tell me what they did. They admitted their crime, would say if they didn't do it, and what happened to was said, well, that's you know, they were convicted in a court of law. There's nothing I would say, Well they told me they
were innocent. Well, I said, well that's something that you know, what you tell me if you of what you say, Well, there's that's something that you know, you know, and so yeah, I plody of prisoners tell me about the crimes they admitted they didn't. There's others out there that said that they didn't do it. So I had no doubt that there may have been There may be people that were wrongly convicted. So put it that.
Way, But there was When I called you that day, Kevin Henry immediately stuck stuck out in your mind, didn't he? Why Why did you immediately have recollections of Kevin Henry when I asked you that that day.
Well, Kevin Henry, when I first started out, there was a young man, probably about seventeen eighteen years of age, and I merely I remember him because he was oh yeah he I just remember him as a young man. So Kevin Henry, I can remember the day that he came back from court when he was sentenced to it were not sentence convicted of that crime? On duty that night, Yeah, I was on duty. He came back late that night because I was on duty when they when they brought
him back, it was a late sitting and yeah, it was. Yeah, there was sort of questions around around that case. Anyway, I've known Kevin Henry for quite some time, and it was it wasn't until probably oh, I'm trying to think now, it's probably about oh, yeah, that was in the old jail, so it was quite a few years before there was ninety one or ninety two, I think it was, and the new jail opened up in two thousand. I think
it was two thousand, So that's eight years. And there was probably another eight years after that, so he's probably eighteen years into his sentence. Him and I were I was escorting him back to the block one day, and so we were just him and I going back into the block, and he said out of the blue, which, like I said, is not unusual for other prisons have done the same thing when I'm just one on one
with the prisons. And he said, because it stuck out in my mind when Amy wrang me or should I say, a chance conversation one on one, and Kevin said out of the blue, he said that where he's wrongly convicted, and he said about the police holding the gun at his head to admit to to make a false statement something.
But that's stuck in my mind because I knew Kevin, you know, probably for a long time out there, but never really had a real close dealings with him, And for him to come out on that day in question, that's what struck out because he just said it, and I thought, wow, that was just unusual for someone to say that.
And Dad, you mentioned before that you had a lot of people who entered prison who would plead their innocence, but it was obviously something about Kevin Henry that made you believe it was that the reason or were there other reasons?
To me, it was the read. What confused me is why would he tell me that? And why would he tell me that? You know, I never heard that before, Like he didn't go around making a general statement or everything everywhere, but Jeeves, it was like a yeah, it was just strange, that's what I thought. And I thought, well, at the time, I thought, yeah, well that's because he sounded pretty convincing when he said it, And I thought, well, it's I didn't disbelieve it, so I thought, well, that's yeah.
I just thought that because Kevin had never really spoken to me anything was to say confidential something anything confidential like that before.
Do you think there was a reason he was picking you specifically to tell you.
No, that's what I say. I to this day, I wondered why he said.
That, And you never told anyone else until I brought off his name that day.
No, I didn't because when prisoners said me said certain things to me, well, they committed crimes and said they did it, and I didn't tell anyone else. That's a conversation between that person and me. So I just but I always remembered that.
I think the allegation of someone a police officer, putting a gun to a person's head and forcing them to confess seems quite I think to other people would be hard to believe. Was it hard to believe for you?
I'm trying to put words either. Well, it's not not impossible to believe. So well, like I said, when a prison out there told me things like that, that's what they said. So it's not for me to say it's wrong or right, because I can't make that judgment. But so I didn't disbelieve it. You can't can't disbelieve it.
But I remember when I had that conversation with you that day. I remember you were pretty sure.
Oh.
I always thought there was something wrong with Kevin's case.
I always thought that there was something.
To his innocence.
Yes, that's right. A lot of people thought that because just things in the local newspaper and on the news just sort of like didn't add up. So when he said that to me that day, I thought, well, yes, there's something there, so but that stuck in my mind for a long long time.
One of the interesting things about what Sterlings just said is that it mirrors almost every conversation I've had as I've rung lawyers, members of the Aboriginal community, members of the general community who lived in Rockhampton at the time, people across various industries. Was that they all had their doubts about Kevin Henry's guilt. There was always something not right in their mind. The case stood out, whether it was the fishermen that we've spoken to before, right through
the barristers and others. For everyone, there was this thing that something wasn't right, and yet it hadn't really been in that disgust in a greater context until we were able to dive further in. And you've heard what the results of that were.
Because I've known Kevin Henry or known of him out in jail when he before he was, he was on a smaller sentence before, he's only young, and then when he came in for this one when he was remanded for murder or remanded on this case. So I've seen him grow from a young man, you know, teenager into a well to a virtually a middle aged man. And when I see when he started his first part of his sentence when he was convicted of that murder, was yeah,
he was what should I say, he was troublesome. But when I look back, and I've put myself in that position if I had been in prison for something I didn't do, a capital crime, I just don't know how
I would react. Well, I think when I'm looking back through his what I noticed of Kevin and then you know, over the years, I think it's a normal reaction of someone if they were convicted of a capital crime for a long period, and I think it's only a natural you know, if they're innocent, that's how people would react. Because I thought if I was in that position, I would have been exactly the same.
And you know, having worked on cases around the world, it's very a similar experience, whether it's in America or cases I've worked on in the Middle East that the people that have that reaction when they first get sentenced are often the people whose stories you really want to listen to because of the potential innocence. It's really an unusual phenomenon that the people who are guilty once they get their sentence often go quietly into the night and
don't put up too much of a farce. So again, you know, this was something that stood out for me hearing these things over time, was that it was very consistent with the twenty years of working with people who had been wrongly convicted.
Can I take you back to the night, because I think it's pretty interesting that you were on Judy the night that Kevin was actually convicted. What was prison like back then? What was the prison that Kevin was entering.
Well, we were in the old prison which has since been knocked down, and rightly so, it was an old prison, decaying buildings. There was louvers broken or just missing louvers, so if it was cold at night or rained, prisoners would put blankets or get bits of cardboard to fill in the places where the missing louvers. It was just very a terrible rundown state and certainly not fit for human habitations that way.
And yeah, it was.
Yeah, just just not a nice place.
And what do you mean by just not a nice place.
Where you mean, well, there was a place where a lot of assaults had happened, murders had happened, suicides that happened, people like things like slash ups. People know whether the slash up is it was full of it, and just lots of violence. It was very violent.
So it was a very dangerous place to be even for everyone.
I think it was a dangerous place for everyone. Yeah, so yeah, just but it's very nature m Yeah, it wasn't safe at all. So especially for young prisoners it was wasn't. It wasn't very safe for them. As far as prison offices you can do so much, but yeah, you know, it wasn't. It was. It was, yeah, like I said, a place that I'm glad it's not there anymore.
Do you remember you mentioned before the night that Kevin was convicted. Can you tell me more about that? Do you remember a lot about when he was brought back in.
Oh?
Was that when they brought him back it was late. It was not that long before lock up and lock up used to be nine fifteen at night. There was he they brought him back to me not long before lock up. I think even the and I just can't think of the accompanying officers, well wouldn't say anyway, but I think they had doubts. Well they well they said, so that's all. They had doubts. But anyway, I don't know who they were or couldn't say anyway who they were.
So even from the very first night Kevin was convicted, even other prison officers had doubts.
Well, that is what overhearing certain ones said that yes, people that were.
There, he said, before you knew Kevin for a very long time, how would you describe him as a person from how you knew it?
Well, like I said, I didn't know him personally. And being from the you know, we had a large number of inmates out there or prisoners from Warabinda, so they extended to stick close together. So they stick together in their own group, you know, obviously because family ties and all that sort of stuff. So I didn't really get to know them. And from my experience, being of South Island descent at that time Aboriginals and Southea Islanders, there was a bit of a split between the two groups.
For whatever reason, I don't know, but there was that group, so I didn't sort of get to know. It wasn't until years later that I got to know them a lot better. So and then everything was got you know, everything's changed after that. But around that time the Warabinda prisoners tended to stick together and they didn't communicate much out of that that I do know from another black prison officer who I won't name, he also told me that Kevin Henry had told him that, but he hadn't
said anything. It was only till after all this come out. But I won't reveal the name of that black prison officer, so he obviously did tell He may have told well other black prison office but I don't know, but I know of at least one who said, yes, tell him, And this was probably around the same time.
Yeah, and from my experience too, I mean, people have to understand that prisons are not a place where you have casual conversations about these sort of things. And it's really common working on cases in the South of America with African American inmates who have been wrongfully convicted that often it takes the years to build up the courage
to tell someone. They'll often watch a prison guard for years and see who they're going to be able to trust, because it really is the biggest thing in their life and the thing that weighs heaviest. So I think people need to understand that it's not just casual conversations that people are going to be having, and that it's quite a strategic thing for a prisoner to make that decision.
Is it even worth telling this person because if they're not going to believe me and I'm going to suffer consequences, there's no point. So I think for me looking at it from afar, it seems quite understandable why Kevin made the decision to tell Sterling and another black prison officer, because he'd clearly decided that these were people he could trust. And in prison, that's all about who we squeaky clean. I mean, you're not going to be going to anyone
who you don't trust because you've observed their behavior. You're going to people who do their job and do it right. And I can't imagine that would have been an easy thing for Kevin either. So I think that's what people need to understand, that it's not just something you just come out and say randomly on the first day you're there, especially not as Sterling's explain that the old prison was. It was a rough place, and you know, it's well documented.
You can look up in the archives that are available on government websites about the murders and the suicides and the violence that occurred out there. So you're not just going to be having casual conversations. And I think that's important for people to understand.
Well, I think the other thing too to remember is that, well I've started out there. You know, prison offices weren't supposed to fragnize with prisoners. That was just against We just weren't allowed to do that. Because when I was out there, you couldn't be on first name basis. It was they had to call me sir, and I called
them prisoner so and so. And it wasn't until I think nineteen ninety two or ninety three that they dropped the you know, they had to call a prisoner prisoner, had to call a prison officer sir all the time. I think it was about nineteen ninety two ninety three they dropped it. I think for a long time before
I finished, you know, they just called me Stlough. But to some of the some of some of white prisoners, either the prisoners that come up from Melbourne or Sydney or that, Well, they called you chief, and that's like a sign of respect. You know, they called you chief. And some of the older ones still called your boss, but you know it was either stirlo or chief or something like that. Yeah, that's how it was.
And so by the time Kevin tells you what happened, you're in the new prison. Did the relations between prisoners and the guards improve once you're in better conditions in the new prison?
Yeah, I think they did. The new jails it's far safer. Although there was there's been trouble out there. There had been trouble there, but I think overall it was far safer because it was that the old jail it was like in one big compound, so you had ten accommodation blocks, and you know they're all facing each other across a compound,
five on each side. So anything that happened, if there was a incident or an argument or something happening between a prison officer and a prisoner, well they're on show between the whole block. Everyone can see them. So you see what I mean, you're on show. So the prisoner, or even if it's a thing between two prisoners, but whoever, it's between So you're both on show, so you both got a reputation to uphold, you see what I mean?
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, in the new jail, they're all well, each block is isolated, so no one knows. Even the block next door doesn't really know what's going on in that block.
So back at the old jail, when everyone was on show, it sounds like it would have been almost impossible for you to have had that conversation with Kevin because everyone would have.
Seene none none, see yeah, none, none at all.
Do you think that was part of it? The fact is we're alone together in the.
Air, it's right. Yeah, I say we were alone, which didn't doesn't happen a lot. There's always other people around.
Do you think the same that you're a black prison guard was the reason that Kevin might have chosen to speak to you that day.
Oh, undoubtedly, that's why. Undoubtedly. Hey. Oh, but the the two detectives, but later on, well you know, will come out. The two detectives. I remember them coming in.
A lot involved in his case.
I remember them coming in a lot. Yes, in the old jail. In the new jail, I've seen them a lot coming in interviewing and doing interviews and stuff there. Oh but yeah, not aware of what was what was.
All about m You mentioned before, I mean in our past conversations that at one point rock Campton had one of the highest rates of Aboriginal interature and the employee at the jail, but that has changed a lot now. Do you think there's like a difference in the way Aboriginal president guards were respected or treated differently.
Well, I've never worked in any other jail in Queensland, so I can't comment on what goes on there. But somewhere I think this is after the Fitzgerald Reform. I think this is one of the recommendations. They formed a ATSY unit in Brisbane and so they'd set up a like an Aboriginal staff network or recruiting a network in
each center. And rock Hampton here we had I think at one stage we had the most just quite forget of the thing, but we had the most employment of average your staff anywhere in Australia at the in Rockhampton, and so we had a local staff network and I was actually president of there actually till the end of it for a while and then oh, as was happening, as what happens, the ATSI unit was disbanded. I don't know why. So they just withdrew the funds so that
all stopped. But yeah, I think we had probably about twelve or thirteen staff out there and we would meet monthly staff network meeting and the head of the ATSI unit from Brisbane would fly up and that had a big impact because when we had recruitment, well then you know, we've got people that came in recruited that had family
links to warabender and family links to different communities. So then that's what made it better, because you had a prisoners in there that well, you know what the what the Aboriginal South is populations like everyone knows each other and they're sort of nearly interrelated. So that sort of I thought, quietened a lot of the well, it improved the interaction out there because because of that, because of family, family ties, and it wasn't it didn't mean that you know,
someone would be get preferential treatment. It didn't mean that at all. It just meant that they get just ran about. There was less trouble.
I thought, this is around the time after the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Depths and Custody. Did you see a lot of differences and following that commission because it was handed down a year pretty much the year that Kevin was convicted.
Yeah, I was there when when when that when that when that when these findings came down, So I was sort of there when it when that was playing out. So but yeah, funding was Yeah, I don't know, it's you know, it took a while for things to get started, but yeah, I think it all got rolled back, well a lot of it got rolled back, So I don't know. I can't comment on the state of how it is now.
I haven't been there for a while, but certainly when that was implemented, that staff network abageal staff network networks were in place around the state, well I know as far as rock Hampton goes, and it worked very well. And at the same time we had things like family days, elders coming in. Really it really I thought stopped a lot of trouble.
Yeah, I think it's important. Over the years, Kevin's talked about that as well. I mean, the difference the elder's day days had and the changes that enabled for him to connect with culture and as we've discussed before, with his art work, and be able to be in a position where he could discuss a case with someone like myself who he's never met, who's a million miles away, and he has to trust his story with and his
life with. And I think one thing we're trying to really get home here is that people often ask why didn't someone who's innocent say something earlier? Why didn't they
get lawyers? And why this and why that? And I think people really have to understand what's saying about explaining the environment in which both the prisoners and the Aboriginal guards are working with the fact that you had these changes come about slowly as a result of the Royal Commission and then for no reason, stripped away, and it creates this environment where there is no long term stability, and for someone like Kevin, who has to negotiate his
way out of there, it's part of what creates the doubt and part of why it takes so long. We're just not in this position where people can make a call to a lawyer say I'm innocent, say here's the evidence, and I'm home free. The prisoner has to be really careful of their own safety and a lot of that has to do with the conditions of the prison they're
in at the time. And so I think what Sterling's described and how things have changed over the years, improved for a period of time, gone back backwards with that funding removed is important both for Kevin's case but also this broader issue and there is a big problem in Australia that people do not know what goes on behind the prison walls and they don't know these environments, and so people really have to listen to what they're hearing
and understand. Too often we put an American perspective on things and it's just not the way it is.
If I can add something into that, and that is like with all those funding and all that one was these again, I'll say the family days, especially around Christmas where they had when they started the first of the family day like for Christmas, and the first one they had it Atna Creek and it was in the old jail when they started. You know, there was a recommendation bringing in. There was a lot of pushback from within, corrections against it. People in the system didn't want it happening.
So from personal experience, the very first Family Day held at Capricornia Correctional Ethnic Creek Correctional Center was known as Rockhampton Correctional Center back then. I was the supervising senior prison officer, and I can say this that I had no briefing on it beforehand, on how it was to be run and all the planning, all the contingency plans if anything went wrong. Nothing. So we had total that day and a family Day was supposed to be held in an open space, in which they did. They held
it out on a football able under a marquee. They had a big, giant marquee. I think we had a total of four hundred people come in that day through the gates. They didn't shut the main gate to regular traffic like supplies coming in, so we had to anyway. It was an impediment because we had to stop the process while we let trucks in and out. They've got to be searching and all that stuff. So four hundred
people out there, no contingency planning. I received no briefing from management, and I actually I didn't even know that the Family Day was on that day. I just got the roster. My roster I was working that day. I was in the acting supervisor pil or senior pill. So I didn't think anything of it, and I turned up a family day and first one as I said, so oh great, this is great. So but everything went off
without a hitch. I know that there was sixty nine actually prisoners up there, sixty nine because I remember doing the head count in and out, and I remember congratulating the prisoners at the end of the day when the visitors has gone out as a well done and there was not one sceric of trouble. But again after it all happened, when there were no problems at all, no debrief from management. So I think it's one thing that's been sticking in my ever since. Did they expect it
to fail? And of course who was the person in charge there was.
Me?
Yeah, And I mean it sounds pretty clear like they were hoping, they were hoping it would fail and that that would be their reasoning for not allowing those future events to take place.
But as far as I know, over the years, no family day, there was never any fail, never any problem because the elders and the elders, visits, elders coming because of the you know, the respect for elders and the family all that. You know, they weren't going to play up. They weren't going to play it up. I had relative that first day, I had relatives in two I had relatives into jail, and i'd relative in there as well, and there was never any problem. There was never going
to be any problem. But then I noticed that years down it just got watered down and down. And the last one I remember out there, the family Day, I saw they cut it from being out in an open space and the football label this is the new jail. They've cut it down to having it all in a small area in the visits area, which doesn't work because what you're doing is you well, it's just like having anyone closed up in a cage. So yeah, it just got slowly watered down and down and down, and so
don't I don't know what happens now. But the other thing with that family days, what it led to is that it was for Murray prisoners or ATSI prisoners. The white prisoners started to say, well, what's about us. Well, in the end, they got their family days, Like there's family days for protection inmates and family days for the mainstream. So it brought benefits to the whole prison office prison prisoner population, not just for the ATSI and say it
was a good thing for all. There was never any problem, never any problems experience on any of them, so because you know they're loved ones coming in, so like I said, it led, it led to the whole population, not just for the ATSY prisons.
That one of the things I'm like, I know the statistics, but I'm shocked at when I've been out to the prison is just how many Aboriginal prisoners are inside. Did that ever shock you when you saw that? And like seeing over the generation.
Well, the very first day I started there, I see, growing up in a regional town, Locker Campton, every we knew every black family in rock Hampton and knew every person. But when I started out there, I'd never seen so many black men in one place before. And I didn't know all these people where they all came from. And that was a shock to me. I didn't even know, like well of them, where did all these people come from? And I was shocked the very first day went in there.
Said well, I've said, grow up in a place in rock Hampton where you know, knew everyone. Yeah, it was.
A shock because they come from everywhere, that's right.
It come from everywhere. Yeah, across the you know, everywhere. Yeah. So it was a shock to me, Yeah it is. And I still haven't been in one place where you see that many. Yeah, and it didn't.
Change over there's twenty four years seeing those numbers.
No, didn't. No. Actually, well the old prison was two hundred and forty the maximum, the accommodation level was two hundred and forty. The new one, I think is well it was five hundred I think. And so you think of the proportion, it was more yeah, yeah, yeah, more so when you think of that, eh, so it's double more than double the population all up, So there was more than double the over the years.
Join us next time on Curtain the Podcast for part two of our discussion with Sterling MacGuire.