Good.
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 put his.
Blood on his clothing the day after the alleged a time.
On a shallow mud bank and the fits Roy 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 episode seventy of Curtain the podcast. Last week we brought you the first part of our chat with Amy's father, Sterling Maguire. He served his country in the Australian Army and then worked for more than twenty years
in the prison at Rockhampton. Last week he told us about what it was like to be a black prison guard at the jail, the time when Kevin Henry, after many years in prison, came to him and told him about his innocence and that a police officer had put a gun to his head and forced him to confess
to the crime he didn't commit. And Sterling also explained about the way he worked to improve conditions at the prison, facilitating the family days where Aboriginal prisoners had elders and their families come in, and the time that it first happened, how smoothly it ran, and the benefits it had for all the prisoners. This week we bring you the second part of our chat.
Only can I ask you about what it was like growing up in Rocky and what you think of the place, because I think for a lot of our listeners, particularly overseas, they don't know about rock Hampton and particularly what it's like for mob growing up in rock Hampton.
Well, I grew up and I'm still living in that area. It's a working class suburb, meet workers, railway workers. Actually, I can say that everyone grew up. It was a everyone got on well with each other, so I you know, I can say that that because it was when you get working class people together, they're all in the same bait, no matter where they come from. And I think I had a good growing up whereas that's where it stuck
out to me. On the communities had it a lot different, and I could tell that they just had it a lot different. But now I can say where I grew up and where I still live.
I had had.
I can say I had ad a good childhood down where I came from. But like I said, I saw the contrast from people from other areas and communities certainly not the case.
So would you say in that sense Rack Campton's you know, because what happened to Kevin was pretty horrific.
What's the reason behind what happened to Kevin?
Like in Rock Canada, I think a lot of people would say Rock Campton isn't a racist place.
But how would you describe it?
Well, like I said, I think I grew up in a bit of a sheltered thing because down where I was, everyone got on and everyone mixed in, all the families mixed together. But there's probably not va case in other areas, and you know I wasn't. It wasn't until late going working out at the jail that I saw the difference that things aren't the same. But like I said, I am aware with police, with police that you've always got to be on guard even now, you know, well that's everywhere, I suppose.
Like, just taking it back to Kevin and his allegation that a police officer held a gun to his head, were you surprised at that allegation that Kevin made.
I was very surprised because I, in my mind didn't think that a police could ever do that. Actually, I was shocked by it. I just didn't think that police anywhere could ever do that. But then that's because of my growing up background down where I came from. You know that the local policeman down there years ago was well respected. You know, I did a lot for the
community's and that's what I saw. M So you see where I'm trying to But you said you believed, Yes, Well I was surprised, but yeah, I thought, well he was because he said it in such a way. Was the manner in which he said it, the manner in which he said it, because I thought about it a lot after he said it.
He said, well, why would he.
Say that to me? I thought, I couldn't believe that he would just tell me a lie and make something up, because why would he said the way he said it.
It was a ring of.
Truth to it.
So you thought Kevin was a trustworthy.
Witness, yes, when he said that to me. But I was just shocked that a police could do that. I was shocked because that to think that. But the way Kevin said that to me, and he'd never like all the years before we talked to you hello in order to just you know, but the way he said it that day, there was something about it.
But I feel like it was around the time of the Fitzgerald in so police brutality was in the news, you know what I mean, particularly in Rockounder.
Yeah, well at Fitzgerald inquiry. That's right, there was a lot of stuff brought out about police and that sort of opened it a lot of it. I think a lot of people were shocked of it what all come out of it. And so yeah, this was all yeah, being released. So it's like I said, it added up to things was before a lot of you know, unless you're involved in something general public doesn't know.
Yeah. I think that's a really important point, is that so often the general public has an idea or think they have an idea of what's going on, and then something like Fitzgerald happens and we really see the dark
layers get exposed. I guess one thing at the time ninety one, ninety two, and from what you know and the people you've worked with over the years, do you think think there was a different treatment for in rock Hampton by police and in the jails of people who were from the communities outside the main town and the people who did congregate on the riverbank.
Oh, undoubtedly they were. They were just thought of as trash. Oh yeah, no, oh yes, yes, yes, even now it's still there, even now, yeah yeah, they look they definitely looked down and there still still still goes on.
Yeh.
But they just say, like the people on the river bank, all they ever wanted to do is just to be away by them. So usually they hide away to be
away from prying eyes. But as populations and development, especially along the river bank is grown and grown, they've just been pushed because where you see a high rise apartment building, well then people complained, oh, I've got to get these people out of here, and so they've you know, they got more and more less places where they can go, and so yeah, no, they have been treated differently.
And so it sounds like if someone was going to be targeted, and someone was going to be threatened in that way, the most vulnerable people were people like Kevin from places like Worrying down on.
The river.
Exactly. He fits right in that area. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
But like I was just saying, like you knew Kevin.
I know you said you didn't know him personally, but he knew him a bit, Like he wasn't known for being a violent person.
Was he down?
No, we say when he first at the start of his sentence, he was troublesome. But then like I said, before I put myself in that boat, I would have been troublesome.
And troublesome Dad, Like, I don't.
Think troublesome, troublesome like you know, stir up and things like that.
So that's it.
Yeah, And I think one thing people have to understand is that for those who are guilty, often it is easier to do the time than those who are innocent. There is a constant agitation for those who are innocent that everything that goes on, every misstep, every time they feel bit disrespected, there is that deep feeling for them, I shouldn't be here and they react to everything, and that is, as Sterling says, when you put yourself in that position, totally understandable.
Yeah.
Yeah, And of course when he was troublesome, well he became well, not a target, but yeah, he's he's a Yeah, he attracts a lot of interest from the jail authorities.
And it becomes a double edged sword because yes, you're agitated, you're making trouble because what else can you do. At the same time harder that people are going to believe that you're innocent because they see you as this troublemaker. And it's pretty clear if people put themselves in that situation that you're in a shocking prison condition, you're innocent, with no way of getting out, and your mental health
is spiraling out of control. You're agitated, and the view of everyone else around you is not great to begin with, and they're going to not believe that this is a person who was wrongly convicted. And again, I think it goes back to why it took Kevin so long to tell Sterling that and to talk to other people about it, is because people have really got to understand that these are not easy conversations to have, and these are the
hardest environments on earth to have them. For a young blackfellow like Kevin Henry, who'd been down on the river bank and you know, as we've talked to four years now, looked down upon by everyone. For the police then to set up someone like that, it's not even a long bow. It's just how things are and how things were. And I think we have a lot of a lot of
work to do to understand our history. And too often we see the number of four hundred and thirty eight black deaths in custody, but we don't really know why they happen, and more important, we don't know the context in which they happen and the way Aboriginal and Terrestraate islander lives are viewed. As we've long discussed, clearly these
things haven't changed. And as you've heard, I mean, the efforts were there, the family days and having the officers there who were respected by their own people, and conveniently that was left to try and fail. And when it didn't fail, because when Aboriginal people organize something their own people,
it worked every single time. So then they strip the funding back so we kind of have to understand, and I think it's particularly important for overseas people and non Aboriginal people in Australia that it's not like there's people who haven't been trying to fix this since they dot. I mean, here you had Sterling, a prison guard, given no notice and organizing families and elders inside a prison and it went off without a hitch. Now you can't do that anywhere else. I know the worst prisons in
the world, that's my job to know them. You can't do that with other people. But Aboriginal people, as Sterling demonstrated on that day and after, can do it even when the whole state is working against them. So when we talk about change, it's very clear the evidence is that it has to be Aboriginal led. That people have to accept. We're saying about how bad things have been and how bad things are, but also that the solutions
are there because they've already happened. You just never knew they took place.
And I think going back, you know, going backwards and forth, but going back with ire, with my growing up, that's why I went back to that little pocket because during my military service, being all around Australia. I noticed things are a bit different, and so I couldn't wait to get back to my little pocket and that's where I am now because it was such a you know, I think that's really how how everyone should be. Was so great down there, you know.
What's that? Yeah?
So can you see what I was trying to say before.
Like yeah, and I think that goes full certain.
Things different in New South Wales, things different in Victoria. Like it's just attitudes and just that different somehow. Yeah, that's why I come back to that little area. That's where I am. I couldn't wait to get back to that place. And you know, things changed. It's not the same community as before. People old people have died, you know, people grew up there have left. But I still like it down there.
Can always just ask you as well, Like over the past three years, me and Martin have been you've been seeing us do our investigation into Kevin Henry, Like as we've found out more about Kevin's case than we've you've been listening to the.
Podcast, has there been anything that surprised you about his case?
And even just learning more about rock Hampton and around that time, what was happening.
Well, it added a few things up, Like there was a death of another Aboriginal woman in the Fitzroy I think at nineteen seventy five, and I won't name her name for respect family. But that's another cold case. Another it was a terrible death, but nothing, it's just nothing. Nothing ever, no result of it come out of that. So she died in the river. It was very similar circumstance. So and like I said, the river's got a bit of a history.
At this point, we took a break. We've been recording for nearly an hour, and while we paused to just have a chat and see how everything was going, we left the recording still going, and we thought we'd bring you some snippets of the conversation we had amongst ourselves as we talked about the little things that had happened during the process and things things that had come to mind for all of us as we were recording the last couple of episodes.
Because Martin, I don't see your side of it. You've done this so many times with people overseas and here, and obviously you can pick up a familiar thread.
Yeah.
Whereas Yeah, and that's the benefit I think of doing this is that everyone has their own personal experience and we're never sure what else is going on, what else is other people experiencing, And it's not until you hear these collective stories that people go, oh crap, this is happening all over. Yeah.
The other thing about Aboriginal prisoners out here, almost one like around Kevin's age, huge mortality rate because I sort of remember thinking the other day of the years, like I saw them when they go out come back in over the years, they just decline, they just decline, they just and then the majority of them are dead.
Now that that night that Kevin come back.
And.
A lot of the prisoners that are in the block that he went into, they're practically all dead.
That was Yeah, that was one thing I meant to ask you was how unusual was it for someone to be bought back just before lockdown?
Oh?
Very unusual. I think that that court session went very late that yeah, Okay, I don't know why it went so late, but he did because they normally didn't come back that late.
Look back, so.
That's well after dark that he's come back.
But no, it was there.
It was dark brought him back in, so it was dark, that's right.
And do you remember that ever happening another time.
No, they can't, No, no, because they brought him in. They took him down to the detention unit. That's where he went. That's what they did a lot when they brought him back, like they brought him in the detention unit. I'm pretty sure he went to the attention but he can tell you that.
Yeah, well I don't. I've talked to him about it. He doesn't remember it a lot, and that's straight. Well, one thing I'm very suspicious of. I may never be able to prove it in Kevin's case, but I know it's definitely true in others that they were drugging the prisoners.
Oh wouldn't that make sense because Kevin canberla.
Remember, Yeah, they used to use put give him valiant, but big in big doses too. So the idea was that it was to control behavior. They had an official word for it. But one thing we got.
Well that what you just said adds up because every prisoner that got you know, went to trial and got convicted for life or murder. When they come back, they just quietly back into their block or went, you know, quietly.
There was no kickout.
Well, I always I've never remembered one doing that. Oh well, that makes sense because he was very quiet.
Can't remember anything.
Remember they had him hand cuptain everything, but they took him down to the du it was dark.
Yeah, it was a very deliberate thing. And the other thing it did is it made the person look like they had no emotion to the jury as well.
M Yeah, yeah, because I was wondering why Kevin couldn't remember things, because I'm like, surely you would remember.
That, given they would have been given it to him, probably every day the whole time of the trial. He probably Yeah, he wouldn't remember anything for those first few weeks. I wouldn't have thought.
Yeah, I'm always surprising Kevin says he can barely remember anything, because I'm like, it's such a big part of your life, Like, how do you not remember what was happening? And yeah, because we tell him, he's like, we know more about the case than him.
Yeah.
I remember two prisons, both white, that I put into the yard after they'd come back and just been sentenced to life. And both of these fellas, I was there when I let them out when they got their parole after thirteen years. Twice I saw them go in and I saw them go out. Yeah, it's funny. I have
flashbacks all the time from the jail. Things will come to me anytime during the day when I'm at work, when I'm at home, same as in you know, I just have flash flashbacks, little things like it's like it's yesterday.
It's funny that.
Well, I think that'll happen for Kevin too, Like I think, you know, he's really only been out a few months still that he hasn't had time to decompress and let that sort of high state of awareness that you're in the whole time when you're in a place like that drop down so that he can go back through his mind. That was episode seventy of Curtain