Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 2: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 3: It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 3: absolutely really put his.
Speaker 2: Blood on his clothing the day after the alleged a time.
Speaker 1: On a shallow mud bank and the fits Roy River.
Speaker 4: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 4: me are good people.
Speaker 1: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 1: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the
Speaker 2: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 2: our justice system and ask who are the victims.
Speaker 5: I'm Amy Maguire and.
Speaker 1: I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner
Speaker 1: Support Service. And a warning this series contains the names
Speaker 1: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset
Speaker 1: some listeners.
Speaker 4: Welcome to episode seventy of Curtain the podcast. Last week
Speaker 4: we brought you the first part of our chat with
Speaker 4: Amy's father, Sterling Maguire. He served his country in the
Speaker 4: Australian Army and then worked for more than twenty years
Speaker 4: in the prison at Rockhampton. Last week he told us
Speaker 4: about what it was like to be a black prison
Speaker 4: guard at the jail, the time when Kevin Henry, after
Speaker 4: many years in prison, came to him and told him
Speaker 4: about his innocence and that a police officer had put
Speaker 4: a gun to his head and forced him to confess
Speaker 4: to the crime he didn't commit. And Sterling also explained
Speaker 4: about the way he worked to improve conditions at the prison,
Speaker 4: facilitating the family days where Aboriginal prisoners had elders and
Speaker 4: their families come in, and the time that it first happened,
Speaker 4: how smoothly it ran, and the benefits it had for
Speaker 4: all the prisoners. This week we bring you the second
Speaker 4: part of our chat.
Speaker 2: Only can I ask you about what it was like
Speaker 2: growing up in Rocky and what you think of the place,
Speaker 2: because I think for a lot of our listeners, particularly overseas,
Speaker 2: they don't know about rock Hampton and particularly what it's
Speaker 2: like for mob growing up in rock Hampton.
Speaker 3: Well, I grew up and I'm still living in that area.
Speaker 3: It's a working class suburb, meet workers, railway workers. Actually,
Speaker 3: I can say that everyone grew up. It was a
Speaker 3: everyone got on well with each other, so I you know,
Speaker 3: I can say that that because it was when you
Speaker 3: get working class people together, they're all in the same bait,
Speaker 3: no matter where they come from. And I think I
Speaker 3: had a good growing up whereas that's where it stuck
Speaker 3: out to me. On the communities had it a lot different,
Speaker 3: and I could tell that they just had it a
Speaker 3: lot different. But now I can say where I grew
Speaker 3: up and where I still live.
Speaker 5: I had had.
Speaker 3: I can say I had ad a good childhood down
Speaker 3: where I came from. But like I said, I saw
Speaker 3: the contrast from people from other areas and communities certainly
Speaker 3: not the case.
Speaker 2: So would you say in that sense Rack Campton's you know,
Speaker 2: because what happened to Kevin was pretty horrific.
Speaker 5: What's the reason behind what happened to Kevin?
Speaker 2: Like in Rock Canada, I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: would say Rock Campton isn't a racist place.
Speaker 5: But how would you describe it?
Speaker 3: Well, like I said, I think I grew up in
Speaker 3: a bit of a sheltered thing because down where I was,
Speaker 3: everyone got on and everyone mixed in, all the families
Speaker 3: mixed together. But there's probably not va case in other areas,
Speaker 3: and you know I wasn't. It wasn't until late going
Speaker 3: working out at the jail that I saw the difference
Speaker 3: that things aren't the same. But like I said, I
Speaker 3: am aware with police, with police that you've always got
Speaker 3: to be on guard even now, you know, well that's everywhere,
Speaker 3: I suppose.
Speaker 2: Like, just taking it back to Kevin and his allegation
Speaker 2: that a police officer held a gun to his head,
Speaker 2: were you surprised at that allegation that Kevin made.
Speaker 3: I was very surprised because I, in my mind didn't
Speaker 3: think that a police could ever do that. Actually, I
Speaker 3: was shocked by it. I just didn't think that police
Speaker 3: anywhere could ever do that. But then that's because of
Speaker 3: my growing up background down where I came from. You
Speaker 3: know that the local policeman down there years ago was
Speaker 3: well respected. You know, I did a lot for the
Speaker 3: community's and that's what I saw. M So you see
Speaker 3: where I'm trying to But you said you believed, Yes,
Speaker 3: Well I was surprised, but yeah, I thought, well he
Speaker 3: was because he said it in such a way. Was
Speaker 3: the manner in which he said it, the manner in
Speaker 3: which he said it, because I thought about it a
Speaker 3: lot after he said it.
Speaker 5: He said, well, why would he.
Speaker 3: Say that to me? I thought, I couldn't believe that
Speaker 3: he would just tell me a lie and make something up,
Speaker 3: because why would he said the way he said it.
Speaker 5: It was a ring of.
Speaker 3: Truth to it.
Speaker 5: So you thought Kevin was a trustworthy.
Speaker 3: Witness, yes, when he said that to me. But I
Speaker 3: was just shocked that a police could do that. I
Speaker 3: was shocked because that to think that. But the way
Speaker 3: Kevin said that to me, and he'd never like all
Speaker 3: the years before we talked to you hello in order
Speaker 3: to just you know, but the way he said it
Speaker 3: that day, there was something about it.
Speaker 2: But I feel like it was around the time of
Speaker 2: the Fitzgerald in so police brutality was in the news,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, particularly in Rockounder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well at Fitzgerald inquiry. That's right, there was a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff brought out about police and that sort
Speaker 3: of opened it a lot of it. I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people were shocked of it what all come
Speaker 3: out of it. And so yeah, this was all yeah,
Speaker 3: being released. So it's like I said, it added up
Speaker 3: to things was before a lot of you know, unless
Speaker 3: you're involved in something general public doesn't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's a really important point, is that
Speaker 4: so often the general public has an idea or think
Speaker 4: they have an idea of what's going on, and then
Speaker 4: something like Fitzgerald happens and we really see the dark
Speaker 4: layers get exposed. I guess one thing at the time
Speaker 4: ninety one, ninety two, and from what you know and
Speaker 4: the people you've worked with over the years, do you
Speaker 4: think think there was a different treatment for in rock
Speaker 4: Hampton by police and in the jails of people who
Speaker 4: were from the communities outside the main town and the
Speaker 4: people who did congregate on the riverbank.
Speaker 3: Oh, undoubtedly they were. They were just thought of as trash.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, oh yes, yes, yes, even now it's
Speaker 3: still there, even now, yeah yeah, they look they definitely
Speaker 3: looked down and there still still still goes on.
Speaker 5: Yeh.
Speaker 3: But they just say, like the people on the river bank,
Speaker 3: all they ever wanted to do is just to be
Speaker 3: away by them. So usually they hide away to be
Speaker 3: away from prying eyes. But as populations and development, especially
Speaker 3: along the river bank is grown and grown, they've just
Speaker 3: been pushed because where you see a high rise apartment building,
Speaker 3: well then people complained, oh, I've got to get these
Speaker 3: people out of here, and so they've you know, they
Speaker 3: got more and more less places where they can go,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, no, they have been treated differently.
Speaker 4: And so it sounds like if someone was going to
Speaker 4: be targeted, and someone was going to be threatened in
Speaker 4: that way, the most vulnerable people were people like Kevin
Speaker 4: from places like Worrying down on.
Speaker 2: The river.
Speaker 3: Exactly. He fits right in that area. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 5: But like I was just saying, like you knew Kevin.
Speaker 2: I know you said you didn't know him personally, but
Speaker 2: he knew him a bit, Like he wasn't known for
Speaker 2: being a violent person.
Speaker 5: Was he down?
Speaker 3: No, we say when he first at the start of
Speaker 3: his sentence, he was troublesome. But then like I said,
Speaker 3: before I put myself in that boat, I would have
Speaker 3: been troublesome.
Speaker 5: And troublesome Dad, Like, I don't.
Speaker 3: Think troublesome, troublesome like you know, stir up and things
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 5: So that's it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think one thing people have to understand
Speaker 4: is that for those who are guilty, often it is
Speaker 4: easier to do the time than those who are innocent.
Speaker 4: There is a constant agitation for those who are innocent
Speaker 4: that everything that goes on, every misstep, every time they
Speaker 4: feel bit disrespected, there is that deep feeling for them,
Speaker 4: I shouldn't be here and they react to everything, and
Speaker 4: that is, as Sterling says, when you put yourself in
Speaker 4: that position, totally understandable.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And of course when he was troublesome, well he
Speaker 3: became well, not a target, but yeah, he's he's a Yeah,
Speaker 3: he attracts a lot of interest from the jail authorities.
Speaker 4: And it becomes a double edged sword because yes, you're agitated,
Speaker 4: you're making trouble because what else can you do. At
Speaker 4: the same time harder that people are going to believe
Speaker 4: that you're innocent because they see you as this troublemaker.
Speaker 4: And it's pretty clear if people put themselves in that
Speaker 4: situation that you're in a shocking prison condition, you're innocent,
Speaker 4: with no way of getting out, and your mental health
Speaker 4: is spiraling out of control. You're agitated, and the view
Speaker 4: of everyone else around you is not great to begin with,
Speaker 4: and they're going to not believe that this is a
Speaker 4: person who was wrongly convicted. And again, I think it
Speaker 4: goes back to why it took Kevin so long to
Speaker 4: tell Sterling that and to talk to other people about it,
Speaker 4: is because people have really got to understand that these
Speaker 4: are not easy conversations to have, and these are the
Speaker 4: hardest environments on earth to have them. For a young
Speaker 4: blackfellow like Kevin Henry, who'd been down on the river
Speaker 4: bank and you know, as we've talked to four years now,
Speaker 4: looked down upon by everyone. For the police then to
Speaker 4: set up someone like that, it's not even a long bow.
Speaker 4: It's just how things are and how things were. And
Speaker 4: I think we have a lot of a lot of
Speaker 4: work to do to understand our history. And too often
Speaker 4: we see the number of four hundred and thirty eight
Speaker 4: black deaths in custody, but we don't really know why
Speaker 4: they happen, and more important, we don't know the context
Speaker 4: in which they happen and the way Aboriginal and Terrestraate
Speaker 4: islander lives are viewed. As we've long discussed, clearly these
Speaker 4: things haven't changed. And as you've heard, I mean, the
Speaker 4: efforts were there, the family days and having the officers
Speaker 4: there who were respected by their own people, and conveniently
Speaker 4: that was left to try and fail. And when it
Speaker 4: didn't fail, because when Aboriginal people organize something their own people,
Speaker 4: it worked every single time. So then they strip the
Speaker 4: funding back so we kind of have to understand, and
Speaker 4: I think it's particularly important for overseas people and non
Speaker 4: Aboriginal people in Australia that it's not like there's people
Speaker 4: who haven't been trying to fix this since they dot.
Speaker 4: I mean, here you had Sterling, a prison guard, given
Speaker 4: no notice and organizing families and elders inside a prison
Speaker 4: and it went off without a hitch. Now you can't
Speaker 4: do that anywhere else. I know the worst prisons in
Speaker 4: the world, that's my job to know them. You can't
Speaker 4: do that with other people. But Aboriginal people, as Sterling
Speaker 4: demonstrated on that day and after, can do it even
Speaker 4: when the whole state is working against them. So when
Speaker 4: we talk about change, it's very clear the evidence is
Speaker 4: that it has to be Aboriginal led. That people have
Speaker 4: to accept. We're saying about how bad things have been
Speaker 4: and how bad things are, but also that the solutions
Speaker 4: are there because they've already happened. You just never knew
Speaker 4: they took place.
Speaker 3: And I think going back, you know, going backwards and forth,
Speaker 3: but going back with ire, with my growing up, that's
Speaker 3: why I went back to that little pocket because during
Speaker 3: my military service, being all around Australia. I noticed things
Speaker 3: are a bit different, and so I couldn't wait to
Speaker 3: get back to my little pocket and that's where I
Speaker 3: am now because it was such a you know, I
Speaker 3: think that's really how how everyone should be. Was so
Speaker 3: great down there, you know.
Speaker 5: What's that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So can you see what I was trying to say before.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, and I think that goes full certain.
Speaker 3: Things different in New South Wales, things different in Victoria.
Speaker 3: Like it's just attitudes and just that different somehow. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's why I come back to that little area. That's
Speaker 3: where I am. I couldn't wait to get back to
Speaker 3: that place. And you know, things changed. It's not the
Speaker 3: same community as before. People old people have died, you know,
Speaker 3: people grew up there have left. But I still like
Speaker 3: it down there.
Speaker 2: Can always just ask you as well, Like over the
Speaker 2: past three years, me and Martin have been you've been
Speaker 2: seeing us do our investigation into Kevin Henry, Like as
Speaker 2: we've found out more about Kevin's case than we've you've
Speaker 2: been listening to the.
Speaker 5: Podcast, has there been anything that surprised you about his case?
Speaker 2: And even just learning more about rock Hampton and around
Speaker 2: that time, what was happening.
Speaker 3: Well, it added a few things up, Like there was
Speaker 3: a death of another Aboriginal woman in the Fitzroy I
Speaker 3: think at nineteen seventy five, and I won't name her
Speaker 3: name for respect family. But that's another cold case. Another
Speaker 3: it was a terrible death, but nothing, it's just nothing.
Speaker 3: Nothing ever, no result of it come out of that.
Speaker 3: So she died in the river. It was very similar circumstance.
Speaker 3: So and like I said, the river's got a bit
Speaker 3: of a history.
Speaker 4: At this point, we took a break. We've been recording
Speaker 4: for nearly an hour, and while we paused to just
Speaker 4: have a chat and see how everything was going, we
Speaker 4: left the recording still going, and we thought we'd bring
Speaker 4: you some snippets of the conversation we had amongst ourselves
Speaker 4: as we talked about the little things that had happened
Speaker 4: during the process and things things that had come to
Speaker 4: mind for all of us as we were recording the
Speaker 4: last couple of episodes.
Speaker 3: Because Martin, I don't see your side of it. You've
Speaker 3: done this so many times with people overseas and here,
Speaker 3: and obviously you can pick up a familiar thread.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Whereas Yeah, and that's the benefit I think of doing
Speaker 4: this is that everyone has their own personal experience and
Speaker 4: we're never sure what else is going on, what else
Speaker 4: is other people experiencing, And it's not until you hear
Speaker 4: these collective stories that people go, oh crap, this is
Speaker 4: happening all over. Yeah.
Speaker 6: The other thing about Aboriginal prisoners out here, almost one
Speaker 6: like around Kevin's age, huge mortality rate because I sort
Speaker 6: of remember thinking the other day of the years, like
Speaker 6: I saw them when they go out come back in
Speaker 6: over the years, they just decline, they just decline, they
Speaker 6: just and then the majority of them are dead.
Speaker 3: Now that that night that Kevin come back.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 3: A lot of the prisoners that are in the block
Speaker 3: that he went into, they're practically all dead.
Speaker 4: That was Yeah, that was one thing I meant to
Speaker 4: ask you was how unusual was it for someone to
Speaker 4: be bought back just before lockdown?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Very unusual. I think that that court session went very
Speaker 3: late that yeah, Okay, I don't know why it went
Speaker 3: so late, but he did because they normally didn't come
Speaker 3: back that late.
Speaker 5: Look back, so.
Speaker 4: That's well after dark that he's come back.
Speaker 5: But no, it was there.
Speaker 3: It was dark brought him back in, so it was dark,
Speaker 3: that's right.
Speaker 4: And do you remember that ever happening another time.
Speaker 3: No, they can't, No, no, because they brought him in.
Speaker 3: They took him down to the detention unit. That's where
Speaker 3: he went. That's what they did a lot when they
Speaker 3: brought him back, like they brought him in the detention unit.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure he went to the attention but he
Speaker 3: can tell you that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I don't. I've talked to him about it.
Speaker 4: He doesn't remember it a lot, and that's straight. Well,
Speaker 4: one thing I'm very suspicious of. I may never be
Speaker 4: able to prove it in Kevin's case, but I know
Speaker 4: it's definitely true in others that they were drugging the prisoners.
Speaker 5: Oh wouldn't that make sense because Kevin canberla.
Speaker 4: Remember, Yeah, they used to use put give him valiant,
Speaker 4: but big in big doses too. So the idea was
Speaker 4: that it was to control behavior. They had an official
Speaker 4: word for it. But one thing we got.
Speaker 3: Well that what you just said adds up because every
Speaker 3: prisoner that got you know, went to trial and got
Speaker 3: convicted for life or murder. When they come back, they
Speaker 3: just quietly back into their block or went, you know, quietly.
Speaker 5: There was no kickout.
Speaker 3: Well, I always I've never remembered one doing that. Oh well,
Speaker 3: that makes sense because he was very quiet.
Speaker 5: Can't remember anything.
Speaker 3: Remember they had him hand cuptain everything, but they took
Speaker 3: him down to the du it was dark.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a very deliberate thing. And the other
Speaker 4: thing it did is it made the person look like
Speaker 4: they had no emotion to the jury as well.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, yeah, because I was wondering why Kevin couldn't
Speaker 2: remember things, because I'm like, surely you would remember.
Speaker 4: That, given they would have been given it to him,
Speaker 4: probably every day the whole time of the trial. He
Speaker 4: probably Yeah, he wouldn't remember anything for those first few weeks.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't have thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm always surprising Kevin says he can barely remember anything,
Speaker 2: because I'm like, it's such a big part of your life, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you not remember what was happening? And yeah,
Speaker 2: because we tell him, he's like, we know more about
Speaker 2: the case than him.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I remember two prisons, both white, that I put into
Speaker 3: the yard after they'd come back and just been sentenced
Speaker 3: to life. And both of these fellas, I was there
Speaker 3: when I let them out when they got their parole
Speaker 3: after thirteen years. Twice I saw them go in and
Speaker 3: I saw them go out. Yeah, it's funny. I have
Speaker 3: flashbacks all the time from the jail. Things will come
Speaker 3: to me anytime during the day when I'm at work,
Speaker 3: when I'm at home, same as in you know, I
Speaker 3: just have flash flashbacks, little things like it's like it's yesterday.
Speaker 5: It's funny that.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that'll happen for Kevin too, Like I think,
Speaker 4: you know, he's really only been out a few months
Speaker 4: still that he hasn't had time to decompress and let
Speaker 4: that sort of high state of awareness that you're in
Speaker 4: the whole time when you're in a place like that
Speaker 4: drop down so that he can go back through his mind.
Speaker 4: That was episode seventy of Curtain