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April 18th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Victoria’s prison system failed to cope with the consequences of Melbourne’s gangland wars and failed in its duty to protect the man who figured most prominently in them.
In a scathing report on the murder of gangland boss Carl Williams in a high-security section of Barwon Prison, Ombudsman George Brouwer found that Corrections Victoria had failed to properly manage their most notorious prisoner.
Mr Brouwer said the state’s most senior prison administrators had failed to recognise numerous warnings that Williams’ life was in danger and disregarded its knowledge of the threat posed to him by his cellmate Matthew Johnson.
Johnson killed Williams on April 19, 2010, by repeatedly bashing him with a steel pipe in the unit they shared in the Acacia section of Barwon Prison.
“Williams’ death raises important questions as to how it is possible that a high-profile prisoner in Victoria’s highest-security prison unit could be killed with an unsecured metal pipe from an exercise bike, and that prison staff did not find out about the incident for some 27 minutes,” Mr Brouwer said.
The ombudsman also questioned how prison staff could allow Johnson access to such a weapon when they knew he had been involved in a serious assault with exactly the same implement on another prisoner in the same jail.
But one of the state’s most senior law and order officials defended the performance of the prison system, saying Williams had presented it with unique problems it had failed to overcome.
Department of Justice secretary Penny Armytage said Corrections Victoria had been unable to protect Williams.
“However, it is also important to acknowledge that Mr Williams’ profile and offending history and the challenges this presented for the corrections system,” Ms Armytage said in a submission to the inquiry.
“Mr Williams was a dangerous, well-connected criminal.
“A number of his enemies and rivals were accommodated in other units of Acacia and Barwon and he was providing evidence against former associates within the prison.
“At the time of Mr Williams’ death the system was ill-equipped to manage the full range of challenges and complexities posed by sophisticated and often inter-linked groups of major offenders.”
Ms Armytage pointed out that in 2003 the prison system housed four gangland identities and by 2004, when Williams was jailed, there were 14.
Mr Brouwer nevertheless reveals a litany of errors of judgment, failures to record vital information and improper work practices within Barwon Prison and Corrections Victoria.
Acting corrections commissioner Rod Wise sent Ms Armytage an email in January 2009 warning: “There is little doubt that Johnson is capable of causing Williams harm if he were to find out the true nature of Williams’ co-operation with police.”
Yet they supported the two being placed together as long as the situation was carefully monitored.
The ombudsman did not record any adverse finding against either Mr Wise or Ms Armytage.
An officer had also reported that a prisoner told him it was common knowledge throughout the prison that Williams was cooperating with police in exchange for “benefits” and that information “may be a cause of concern to the safety of prisoner Williams”.
Mr Brouwer noted that the report didn’t make it onto the prison’s intelligence system and wasn’t considered in ongoing reviews of Williams’ placement.
Neither did prison authorities take into account a series of letters written by Johnson containing implicit threats against Williams.
In one of them, written two weeks before he killed Williams, Johnson wrote to his cousin warning that “there will be plenty of media attention soon”.
One of the most persistent questions surrounding Williams’ murder concerned the failure of prison officers to know it had occurred, despite every aspect having been recorded on CCTV.
Mr Brouwer excused the officers for not detecting the murder, describing the CCTV system in use as “unfit for the purpose”.
He also made a veiled criticism of police for placing their interest in securing Williams’ testimony before his personal safety and found various shortcomings in the internal review of the murder by the Office of Correctional Services.
Corrections Commissioner Bob Hastings said he accepted all of Mr Brouwer’s 56 recommendations concerning his department.
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