Mayhem

by Matthew Thompson

  Shortly after that conviction you were convicted of being a felon in possession of a pistol and other offences including making a threat to kill.

  You had been remanded in custody on the armed robbery charges. In August 1992, whilst on remand, you were stabbed by a fellow prisoner and taken to St Vincent’s Hospital. After emergency surgery you escaped and fled to New South Wales. You there committed more armed robberies, were arrested and remanded to Parramatta gaol. Again, you escaped and returned to Victoria where you were arrested by a SOG team near Daylesford. You sustained injuries in that arrest. After commencing a hunger strike you were brought before Judge Lazarus and sentenced to the term I mentioned a few moments ago.

  During this sentence, you attempted to escape from the Acacia Unit. In 1996, you were extradited to New South Wales to face the 1992 armed robbery charges that I have referred to. In December 1998, you were sentenced for these armed robberies, kidnapping and other offences. The full details of your sentence are not clear to me but you were released from prison in February 2005. You apparently served your full-term and thus were not subject to parole supervision when you were released. You had served 13 years straight in various prisons by the time you were released.

  Your time in custody in the New South Wales prison system was not easy and you made several public statements about prison conditions at the Goulburn gaol.

  You remained in the community for about 13 months before being arrested in January 2006. You ultimately were convicted of been a prohibited person possessing a firearm, two counts of common-law assault and possession of a drug of dependence. You were sentenced to an effective four year maximum with a minimum of two years. I am told you served your complete sentence after an unsuccessful period on parole and so once again you were released into the community with no authoritative supervision.

  Whilst on remand for the 2006 offences you were seriously assaulted. You believed your attackers were procured by a particular prisoner to carry out this attack. I shall call this man ‘Prisoner X’. This has some relevance to your current offending.

  After serving a good deal of this sentence in management units you were released on parole in April 2008. During the time that you are on parole you became increasingly concerned that your safety was threatened by associates of Prisoner X. Your parole was revoked in September 2008 and you were apprehended in December of that year. You are in possession at that time of cocaine, for prohibited weapons, an unregistered handgun (a pen gun) and various false identity documents. You returned to prison and after further threats passing from you and to you, you again were detained in a management unit. In October 2010, the possession charges I have just referred to were finally dealt with and you received a further 12-month prison sentence. You were released from custody on 28 September 2011.

  …

  I accept that from the time you were released in September 2011 you are genuinely fearful for your life and the lives of your loved ones. Whilst this may explain some of your antisocial conduct during your eight months at large it cannot justify or excuse it. You accumulated an arsenal at the Atack [storage] facility. For a prohibited person to possess one firearm is serious enough. For a prohibited person to possess a loaded pistol, a loaded cut down rifle, a loaded cut down pump-action shotgun and a Thompson submachine gun makes this … charge a grave example of its kind.

  Mr Holt SC, in helpful submissions on your behalf, put his instructions from the bar table that you acquired a bag of guns to protect yourself and your daughter from those you believed responsible for shooting two of your associates. There is no evidence as to how or why you came into possession of these guns. I have indicated that I accept that throughout your time at large in 2011 and 2012 you feared for your loved ones’ safety. I accept this as a likely explanation for your possession of three of the four impugned firearms. It does little to reduce your moral culpability in my view. The offence is aimed at public safety and designed to discourage criminals convicted of serious offences from carrying or possessing a weapon.

  I regard the armed robbery as a very serious example of this sort of offence. It was planned and executed with precision. Your Council observed that, with the proliferation of modern investigative tools (including CCTV), this type of armed robbery is not common these days. Whilst that may be so when such crimes are committed they cause terror to those immediately involved and apprehension amongst the wider community. I consider that a purpose of this sentencing exercise is to protect that wider community from you Mr Binse.

  …

  ONEROUS NATURE OF YOUR IMPRISONMENT

  You have been remanded since your arrest. You have been assessed as a high security risk.

  An affidavit from Brendan Money, Asst Commissioner of Corrections Victoria, was tendered in evidence. Since your arrest you have been accommodated mainly in the Acacia Management Unit at Barwon Prison. You have been temporarily accommodated in other units. Once this sentence is passed you will be returned to Acacia Unit.

  Acacia Unit provides you with a single bed cell. You are permitted access to an exercise yard for between one and three hours a day. Beyond that, you are secured in your cell. I am told, and accept, that it has been determined that you are a long-term management prisoner. There is a real prospect that you will be required to serve all or a large proportion of what must be a lengthy prison sentence in isolation cell confinement for up to 23 hours a day. Mr Holt, on your behalf, argued that this factor must weigh heavily in favour of reducing the overall sentence I must impose. Mr Chadwick, who prosecuted, intended that whilst you are entitled to some benefit arising from this factor that benefit ought be qualified or are limited to reflect that, in many ways, you are the architect of your own misfortune. I have been referred to a number of cases in which responsibility for a prisoner’s placement in a management unit has been considered in the context of whether a sentencing benefit for same ought be allowed. In my view, there is no rule which says that where a prisoner’s conduct results in them being placed in a restrictive prison environment that fact disentitled them to a sentencing benefit arising from that owner’s custodial environment.

  It is clear that your current prison status is the product of a combination of factors. Mr Money’s affidavit sets them out. You are assessed as a high security risk as a result of the following combination of factors:

  the circumstances of the events leading to your arrest;

  you have a significant prior prison history, including placement in management units;

  you have made several well-planned escapes and escape attempts in Victoria and New South Wales;

  there are placement concerns relating to your interaction with other prisoners. In short, it is considered that you are at risk of harm and at risk of causing harm if allowed to interact with other prisoners. I quote “his volatile and threatening behaviour presents real risks to prison security’;

  whilst Mr Money does not refer to it as a factor relevant to your management unit status it is clear from his affidavit that there have been significant concerns about your mental health during your time in management. You have been placed in a Muirhead cell as a result of psychiatric concerns, have been transferred twice to the Acute Assessment Unit at MAP due to those concerns and are considered at risk of self harm.

  I am satisfied that your current prison accommodation is largely the product of your conduct over your time in the prison system. For reasons that I shall refer to shortly, I consider that you are thoroughly institutionalised and suffering from a range of psychological consequences that impact on your capacity to deal with unrestricted prison life, or for that matter the outside world.

  A report from Dr Danny Sullivan was tendered on your behalf. Ms Pamela Matthews, Forensic Psychologist, gave evidence on your behalf. Two reports from her were tendered – one from 2010 and one recent. Both Dr Sullivan and Ms Matthews diagnose a form of mixed personality disorder with antisocial and narcissistic traits. Both also commented on the impact upon you of your past and fu
ture incarceration:

  ‘Mr Binse has been so long incarcerated that his emotional world is markedly altered.’ (Dr Sullivan)

  ‘He reports that innocuous events trigger emotional responses including anxiety or distress … He is preoccupied with threat to him with those close to him and that he has repeated recollections of traumatic events that have happened to him.’ (Dr Sullivan)

  ‘Although he might meet the diagnostic criteria for post traumatic stress disorder, it is perhaps more appropriate to regard his condition as an adaptation to prolonged incarceration in austere circumstances, as well as a number of attacks on him associated with prison life and his lifestyle outside prison.’ (Dr Sullivan)

  ‘Mr Binse had on occasion experienced brief episodes of behavioural disturbance, disordered thinking, persecutory and grandiose beliefs, reports of special powers and auditory hallucinations. Most recently these have occurred in 2012 and 2013. On these occasions the symptoms have resolved spontaneously without antipsychotic medication and the opinion of reviewing psychiatrists has been that these did not reflect psychotic episodes … It is likely that these reflected decompensation in the face of stressors.’ (Dr Sullivan)

  ‘In the writer’s view, Mr Binse’s personality, his coping skills or lack thereof, his mental state fluctuations, chronic post trauma symptomology and behaviours are all a product of long periods in restrictive custody, which over the course of a potentially lengthy sentence can only be further exacerbated by more custodial time in similar, very onerous environments.’ (Ms Matthews)

  Although I consider you are largely the architect of your current prisoner status, as I have said there is no rule which necessarily denies a prisoner a sentencing benefit arising from being placed in a restrictive custody or environment. Each case will turn on its facts. In my view, your likely future accommodation will be so restrictive and of such a length that it would be inhumane to deny some sentencing benefit arising from these factors.

  I accept the opinions from Dr Sullivan and Ms Matthews that I have recently referred to. I am positively satisfied that there is a serious risk that future imprisonment in the restricted custodial environment that I have explained will have a significant adverse effect on your mental health.

  I have considered together the fact of your current and likely future custodial circumstances and the risk that these circumstances will impact upon your mental health. I have concluded that the combination of these two factors ought mitigate the punishment that I will impose.

  …

  DETERRENCE

  There is obviously a powerful need to deter you from reoffending. There is an equally powerful need to deter others from similar outrageously unlawful conduct. These factors must be given significant weight in the sentencing exercise.

  PROTECTION OF THE COMMUNITY

  Your prior record and the gravity of your current offending necessarily leads me to conclude that the community needs to be protected from you. The community’s interests will be protected by your incapacitation for a lengthy period.

  …

  There is another aspect to community protection. It is open to me not to impose a minimum sentence before parole eligibility. Your last three sentences have been served in full. Despite this, I consider that it would be incompatible with the community’s interests to impose a straight term of imprisonment with no minimum. It is highly desirable that, upon your eventual release, you be subject to the support and strict supervision of the parole board for a considerable period. In my view, community protection requires this. If you are simply released after serving your full term with no controls or supervision then the public interest suffers.

  REHABILITATION

  For the reasons that I have expressed I consider your prospects for rehabilitation are poor. My sincere hope is that you will rehabilitate yourself to finally become a functioning member of the wider community. For that to occur you will need support and self-discipline. To date, you have not demonstrated much of this latter quality.

  TOTALITY

  I have endeavoured to apply the principle of totality in setting the head sentence and the minimum term. I have endeavoured to avoid a crushing aggregate sentence whilst still reflecting the gravity of your offending conduct in your prior criminal history. I have moderated both the individual sentences and the impact of cumulation in applying this totality principle.

  …

  Stand up please.

  Balancing all these competing factors as best I can, I sentence you as follows:

  … a total effective head sentence of 18 years and two months imprisonment. I direct that you serve a minimum of 14 years and two months before you are eligible for parole.

  I declare that 715 days up to and including 7 May 2014 be reckoned as served by way of presentence detention.

  I declare that but for your pleas of guilty I would have sentenced you to an effective head sentence of 22 years with a minimum sentence before parole eligibility of 18 years.

  FROM FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST PAMELA MATTHEWS’ REPORT, WHICH WAS QUOTED BY JUSTICE FORREST:

  From a rehabilitative perspective, moving Mr Binse from restrictive custody to the community without transitional care and support raises questions of duty of care, further that this pattern of unsupported release has been repeated on his last three releases into the community raises the seriousness of those questions. It is the writer’s recommendation from a rehabilitative perspective that Mr Binse, in order to manage his next custody to community transition, will require longer term interventions and support rather than short term interventions … It would be best if such interventions are initiated at the beginning of whatever sentence the Court imposes focusing on the longer term development of: practical, mental state, and interpersonal coping skills; and closer to exit practical, concrete, support systems pre and post release.

  …

  Naturally rehabilitation is only one aspect of sentencing and sentencing is the role of the Court.

  72. CLEANSING

  AUGUST 2015:

  HM PRISON BARWON

  After Chris writes to police out of the blue about his unsolved crimes of a quarter century ago, detectives come to see him.

  Knowing that this unsolicited confession will lead to charges (for which he has since pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing), Chris explains to the detectives how important it is that he gets everything off his chest:

  Chris: I’ve just got to – I’ve got to make it right. For me to – to fucking – I’ve got to be a hundred per cent pure inside, not 95 per cent, not 90 per cent, because if I’m only 99 per cent clean inside, that means I’m still dirty. Understand?

  I want to cleanse myself purely, properly, everything, expunge everything. I don’t want to have any shit inside of me. I want to be accounted, atoned for all the stuff, the bad stuff I’ve done, not leave shit out, not be selective, not leave this one or that one out or whatever, you know. It’s all or nothing, seriously. For me to make it right, it’s got to be a hundred per cent.

  Detective: No worries.

  2016: SUNSHINE NORTH

  Annette looks down as I leaf through her son’s confessions.

  ‘All this talk of cleansing – I hate it,’ she says. ‘And these confessions to robberies from the 1980s! Why did he open his big mouth? Who does it help? The police didn’t even know about some of them.’

  She shakes her head and looks away.

  ‘I know what he’s doing,’ she says. ‘Chris is going to top himself. He will do it. And I can understand. What does he have to look forward to? He has no job skills. His daughter has been taken out of his life. He has no money. We pay his phone account and give him money for the things he can buy in prison. The robbery money? He doesn’t have any. All the people around him steal that the moment he gets arrested – and he used to just give it away, anyway. Not to family, mind you, but to anyone he felt sorry for. He’d see someone in a wheelchair and slip ’em a hundred. Never us.’

  Annette puts down her washcl
oth after cleaning the dishes from the dinner she made of Croatian-style fish.

  ‘I’ll be dead before his time’s up,’ says Annette. ‘What’s he going to do then? He calls me every day – two or three times. I tell him to hold on, to find something to look forward to. But what is there? They just leave him to rot in isolation. They know it’s driving him mad. Everybody knows isolation does that. And you can’t tell me that out of the thousands of prisoners in Victoria they can’t find a few for Chris to mix with under supervision. They’re scum. I know Chris has done wrong but so does everybody else – in fact, that’s all they know about him. And he’s paying for it. But these men running the prisons, the justice system, they’re doing wrong every day – they’re destroying people, making them worse before they get released – and they get held up as good people.’

  73. AND NOW?

  MID 2016:

  HM PRISON BARWON

  Four years (including time on remand) into what Justice Forrest called the ‘onerous conditions’ of what he didn’t name as solitary but which is, Chris is back out of the anti-suicide observation cell and his usual ‘studio apartment’ by himself, a continuum that he faces for another ten to fourteen years. Long term isolation runs counter to State, Commonwealth and international standards, but few people care in the ‘supermax’ era.

  So there he sits, sometimes obsessing with appeals or the past, other times painting, or working on a series of kids’ books aimed at keeping troubled children off the Mayhem Highway – or joining in the vicious shouting matches that frequently rage between cells.

  Chris, the bandit and jailbreaker, is at the time of writing, in a section of Barwon that holds four solitary cells, the other three being occupied by murderers. One of them is a thrill killer with schizophrenia and a taste for rape. Another is a gang leader and killer who helped Gavin Preston orchestrate the arena-style razor attack on Chris. The third murdered someone over a traffic altercation.