Australia's Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail

by Phelps, James

  The rapist had taken advantage of a lockdown, according to the guard. ‘They were shut in their cells for two days because of an incident. And this older rapist got stuck into the younger rapist for two days. It was quite brutal, and he didn’t dob or complain – nothing like that. He just told an officer he needed to see the doc and was taken to the hospital when they found his anus had been torn apart.’

  Now, this is graphic. Skip a paragraph if you must …

  ‘He was at the hospital with his feet around his ears, getting his arse stitched up,’ the guard continued. ‘He said [the rape happened when] he was about to watch Home and Away. Apparently it was the attacker’s favourite show and they watched it together every night.’

  It can be revealed here that the man suspected with the Home and Away assault was none other than serial rapist Wayne Wilmot – one of the five men convicted of the notorious abduction, rape and murder of 29-year-old Cronulla bank teller Janine Balding in 1988. It was a crime that shocked the country.

  Wilmot was released on parole after serving seven years for his role in the crime, only to be sent straight back to prison after attacking another woman at Leightonfield train station in Sydney’s west in 1998. Wilmot has also been investigated for at least two other alleged sexual assaults while in New South Wales jails, in addition to being the suspected perpetrator in the Home and Away rape in Goulburn.

  One of those alleged attacks was perpetrated against another convicted rapist, who was placed in a two-out cell with Wilmot in 2013.

  ‘Wilmot was helping this guy with some basic maths,’ the officer continued. ‘He was teaching him how to do things like add and subtract. They had this bizarre little sex game that went with it, and every time the bloke would get a wrong answer, well, he would have to give Wilmot a quick suck or a lick. Anyway, the cellmate told officers that he’d got a few wrong answers in a row and Wilmot got carried away and ended up raping him in the mouth.

  ‘Wilmot was moved down into the segregation unit after that. He is in a protection unit now, up behind the main jail. He has no remorse and is a complete predator.’

  As we’ve learned, Goulburn Jail is the concrete fortress that stands between you and a chance meeting with Ivan Milat. The phone taps, the wire, the guards and the watch towers protect you from serial killers like the Belanglo Butcher. The green gate, the sandstone lion and the razor wire also stops jihadists from blowing you to bits, from machine-gun armed men maiming you in a massacre and from cult leaders cutting you to ribbons with clippers. And this prison – all legend and lethal – also keeps our worst sex offenders off the street.

  They are as arguably more disgusting than any of the criminals you have met in the previous pages, and certainly more despised. One of them is a gang rapist named Skaf …

  Porn

  Heard the one about the gang rapist getting his hands on hardcore porn in prison? Yep. That’s right. Bilal Skaf, the man who led a group of young men on a raping spree in Sydney’s south-west and is serving 31 years for his crimes, had a pile of magazines under his bed.

  He was batting over filth.

  ‘I found a stack of hardcore porn in his cell three years ago,’ said a current guard who asked not to be named. ‘Most inmates are allowed to have soft porn in prison – pictures where all you see is pretty much boobs. But Skaf had a stack of horrible stuff in there. Now, that wouldn’t be a big deal for most inmates, but when you are talking about a serial rapist that has never expressed the slightest bit of remorse for his crimes, it’s a worry.’

  Most people think Skaf is safely locked away in Supermax.

  He isn’t.

  ‘He was in the MPU when we found the porn,’ the officer continued. ‘He hasn’t been in Supermax for a long time. He is not considered a high-risk inmate but is put in a protection wing for his own safety.

  ‘He told me he didn’t know where it came from and that it wasn’t his, but there is every chance it came in through his privileged mail. We aren’t allowed to check mail that comes from their lawyers or that is said to contain anything of a legal nature. This is a bit of a loophole that is taken advantage of, unfortunately.

  ‘The privileged mail is scanned for metal objects like weapons, but anything else can get in, including phones, which aren’t picked up by the metal detector. SIM cards don’t get picked up, and neither do memory cards. It’s not hard to slip those types of things into privileged legal letters.

  ‘A lot of porn now comes into the jail via SD cards. But Skaf had magazines, the full-on X-rated type from overseas.’

  Skaf has never been far from the spotlight, despite being locked away in Australia’s most secure jail.

  Skaf was initially sentenced to 55 years after being convicted on 21 counts of aggravated rape, assault and kidnapping. In 2000, he’d led 14 Lebanese–Australian Muslims on a series of gang rape attacks on Australian women. One of their victims was raped 25 times at Bankstown in an attack that lasted six hours. It’s alleged she was called an ‘Aussie pig’ and told she’d be raped ‘Lebanese style’.

  ‘What this trial showed was that he was the leader of the pack, a liar, a bully, a coward, callous and mean,’ said Judge Michael Finnane of Bilal Skaf in his sentencing remarks. ‘The worst of all offenders who conducted himself as if the proceeding were a joke.’

  Skaf began his sentence, which was later reduced to a maximum of 28 years on appeal, in Long Bay. He was placed in protection in 2 Wing after receiving death threats from fellow inmates.

  Skaf still did not back down, though, despite being bashed by a guard and receiving death threats. He claimed that he started a gang while in jail called W2K – Willing To Kill – and threatened to shoot court officers and prison guards. He sent white powder in an anthrax hoax to prison boss Ron Woodham.

  There were occasional cracks in the façade – Skaf also sobbed in his cell and attempted to commit suicide. His Long Bay horror ended – and a new one began – when he was transferred to Goulburn after prison authorities said three prisoners were plotting to inject him with a needle containing blood drawn from an HIV/AIDS-infected prisoner.

  Skaf was embroiled in a fresh controversy shortly after arriving in Goulburn …

  The prison officer walked into Cell 1, Unit 7, Supermax and saw scraps of paper lying on the bed. Bilal Skaf had been keeping busy … drawing. A new hobby perhaps?

  The guard picked up the scraps, scanning his eyes over the drawings neatly executed in pen. He was horrified. The five cartoon-style pictures depicted all types of atrocities, among them his ex-girlfriend being gang-raped.

  ‘Hurry up,’ one of the cartoon rapists is saying to another. ‘We have another 50 waiting.’

  The explicit drawing also showed his former partner, who had stood by Skaf during his trial and conviction, being executed by a military-type character who is calling her a ‘slut’.

  The prison artwork horrified then prison boss Ron Woodham.

  ‘Everyone who has seen them is shocked,’ he said. ‘During my career I have seen pornographic material crafted by inmates, but this is the first time I have seen drawings by a gang rapist encouraging gang rape. I believe the drawings depict the way he thinks. It tells you the way he thinks about women.

  ‘He has learned nothing since his trial and conviction. He should take stock of the damage he has done to his victims and to their relatives. I’ve seen a lot of rapists show remorse and elect to do something about their offending behaviour. They have those options and they do exercise them. But he hasn’t. He hasn’t shown any remorse at all.’

  The cartoons were placed in his prison intelligence file, as was the pornography found more recently in his segregation cell.

  ‘Quick, get him out of there,’ the officer ordered. ‘They are going to rip him to bits.’

  Skaf had begged and pleaded to be put in a wing with his ‘brothers’.

  ‘They love me,’ he would tell officers. ‘I’m their hero. I’m famous. They love what I did to those Aussie scum.’r />
  At first his pleas fell on deaf ears. Skaf was not loved. He was hated. Most inmates wanted to kill the rapist grub on sight, and the officers did not want a death on their hands, even if it was Skaf’s.

  ‘About two years ago we put him in the Lebanese Yard,’ said an officer who asked to remain anonymous. ‘He really just stuck to himself; he hadn’t been causing problems. He wanted to go back with his lot, and he was willing to sign a document saying he had no problems with anyone and he would be safe. The Lebs also said they wanted him in there, so management in all their wisdom got him out of segregation and put him in.’

  A tip-off saved Skaf’s life.

  ‘He still thinks he is up there,’ the officer continued, ‘but he is considered a grub, even in the eyes of modern-day inmates. Anyway, he survived a couple of months, and then we got some information that he was about to get knocked. We quickly ripped him out of there and put him back into protection. Really, it was just luck that he didn’t get killed – luck and some intelligence that was acted upon quickly.’

  Bilal Skaf walks over to the wire fence and looks into the neighbouring yard.

  ‘Hey, cunt!’ he yells. ‘Yeah you. You know I’m going to kill you.’

  He spits, strongly but pointlessly given that his target is in the distance.

  ‘Fuck you, Skaf!’ the other inmate yells back. ‘Fuck you. You are nothing but a rapist scum. Wait until I get my hands on you.’

  This is the daily showdown that astounds the Goulburn guards. The mutual burning hatred has them baffled.

  Why?

  Because the man Skaf has made his number one enemy is none other than Robert Black Farmer, a sadist with a penchant for torturing women. Farmer is surely Skaf’s equal when it comes to heinous crimes, having racked up 26 convictions by the time he was 25. Farmer was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years for brutally bashing Lauren Huxley with a fibro cutter before dousing her with petrol. He left Huxley to burn in her Northmead house. It was a crime that outraged a nation and, bizarrely, Skaf too.

  ‘Skaf is a nobody,’ another guard said, ‘and he would be anonymous if it was not for his crime. The only thing that sticks out about him is his thing with Robert Farmer. Farmer is a scumbag, just like him, but for some reason they actually have a hatred of each other.

  ‘We don’t know where it comes from – maybe they don’t either – but they want to kill each other. They are in separate yards in the same wing, both in protection, and they are equally hated. They scream at each other and issue threats through the fence.

  ‘Farmer is one of the biggest girls you will ever meet. Every time we have dealings with him he cries. He will always mouth off first, but then he will cry like a baby when we put it back on him. He also pissed himself on one occasion, which you would expect from a weakling that goes around bashing and setting alight beautiful young girls.

  ‘I haven’t seen Skaf piss himself, but I am sure he has. He’s very quiet and has limited dealings with others. It’s a bit sad, really – the only person that has anything to do with him is his mum. She comes to visit, but that’s it.’

  While on the subject of piss …

  ‘He likes to throw piss through the fence at Farmer,’ said another officer familiar with Skaf. ‘That is one of his favourite tricks. He pisses in his little milk container, takes it into the yard and then hurls it at him.’

  For a bloke who thought he was popular, Skaf was also prepared for the worst. A Goulburn officer has revealed that the rapist is often armed.

  ‘We found a decent weapon on him early in his stay,’ the officer said. ‘He had been on segregation, and when management thought he was ready he was moved. He was put into Unit 2. It was still a protection yard, but it was the first time he was going to be in a yard with anyone else. They were all what we call SMAPs (Special Management Area Placement crims), but Skaf must have been a little worried.

  ‘The first day he came out into the yard, we did a search on him and found a crowbar in his towel. It was in his yard bag. He was asked why he had it, and he said, “Why do you think? It’s my first day in the yard, chief. I have to arm meself up.”

  ‘He only had it to protect himself. He wasn’t going to get anyone. He got moved down to the MPU after that and put back in segregation. After that they knew he couldn’t be put in the yard, and he stayed in the MPU on protection until the Lebanese inmates put in a request for him to move into their yard.’

  We know how that one went.

  ‘And I Just Snapped’

  The Goulburn officer cracked the lock. Then he pushed open the door.

  ‘Out you get,’ he said. ‘Playtime in the yard.’

  The prisoner moved his mouth, but nothing else. ‘Might just stay here, chief,’ he said, hands behind head and lying on his back. ‘I couldn’t be fucked.’

  The officer stepped into the cell.

  ‘You feel sick?’ he said. ‘You want the doc?’ The officer was genuinely concerned. ‘You okay?’

  He took another step, the morning sun streaming into the cell, slapping him in the face. He squinted and looked behind him. A sticker on the back of the door grabbed his attention.

  ‘And that is when I grabbed him by the throat,’ the officer said. ‘I ripped him from the bed and smashed him against the wall. I just lost it. I held him there – head rubbing concrete – and I choked him. I strangled him and wanted him dead.’

  The message on the sticker? ‘Life is Short.’

  Nothing, right? Like a teenager slapping a Slayer poster on his wall or Ben Cousins getting some silly ink.

  Wrong …

  ‘Life is short?’ the guard screamed into the inmate’s ear, spit flying against face. ‘LIFE IS SHORT? Yeah, it’s for the nine-year-old girl you killed. The one you fucking tied up and threw into a dam.’

  The inmate could not respond. He was choking.

  Ahhgg. Ahgg. Ahg.

  The guard dropped his hand. The inmate continued to couch and cry as he cowered on the concrete floor.

  ‘Not so tough when you’re up against a man,’ the officer shouted.’

  The officer recalled the exact moment he wanted to kill Andrew Peter Garforth, the sexual deviant who had raped and murdered Ebony Simpson. Garforth even joined the police search for the girl, her ravaged body eventually found.

  ‘I wanted to end him,’ the officer said. ‘That sticker just set me off. I absolutely lost my shit. I grabbed the bloke by the throat, I threw him up against the wall, and I choked him.’

  Life is Short?

  ‘Garforth was the fucker that murdered Ebony Simpson. She was only nine. He grabbed her on the way home from school, shoved her in his boot and drowned her in a dam. He tied her up with barbed wire before throwing her in. He fucking raped her too, and then he threw weights in her school bag and sent her to the bottom.’

  The guard had held Garforth against the wall, the inmate frothing at the mouth as he gagged and gulped. He could have killed him. He wanted to kill him. But he suddenly stopped.

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know why I stopped,’ the officer said. ‘The only reason I reckon I did was because he started blubbering, and that made me feel good. He cried and begged. Maybe it was sadistic, but I enjoyed watching him cry and just told him he was a piece of shit and always would be. It was the satisfaction of seeing him crying that made me stop.’

  Garforth is regarded as one of the most sickening men in Goulburn Jail. Several officers have been banned from working in his wing because authorities fear they may injure the convicted child killer.

  ‘He is a putrid individual,’ said another officer. ‘He is a complaint merchant and whines all the time. He is in the boss’s office complaining ten minutes after his cell is searched. He complains about everything. He says the officers messed up his cell and that he is being targeted unfairly. He is scared shitless of officers, though. He won’t look at you in the face and certainly won’t complain about anything that could lead to him being hurt.’

  ‘He m
ight be an even bigger target when the animals learn he is to blame for table tennis being banned,’ the same officer continued. ‘Not that it was really his fault.’

  Garforth received a belting by table tennis bats soon after he arrived in Goulburn in 2001.

  ‘He was bashed very badly,’ the officer said. ‘He was in the activities centre, and he got beaten up by a bunch of blokes that had armed themselves with table tennis bats.’

  But couldn’t you do more damage with your fist? Come on, a tiny table tennis bat?

  ‘You have to understand these inmates are really different,’ the officer continued.

  ‘They aren’t fisticuffs-type of people. They are all sex offenders and are all very cowardly. They won’t punch with their hands. They are not big on violence but will use a weapon if they can get it to detach themselves from the violence of the act. They will use a weapon – anything they can get hold of – to make the violence seem okay.’

  Oh … and they love a cheap shot.

  ‘They are the type of people that will hit you from behind,’ the officer said.

  ‘They are cowards. They look at the ground most of the time, and Garforth is at the top of the tree when it comes to being a scared grub.’

  Guarding paedophiles and child killers is without question the toughest job for any prison officer.

  ‘You try not to look into their case history so you can remain professional,’ said the officer who choked Garforth. ‘They are hard enough to deal with when you don’t even know what they’ve done. They are sickening in how polite they are. They try to be nice to the point that you want to throw up. There isn’t a guard that doesn’t have a story like my story. You are bound to snap around one of these predators. You don’t want to, of course, and you restrain yourself as best as you can, but sometimes you just snap. It happens to everyone.’

  This officer ‘snapped’, not only because of the sticker, but also because of a television special on Garforth’s crime.