‘No Bail, Just Jail’: Michael Barry Fyfe tells all in phone calls from solitary confinement

Michael Fyfe has spent decades in solitary for his attacks on child predators. And in a tell-all from behind bars, the murderer was asked if he’d kill again. Listen to the audio.

“Hello buddy, how are you?”

That’s how one of the state’s most notorious killers, Michael Barry Fyfe, greets podcast creator John (not his real name) while in near-total isolation from other prisoners.

Fyfe is serving a non-parole period of 45 years for violent offences, including murder, and has spent almost three decades in Yatala Labour Prison’s G Division – separated from the rest of the prison population.

Locked in his prison cell for 22 hours a day since January 16, 1995, Fyfe was released from solitary confinement and transferred to Port Augusta Prison as part of his rehabilitation regime last month.

With a shocking history of offending spanning four decades, that includes several targeted attacks on convicted rapists, Fyfe had served the most time in isolation in Australia.

Under the online moniker ‘No Bail, Just Jail’, prisoner advocate John first spoke to Fyfe a month ago, and has since conducted 40 phone calls with the killer from inside prison.

SA convicted murderer Michael Barry Fyfe (right) trying to kiss a guard on the cheek while being driven from court to Yatala Labor Prison on the February 29, 2000.

John quickly built a surprising rapport with the convicted murderer, with Fyfe speaking openly about the motives behind his crimes, why he’s not remorseful and what it’s really like in solitary confinement.

In 1993, Fyfe was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm after attacking a fellow inmate at Port Lincoln prison with a cricket bat and, the following year, was again convicted of attempting to murder another prisoner at Yatala – this time with a pick and a claw hammer.

Fyfe had been held in G Division since he murdered convicted rapist Anthony Trevor Tilley in a third attack in January 1995, in a cold-blooded attack from behind the kitchen at Yatala.

Best known to John as “Mick”, the 61-year-old doesn’t deny his guilt – nor does he regret his actions.

“The fact of the matter is that I get along with everyone, I’m a good person … but I have an aggravation with child sexual rapists,” Fyfe told John during one of their 10-minute calls.

A cell inside Yatala Labor Prison’s G division. Picture: 7NEWS

Fyfe spent 28 years inside the prison’s solitary confinement unit.

He described the conditions inside the unit at “deplorable”.

As a child, Fyfe and his sister were jointly physically and sexually abused for years by their violently depraved father and then abandoned by his mother when he was 13.

Placed in boys’ homes, he was again physically and sexually abused.

“In life, we have to protect those who can’t protect themselves. The courts don’t protect them and people don’t protect them. I happen to be the odd one in society who does something about it,” Fyfe said.

“Am I judge, jury and executioner on this? You better believe it. When children were crying out pleas for help and for their perpetrators to stop doing what they were doing, that was ignored.

“I’m listening to the pleas of the child, I’m not listening to the pleas of the perpetrator when he’s being dealt with. ‘Oh, don’t do it’ – f*** off.”

But Fyfe said he never expected to spend so long in solitary confinement, revealing that, when contemplating his vicious attack on another prisoner, he predicted he would receive a five-year penalty in G Division.

“I’ll justify (the attacks) until the cows come home. I don’t profess to be innocent – I’m not a victim, but this circumstance (solitary confinement) … how long does this have to go on for.”

A court sketch of Fyfe, when he was first convicted.

Fyfe made repeated attempts to be released from G Division – with multiple appeals to the Supreme Court in 1998, 2000, 2004 and 2007, that all failed.

He said he had “broken down quite a few times” during his isolation in the “oppressive, harsh environment” of the unit, but felt it had “made him a man”.

“The conditions here are absolutely deplorable. G Division is the worst place to be in, as far as being treated as a human being. (Prisoners) get treated like sh*t, then they come out worse, back on the street with vengeance and all they want to do is get back at society,” Fyfe said.

“You’re in overalls, you’re being fed finger food – half the food we’re supposed to get we don’t get. Some people don’t get phone calls or showers. I’m in my cell 22 hours a day now.

“Imagine if that was your child. People forget that we have family and friends, or that we get back outside.”

Of his crimes Fyfe (right) said: “The courts don’t protect them and people don’t protect them. I happen to be the odd one in society who does something about it”.

While in prison, Fyfe, who has no family, had been studying and educating himself, including completing creative writing courses to document his experiences of being held in confinement.

“I used to read – I wasn’t educated or anything like that, I never had any interest in school – it’s only when I’ve come into this joint. You face your demons in this place,” Fyfe said.

“The only choice you have in your cell throughout the day is your thinking processes and your training regime.

“I got all the textbooks to study psychology, but they wouldn’t let me study that – I’ve done animal welfare, maths, English, professional writing, creative writing, journalism, history … whatever’s available, I try and do.”

During Fyfe’s previously unsuccessful appeals for release, evidence from psychiatrists concerning his violent disposition were found to outweigh human rights concerns from his lawyers.

When asked if he would kill again, Fyfe’s answer was simple – only if he was put face-to-face once more with a child rapist.

“What would happen if I was put in the same position again, would I hurt somebody again? If I leave here, I leave here with clear intent … I have every intention of doing the right thing,” he said.

“But for me specifically, I don’t like child rapists and I’ll do something about it.

“If what I do saves one child’s live from horrendous, torturous behaviour from a predator, then so be it. I’m not going to sit there and break bread and make out that everything’s okay.

“When I leave here, I just want to find a way to live my life within the system, die old disgracefully and have a little garden patch and a couple of birds.”