Prisoner’s plan to ‘get’ Daniel Morcombe’s killer revealed

After a series of attacks by other inmates, the man found guilty of abducting and killing Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe has been subject to another threat in jail – and prison overcrowding means he will have to face it in his own cell.

CHILD killer Brett Peter Cowan will be forever tormented in jail with yet another inmate trying to get to him on the inside, prisoner officers have revealed.

The Courier-Mail has been told a prisoner confided in fellow inmates of his plans to get to Cowan inside Brisbane’s Wolston jail.

“He made a statement he wanted to get to Cowan,” an officer said.

“He told other prisoners and they gave him up.

“(The prisoner who wanted to get to him) is like Robin Williams on ice, his brain is fried.”

The Courier-Mail has been told the prisoner was put on a safety order after the threat.

But because the detention unit is full in the jail he was put back into his own cell.

Under a safety order, he is allowed about two hours of exercise a day.

Daniel Morcombe’s killer Brett Peter Cowan.

The incident comes after prisoners tried to cause a diversion in the jail last year so they could attack Cowan.

They heated up jam in a microwave and were planning to throw it on Cowan who was in the exercise yard of a jail block.

They were also armed with a sandwich maker and sharpened broom sticks.

It followed other incidents involving Cowan, including a 2016 assault in which he was given a “hot shower” of boiling water by another prisoner.

When asked about the incident a Queensland Corrective Services spokeswoman said the organisation did not comment on the treatment of individual prisoners.

“QCS takes a dynamic approach to risk assessment,” she said.

“The safety of prisoners is assessed on an ongoing basis and security decisions are made accordingly.”

A prison guard inside Wolston Correctional Centre. Picture: Peter Wallis

Cowan has been in prison for eight years following his 2011 arrest at the end of a complex and lengthy covert operation conducted by police from Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria.

He is serving a life sentence for the abduction and murder of Sunshine Coast schoolboy Daniel Morcombe, who disappeared from a bus stop in 2003.

Covert officers spent months with Cowan, who by then was living in a Perth caravan park.

Cowan eventually confessed to luring 13-year-old Daniel into his car and taking him to a macadamia farm where he killed him and hid his body.

Daniel’s parents, Bruce and Denise, have dedicated their lives to teaching children about keeping safe from predators.

Cowan had spent time in prison for abducting and abusing two other children prior to killing Daniel.

Originally published as Prisoner’s plan to ‘get’ Daniel Morcombe’s killer revealed