Female prisoner Rebecca Butterfield is ‘too violent ever to be let out’

NSW’s most feared prisoner Rebecca Butterfield’s methods include cutting her own throat, repeatedly banging her head on walls - once over a 100 times, splitting her skull open - and severely burning herself after setting fire to her cell.

CRACK. The barrel-chested guard broke the lock before swinging the reinforced steel cell door like it was plywood.

“Rebecca,’’ he demanded, all muscles and matter of fact as he pushed into the cell.

“Time to . . .’’

The plastic shiv came from nowhere, cutting his sentence and then his face.

“Ahhhh!’ ’the guard screamed.

He grabbed his shredded cheek with his left hand in a bid to stem the flow of blood. With his right he grabbed the woman who ambushed him. “What was that for?’’ he demanded. The woman didn’t reply — she just looked at him and smiled.

This is just one of several sickening attacks on prison staff that has made Rebecca Butterfield one of the most feared inmates in the NSW prison system.

Butterfield, 39, can today be revealed as the woman regarded by authorities as NSW’s most violent inmate. Forget Neddy Smith, Bilal Skaf, or Ivan Milat; 39 official Corrective Service alerts in just nine years have earned Butterfield the tag of NSW’s most troublesome prisoner.

Sydney’s Silverwater Jail

The woman originally sentenced to a minimum of just three years for assault could become the first non-sex offender or mentally ill prisoner to be jailed past their maximum sentence, with moves already under way to keep Butterfield off the streets.

Due to be released on November 3, 2015, high-level Corrective Services sources have confirmed they will apply to make Butterfield the first person to ever be incarcerated “indefinitely” under the Crimes (Serious Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill, 2013.

Inside Silverwater Jail in Sydney

A series of reports leaked to the Sunday Telegraph — which will be presented to the NSW Supreme Court next year as part of a bid to make Butterfield the first to be locked up under an amendment in the Crimes Bill that “provides for the supervision and detention of high-risk violent offenders’’ — show why this daughter of a NSW police officer could be locked up for life.

Over a six-year period, Butterfield has tried to harm herself at least seven times, including cutting her own throat, repeatedly banging her head on walls — once over a 100 times, splitting her skull open — and severely burning herself after setting fire to her cell.

She also has a long history of hurting others . . .

Butterfield grabbed the industrial scissors from the prison work bench. Then she attacked. She murdered fellow Emu Plains jail inmate Bluce Lim Ward by stabbing her 34 times. Lim Ward, serving six years for fraud, had earlier told guards Butterfield had threatened to kill her. Until this attack, May 7, 2003, Butterfield was a relatively minor offender.

Sydney’s Long Bay jail

Her now long and violent history of crime began in 1996, when she was charged with malicious damage. A failed conviction against a man she accused of sexually assaulting her is understood to have sparked her crime.

“It is clearly evident from Ms Butterfield’s criminal and interpersonal history that there is a noticeable short period of time between the date the charges against her alleged sexual perpetrator were dismissed at court on 8 March 1996 and the date her own criminal history began,’’ a prison report reveals.

“In summary, however, her recorded incidents of violence commenced with malicious damage, resist/hinder arrest and assault police, gradually progressing to AOABH offences, malicious wounding and then maliciously wound person with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm in 2000. This offence was the initial offence for this period of incarceration, for which she was sentenced on 20 June 2001 to a six-year sentence with a non-parole period of three years.’’

Butterfield was designated an “extreme high security’’ prisoner by the Corrective Services Commissioner in 2003 after she made threats against guards. “Extreme caution should be exercised when dealing with this inmate,’’ said a Corrective Services report. “Butterfield has made a threat to kill an officer. In particular she has directed this threat towards female officers.’’

The walls of Long Bay Hospital. Picture: Craig Greenhill

Another entry reads: “Exercise caution on all external escorts. Butterfield is able to remove handcuffs.’’

But she assaulted several people despite the warnings. A long list of offences contained in Butterfield’s records claim the prisoner has kicked a pregnant nurse in the abdomen while receiving treatment, has thrown a cup of urine on an officer, thrown boiling water at an officer, and assaulted an officer during a search.

A Long Bay prison guard said: “Some criminals can be great one day and terrible the next. Rebecca’s an hour-by-hour prospect. The head-butting incident was terrifying and recently she pulled out a colostomy bag and threw it.’’

The holding cells at Sydney’s Long Bay Jail. Picture: Craig Greenhill

Butterfield is also understood to be taking action against Corrective Services for an incident in which she set fire to herself. Butterfield is kept locked away in isolation in a high risk cell at either Silverwater or Long Bay prison.

“She is moved around to give the staff a break,’’ said a Corrective Services employee.

Butterfield will be released next year if attempts to keep her in jail under the new legislation eventually fail.