FIFTEEN years ago, Bilal Skaf led a group of young men in a series of horrific crimes that rocked the Harbour City.
On the eve of Sydney’s historic 2000 Olympic Games, a gang of 14 terrorised young girls in the city’s west, sexually, physically and mentally abusing their innocent victims.
This week, we will look back on the evil crimes that shook our city 15 years ago.
But first, we go behind bars and into the prison life of of the group’s notorious leader, Bilal Skaf.
Telegraph reporter James Phelps — the author of best-selling book, Australia’s Most Murderous Prison: Behind the Walls of Goulburn Jail — writes:
BILAL Skaf walks to the wire fence and looks into the neighbouring yard.
“Hey, c...!” he yells. “Yeah you. You know I’m going to kill you.”
He spits, strongly but pointlessly given his target is in the distance.
“F... you, Skaf!” the other inmate yells back. “F... you. You are nothing but a rapist scum. Wait until I get my hands on you.”
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CHAPTER TWO: ‘THEY SAT IN COURT LAUGHING AND JOKING’ - CUNNEEN
CHAPTER THREE:GANG RAPES HAD ‘MILITARY PRECISION’ - FINANNE
CHAPTER FOUR: ‘I FEARED GANG RAPES WOULD BECOME A TREND’ - CARR
TIMELINE: HOW THE MONTH-LONG RAMPAGE UNFOLDED
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 No.1 enemy is Robert Black Farmer, a sadist with a penchant for torturing women.
Farmer is surely Skaf’s equal when it comes to heinous crimes, racking 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, outraged Skaf too.
“Skaf is a nobody,” another guard said. “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 have a hatred of each other.”
He added: “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 light to 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 is it.”
“The only person that has anything to do with him is his mum”
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.’’
Locked up but still in the public eye
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”.
CHAPTER 2: BILAL SKAF LOOKED MORE LIKE A SCARED TEENAGER
“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 facade — 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...
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.
Sadistic cartoonist
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 is in the right place at Supermax.
“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 place 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.”
At first his pleas fell on deaf ears. Skaf was not loved.
He was hated.
Most inmates would kill the rapist grub on sight, and the officers did not want a death on their hands, even if it was Skaf’s.
“...When you are talking about a serial rapist that has never expressed the slightest bit of remorse for his crimes, it’s a worry”
“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.”
A secret stash
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 southwest 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 is said to contain anything of a legal nature. This is a bit of a loophole that is taken advantage of unfortunately.
“...When you are talking about a serial rapist that has never expressed the slightest bit of remorse for his crimes, it’s a worry”
“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 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.”
Order Australia’s Most Murderous Prison: Behind the walls of Goulburn Jail at Random House or on iTunes
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As we move into spring what can locals expect tomorrow? We have the latest word from the Weather Bureau.