Lady Justice Podcast: Jane Lohse lifts the lid on Bassam Hamzy, Ivan Milat and Khaled Sharrouf

Former prison officer Jane Lohse shares her stories of serial killers, terrorists, paedophiles and gangsters. Listen to the Lady Justice podcast.

Crime boss Bassam Hamzy fixed his warm brown eyes on the senior prison officer.

“Would you like an Audi A5?” asked the Brothers for Life kingpin, dangling his tantalising offer with a wry smile.

Jane Lohse had worked hard all her life, first through the graft of nursing shifts, raising three children, and now managing the country’s most dangerous criminals in Lithgow Maximum Security Prison.

But she wasn’t about to accept flashy cars from gangsters serving time for murder and drug supply. She knew what the ‘gift’ could mean in return.

“No thanks, I’ll keep driving what I drive,” she recalls telling him in episode one of News Corp’s Lady Justicepodcast.

Jane Lohse. Picture By Ryan Osland

In a career spanning 22 years, Mrs Lohse climbed the ranks of correctional services, learning to manage a mixed bag of serial killers, terrorists, paedophiles and menacing gangsters through mental smarts, a sharp tongue and on occasion, brute force.

She even served notorious backpacker serial killer Ivan Milat lunch.

“It was a lock down day [when prisoners are kept in their cells] where we had to go door-to-door and deliver the lunches. So I opened the door. I said, “I’ve got your lunch here,” and he stood up and came to the door. There was a grill between us and I just looked at him, and you know how your eyes lock on somebody? The hair on the back of my neck just stood up. I thought: I’m looking at pure evil here. That was the impression I got. I’ve never forgotten it,” Mrs Lohse said.

Bassam Hamzy in a mugshot from 2011.

The late convicted serial killer Ivan Milat.

Notorious Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who joined terror group ISIS and earned infamy after posting images in 2014 of his seven-year-old son holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier on social media, came under Mrs Lohse’s watch in the mid 2000s.

LISTEN TO EP 1: JANE LOHSE THE CRIMINAL ROLODEX

Sharrouf, who was in custody on terrorism charges after being arrested under Operation Pendennis, did not warm to the petite, no-nonsense blonde who called the shots in his day.

“He used to swear [at me]. He did accuse me of being racist and called me a ‘f***ing cow’ on the odd occasion. But I did have some reasonable interactions with him, but not many. He didn’t like talking to me very much. Number one, I was female. Number two, I was in charge,” she said.

“He was a very imposing creature. Tall, thick set to the point of being sort of fairly overweight. But one thing I do remember about him, he actually had a callus in the middle of his forehead.

Australian fugitive Khaled Sharrouf who fled Australia to fight with Islamic extremist insurgents in Syria seen with the decapitated head of a slain Syrian soldier.

“I said, ‘Do you need to see a doctor about that?’” Mrs Lohse asked.

“It shows my devotion to Allah — when I pray I hit my head on the floor,” Sharrouf replied, explaining bowing during Muslim prayers had resulted in the wound.

Jane Lohse during her time as a NSW correctional officer Picture: Supplied

Jane Lohse during her time as a NSW correctional officer. Picture: Supplied

His strict adherence to the faith permeated his personal life, with Mrs Lohse witnessing his Australian wife, Tara Nettleton, changing into a burqa – the traditional Islamic full-body covering for women — prior to her visits.

“She was a quite nicely spoken lady. I still feel a bit sorry for her because she’d drive into the car park and then have to put the burqa on in the car park because that was required by him.”

Sharrouf may have been overt in his dislike of Mrs Lohse’s authority but serial killers like ‘Granny Killer’ John Wayne Glover preferred a more manipulative game.

“He was a consummate psychopath. He liked to play little mind games,” Mrs Lohse, who managed Glover in the ‘protection wing’ after he was sentenced to life for the murder of six elderly women on Sydney’s North Shore between 1989-1990, said.

“[Prisoners] could buy bottles of sweet chilli sauce on their buy-up from the little grocery shop. One day I went in to do a cell search and he had toilet paper in the toilet and on the bench, covered in this sauce. [I thought]: ‘He’s playing games here! He’s trying to make it look like he’s bleeding from the bowel, perhaps’.

“I said: What’s this in aid of? And he just gave me a very wry look,” said a bemused Mrs Lohse.

The so-called 'Granny Killer', John Wayne Glover. Picture: Supplied

John Wayne Glover (L) enters Little Bay hospital in Sydney, in 2001. Glover was charged with serial killings of six elderly ladies on Sydney's North Shore during the 1990s. Picture: Goff Henderson.

So frequent and bizarre were their encounters, that on the day Glover was found hanging in his cell in 2005, Mrs Lohse collected a tuft of his white hair from the floor. She has kept it, for close to 20 years since, carefully tucked away in an envelope at the back of her cupboard.

“Even I am not sure why,” she said.

Mrs Lohse recalls another incident in which a colleague presented Glover with a biography on his crimes, requesting the serial killer’s signature.

Glover happily obliged and took the pen.

“Who’s the book for?” Glover asked the officer, who told him it was for his mother – an older woman, perfectly aligned with the killer’s preference of victim.

Glover quietly took the book, pressing his pen against the cover, and handed it back.

‘Sorry I missed you,’ it read.

Lady Justice features a line-up of eight inspiring women who protect our streets, our prisons, our borders, and our judicial system. To listen in full to the first episode, go to ladyjusticepodcast.com.au