MRC Ravenhall: Violence, jailbreaks and love triangles

From violence and drug debts to jail breaks and love triangles, these are the controversies that rocked Melbourne’s Metropolitan Remand Centre.

Heavily armed police stormed Melbourne’s Metropolitan Remand Centre in June 2015 to bring rioting prisoners under control. Picture: Jay Town

Melbourne’s maximum security Metropolitan Remand Centre houses some tough crooks and hardened criminals.

If walls could talk, the MRC’s would tell bone chilling tales of killers, rapists, fraudsters and murder — and perhaps even of a few quiet confessions whispered between inmates.

But few would expect love to blossom within its cold, high walls.

Or that a devoted mother, a prison employee, would risk her career to allegedly pay off inmates to square drug debts for her son, who was imprisoned next-door at a separate jail.

These and other controversies have rocked the MRC since it opened first in West Meadows in 1989, (a correctional facility that has since been renamed the Melbourne Assessment Prison), and later at its current location in Ravenhall.

For violence and intrigue, love and prison breaks, read on.

LOVERS’ TRYST

Inmate Peter Gibb charmed a female MRC prison guard and convinced her to help him break out of jail.

Inmate Peter Gibb was a bad guy, and as many a doomed love story goes, he had that bad boy intrigue that proves irresistible to some women.

Heather Parker, a prison guard at MRC, was just such a woman to fall for his charms.

She also happened to be married with two sons to a fellow prison guard, but that didn’t stop her from wanting a little action on the side.

Rumours spread the pair were an item and she was quickly shuffled into another role away from Gibb, a dangerous armed robber and convicted killer.

But during a visit to the prison she managed to smuggle in a small amount of explosive and hand it to him.

Gibb used it to blast his way out of the jail on March 7, 1993.

He then climbed down to LaTrobe St using a rope of knotted bedsheets with another inmate.

They fled in a Ford Falcon, which they soon crashed, and got into a shootout with police in South Melbourne before fleeing in the cops’ divvy van.

The men then met up with Parker and headed to regional Victoria, but their freedom was short-lived.

Butterly was found dead by police with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and Gibb and Parker were arrested while attempting to wade across the Goulburn River.

The loved up couple chatted and held hands in the dock during their court hearing and each received matching jail sentences of at least 10 years’ behind bars.

JEALOUS STREAK

A jailhouse love triangle ended in bloodshed when a prisoner at MRC bit off another inmate’s ear.

The violent spat erupted in July last year after the man discovered his partner was two-timing him with a rival inmate.

A prison source said the violent inmate clue

d into the illicit love affair after he discovered the other man had his partner on his phone list.

He saw red and attacked his love-rival and bit his ear clean off.

“Staff located the ear and kept it on ice. The prison was sent to hospital to have the ear reattached,” the jail source said.

“Must be a nice girl.”

The severed ear was put on ice and prison staff rushed the injured man to hospital where his ear was sewn back on.

A Corrections Victoria spokesperson later confirmed the incident had taken place and was being investigated by police.

A shot of the inside of a prison cell at MRC in Ravenhall. Picture: Tony Gough

BOYS’ CLUB

MRC’s “toxic” workplace culture was exposed in June last year when a leaked memo revealed a new prison officer was subjected to a disturbing hazing ritual by his colleagues.

The incident — which was caught on camera — saw the man handcuffed to a chair and wrapped in Chux cloths.

A whistleblower reported the matter to WorkSafe Victoria, which compiled a report that alleged hazing was common for new recruits.

“WorkSafe received an anonymous service request that included a photo depicting an officer wrapped in Chux wipes from head to torso and potentially with their hands cuffed (out of the photo lens) on a chair, and another officer with their epaulet showing kneeling beside them,” the report said.

“WorkSafe has issued an Improvement Notice for failing to provide and maintain for employees a working environment that is safe and without risks to health through inadequate training on workplace bullying and appropriate behaviours.”

A prison source said the prison had a toxic workplace culture and was “a bit of a boys’ club”.

Prison management and the Community and Public Sector Union were alerted to the incident and conducted investigations into the matter.

On Guard – an eight-part podcast – uncovers what really goes on behind bars as former correctional officers share shocking secrets from the frontline of working with some of Australia’s most infamous criminals. Listen to episode 1 below

BAD TEACHER

A Wyndham Vale primary school teacher landed herself behind bars when she was busted with the drug ice and a set of scales while visiting an inmate at MRC.

Rebecca Lee Attard, who had worked at Manor Lakes P-12 but had not attended the school for most of last year due to a mysterious unpaid leave of absence, was arrested while visiting the jail and subjected to a search by prison officers.

It was alleged she was found in possession of more than three grams of methamphetamine, scales and a pipe.

Attard told authorities she’d used the drug the night before her visit and forgot she had it on her.

It’s believed she told police the scales were not related to drug dealing, but for personal use so she wouldn’t be ripped off during a purchase.

Police charged her with possessing a drug of dependence and introducing contraband into a prison.

PRISON RIOT

Rioting prisoners gather in the yard at MRC in Ravenhall. Picture: Mark Stewart

A smoking ban prompted a violent riot at MRC on June 30, 2015, in which 11 officers were hurt.

The violent protest, which later became known as the biggest prison riot in the state’s history, came a day before the ban was due to come into effect.

About 400 inmates went on the rampage and trashed the prison by lighting fires, smashing windows, damaging security doors and tearing down internal fences.

Some inmates hijacked a tractor, while others threw a golf-buggy onto a bonfire.

Prisoners armed themselves with makeshift weapons and threw rocks at staff.

Heavily armed police were called in to quell the riot, which took 15 hours to bring under control.

A report later prepared by former Deputy Commissioner Kieren Walshe was critical of prison staff.

It slammed them for being slow to activate a riot code and noted they failed to recognise warning signs leading up to the incident.

The incident cost taxpayers more than $100 million and prompted at least one prison guard to sue the State Government for trauma she said she suffered during the riot.

A MOTHER’S LOVE

MRC employee Kelly Bodsworth was accused of making payments into the accounts of prisoners at Ravenhall Correctional Centre.

Allegations surfaced last year that MRC employee Kelly Bodsworth was paying off her jailed son’s drug debts.

Ms Bodsworth, the prison’s workforce development manager, was being investigated last December by the state’s justice department over claims she was paying inmates at Ravenhall Correctional Centre, which is next door to MRC, to square her son’s alleged debts.

Her son was imprisoned at Ravenhall Correctional Centre at the time of the alleged payments.

Information in an intelligence report noted the payments were significant.

A prison source said Ms Bodsworth feared for her son’s safety, and a senior boss at Ravenhall was allegedly asked to help facilitate the payments.

“They threatened if he didn’t pay he was in trouble,” the source said.

The Leader is not suggesting the allegations are true, only that they are being investigated.

The claims, if substantiated, put her in breach of the Commissioner’s Requirements for Conduct and Ethics, which require all staff to report “conduct which indicates a blurring of professional boundaries”.

CORONAVIRUS

Prison authorities came under fire after an inmate was transferred from the Melbourne Assessment Prison (MAP) to MRC before receiving his coronavirus test result.

The man later tested positive, exposing staff and prisoners at both jails to the risk of contracting the deadly virus.

The man was tested at MAP on Monday, July 13, before being transferred to the MRC two days later.

In March it was announced prisons would quarantine new inmates in near-lockdown conditions for 14 days to prevent a spread of COVID-19 throughout the state’s jails.

Authorities feared transmission of the virus between prisoners would be difficult to control if it entered the system.

Corrections Minister Natalie Hutchins said at the time the case was handled “in full compliance” with COVID-19 prison procedures.

“The prisoner who has returned a positive result was identified and managed in full compliance with the rules and procedures put in place,” she said.

“Corrections Victoria’s processes for preventing and managing coronavirus worked. Because of the mandatory 14-day quarantine period for new receptions, that prisoner was never a part of the general prison population.”

Contraband seizures of drugs and booze also surged across the prison system during the state’s lockdown.