Extract from ‘Innocence Lost: The Last man hanged in Queensland’

BOOK EXTRACT: READ the tale of the man who still haunts the notorious Boggo Rd Gaol more than a century ago as the last of 42 to be hanged.

MORE than one hundred years after his death at the gallows, Victorian-born Ernest Austin’s ghost is said to still haunt the empty corridors of the once-notorious Boggo Rd jail in Brisbane.

Before he swung on the noose for raping and murdering young Ivy Mitchell, he had already been jailed for a frightening similar act.

In Chapter 5 of the Jack Sims book Innocence Lost: The Last man hanged in Queensland, written by Jaqueline Craigie, we pick up the tale as Austin gets into trouble in 1900s Melbourne.

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Chapter 5:

A DARK PAST

In September of 1909, a now 19 year old Ernest was eking out a living as a labourer in the bustle of a recently electricity-powered Melbourne. His hulking and stout figure was an imposing one. He had a thick forehead and dark closely furrowed brows. He possessed a weak chin that was not at all distinguished and blended into the line of his neck, giving him the impression of a ‘common and feeble-minded simpleton’. His eyes were a hazel colour, often described as ‘grey’. He had truly become a product of his environment. As a reporter from The Truth would later say of Ernest that:

“…he had been brutalised and dehumanised from the environments with which he had been surrounded from his youth by the wisdom of State Governments, which believe in gaoling young lads, until he became the creature he was, a man with low mentality, with strong, overpowering passions, and absolutely no power of controlling them. Austin (Johnston) was the product of the system of State education in those colleges of crime which are euphemistically called prisons. Schuster, in his book on eugenics, says: - “From the feeble- minded, the majority of inebriate reformatories and a large proportion of the migrating population of prisons and “rescue home” are drawn. Educated at great expense to the community, while still young, they are cast adrift into the world, and their instincts and appetites, which are often perverted, and never less strong than those of normal people, lead them into temptation, against which their mental equipment of judgement or self-control is wholly inadequate to guard them.”

It is no surprise in retrospect that the young-adult Ernest, full of hormonal desires and instincts, sought out a female to express and share his feelings with. Evidently he was unable to find a willing partner.

While only at a height of 5 feet ¾ inches (1.54 metres), he would have been an imposing figure to any young lady of the time. It would be fair to assume that Ernest’s lack of appealing looks and rough ways would have afforded him hardly any female interests. He was not considered good ‘marriageable’ material as he had little prospects and no assets. A state- enforced orphan, he had little to call his own, other than the name he was born with. Even that he did not manage to keep as his own. There is some indication that during this time he had sporadic contact with his biological family. His mother had remarried in the time that Ernest had been in the care of the state and the family was now doing much better under that guidance, and with the protection of a male head of the family, Mr Austin. His sister and her husband were now living at home, and Austin had repaired the relationship enough to move back in.

In the 18 months since his last crime, Ernest’s character had taken a deviant turn for the worse. On Saturday 4th September 1909 he assaulted a 12 year old girl with the intention to rape her. At this time in Australia, the ratio of men to women was 111 men to every 100 available women. While it was vastly improved on the previous years in which Australia was colonised, it still meant that in general, there were more men than available woman. Finding suitable partners, let alone willing ones was a difficult task for any young man, let alone a man with a criminal history, little education and few skills other than those that his brute strength and physical ability afforded him.

It may have been out of a fantasy to finally experience the gentleness of a woman, or the excitement of consummating his adulthood that lead him to assault and attempt to rape someone. Most certainly it was a crime of opportunity. He was not, however, successful.

Ernest was living back at home with his mother, her husband, his mother’s brother William Jones, and his sister. He set off for work on Saturday before 7am in order to do a hard days labouring. When he saw the opportunity to take what he wanted from a young girl, he jumped at the serendipitous meeting. The young victim, Louisa Adelaide Champion, described the ordeal thus:

“I remember last Saturday …I left home about 10 to 10 that morning. I was sent by my mother with a message and two bunches of watercress to someone living at 2 Alfred Street – the lady’s name is Mrs Moss. When I got to the house I saw a deaf and dumb lady, I wrote on a slate what I wanted to tell her. While I was doing this, the accused came up and he said to the lady “Do you want any grass cut?” and she shook her head. I wrote the question on the slate, I showed it to the lady and she shook her head. Accused went away. He had an axe in his hand and he took it away on his shoulder. After he left I spent 4 or 5 minutes writing questions on the slate to her. I came out a side gate into Alfred Street and went towards high street. I saw … him on the corner of High and Alfred Streets alongside an empty house. He spoke to me when I got near, he said, “Cis, would you take some rags for me?” I first said No. He said, “It won’t take ten minutes”. I was standing near the side gate of the empty house. He said “Come in, don’t be frightened.” He then told me to tie up all the rags that were in the washhouse. He then caught me by the throat and put a hand over my face and told me not to scream. I screamed out. He put the hat which I produced (which I was wearing) into my mouth. He then made me undo my drawers and put one hand on my breast and one hand on my back and laid me down. He undone the front part of his trousers. He had me on the floor. He put something near me and hurt me. He took it out of the front part of his trousers and put it between my legs. He was lying on top of me. I said to him I want to go down the back yard. He said, “I don’t care if you pissed all over me”. I felt alongside my flesh and it hurt a bit. He let me get up and had hold of me and I waved my hand to Mr Brennan. The accused let me go and I ran into the deaf and dumb ladies place. My mouth was bleeding and my neck was sore. He had hold of my throat when I was screaming, and he said he was going to kill me….He showed me two threepence and a sixpence, and gave them to me and I placed them on the copper until I rolled up the rags.”

Thankfully the deaf and mute lady Mrs Coughy’s instincts kicked in and she watched through the fence as Louisa was led into the laundry in the unoccupied home of the neighbour. She went and signalled to the grocer at the back of the house, to come and assist her. Together they went through the fence and into the abandoned property and could see Louisa on the floor, Ernest on top of her with his axe to her throat. They made to interrupt him when he jumped up and fled. They then led Louisa back to Mrs Coughy’s house.

Once in Mrs Coughy residence, the greengrocer Mr Brennan went to confront Ernest, but he jumped the back fence and ran off, leaving the axe that he held to Louisa’s throat, the money had offered her, and the rags he lured her there with. Mrs Coughy rinsed the blood out of Louisa’s injured mouth and they then sent her immediately home to her mother. The police were called and then Detective Croft took a statement from her, and then took her to the Alfred Hospital where she was examined. It was found that her hymen was intact and her body and clothing were free from spermoza. She had bruising and marks around her mouth, an inflamed and bleeding cold sore, bruised neck and black dirt smeared near her thigh, but was otherwise physically unhurt.

In the busy streets of a newly lit Melbourne, his crime did not go unnoticed. It did not take long for the police to identify Ernest Johnson as the man responsible for the crime. Once the girl had given a description, and only two evenings later, a plain-clothes police constable, Thomas Kinleyside, was walking with Constable White along Union Street in Windsor. He saw Johnson and approached him and asked if he was Ernest Johnson. He replied that he was. He then said “You know us” and Ernest replied “Yes”. When they explained that he fitted the description of the man wanted in relation to attempting to criminally assault on a girl Johnson denied it, saying he was at home at the time and had not left his house.

They then asked if he owned an axe and he said only one, which had two tacks in its broken handle. They then took him to Mr Brennan’s shop and he positively identified him. They told him then that he had been positively identified and his chilling response was “You will have to prove it.” He was then taken to Mrs Coughey’s place and she was in no doubt it was him. The last place they took him was to Louisa’s place, and bravely, out the front of her home, the young Louisa Champion identified him as her attacker. He was then taken to the police station and shown the axe, which he again denied owning.

It was then they delivered their damning evidence, that they had already been to his mother’s home, and both his mother Emily and his Uncle William, had positively identified the axe as his. His mother also produced a letter from an employer, Mr Maytr, requesting Ernest to go the area and cut some wood for him, placing him at the scene of the crime and at the time of the crime, despite his denials. Not only that, they both gave depositions stating that Ernest had left home that morning carrying an axe but came home without it, and that there was an axe missing from their place of residence at 17 Thomas Street in Windsor.

On 13th September, at the Prahran courthouse, before Justice of the Peace James Hipps, depositions of all the witnesses were taken and sworn on oath. Interestingly, and despite the fact that he was considered neglected as a child, some part of her mothering instinct must have kicked in as Emily Austin recanted her statement to some degree. Police notes record that Mrs Austin identified the axe on the 6th September 1909, prior to the accused arrest and that Mrs Austin said “to the best of her belief” that she knew the axe (that the police produced to her that evening). However, when before the Prahran court on 13th September, Emily Austin said she “could not know for certain”, admitting only that the accused used an axe similar to the one produced.

All the witnesses to the crime appeared in court that day, including Louisa Champion. Her words were recorded in the depositions, as she bravely identified her attacker, saying to his face, “I can tell you are the man by your face, and by the hat turned down, and by your clothes”. Louisa then confirmed this to the justice saying, “I am sure the accused is the man who assaulted me, he is the man”.

The accused statement to the court was simply, ‘I am not guilty.’

The initial Supreme Court hearing was set for two days later however the case was adjourned to the following month so Ernest could be mentally assessed. The Government Medical Officer wrote to the Crown Solicitor on 11th October with his findings:

Ernest Johnston, a prisoner on remand at the Melbourne Gaol has been under observation since the receipt of your letter. I am of the opinion there is no evidence of mental disturbance; he has shown no symptoms of Epilepsy, and I regard him as perfectly fit to plead.

On Friday, 15th October, 1909, on a beautiful spring morning in Melbourne, with the cherry blossoms in full bloom, Ernest Johnson appeared in the Melbourne Supreme Court before His Honour Justice Hood. He pleaded guilty to the charge of Assault with the Intent to Rape and was sentenced to four years imprisonment.

Recidivism ensured that Ernest was this time sent to a prison rather than a reform school. There was little faith he would not try to find a way out of gaol and he was put into a holding pen with other hardened criminals.

From when Johnson was picked up by police he had been remanded in custody; from 7th September 1909 until after he was sentenced Ernest was held at the Melbourne Gaol (now known as the Old Melbourne Gaol) where the notorious bushranger Ned Kelly was hanged nearly three decades earlier.

Then, on 28th October 1909, Johnson was transferred to Pentridge Prison at Coburg, north of the city, to serve the majority of his sentence. On the same day he was fingerprinted and photographed in his civilian clothes. Built of bluestone to resemble some English castle, Pentridge would be the scene of Australia’s last execution, of Ronald Ryan, on 3rd February 1967.

By the time he left prison, he was a hardened man, being churned out of the state cycle of crime and punishment, passing the age of adulthood, 21, behind bars.

It may have been hoped that his imprisonment would “eliminate, instead of exaggerating and developing, the lower, brutal side of [his] nature.” This however did not occur. Prison life heightened his already animalistic nature as he roughed it out amongst rapists and murderers, his below- average intelligence making him a source of ridicule and attack in the pecking order of adult gaols.

He would serve only three full years of his four year sentence before being allowed to walk outside the prison gates. On 29th December 1911 he was moved from Pentridge to the reform school at Castlemaine (the one he had previously absconded from so many times). This time however he knew he must stay or risk being sent back to gaol. Less than a year later, on 8th November 1912 Ernest was paroled, despite the board noting that “his conduct has not been uniformly good throughout his detention, however, a marked improvement has taken place.” They noted that when he was discharged, he had 14 days worth of money and that despite his education being much neglected, he was now able to read and write. He was supposed to meet monthly with his paroling police officer at the local police station, however Mr Brebner had taken a special interest in Ernest, and agreed to take responsibility for him for the two years he was on probation by writing directly to the parole board. On the day he was realised, Johnson caught the midday train to work awaiting him with Mr Brebner.

Ernest had toughened up under the harsh conditions and it would not be long before he broke his parole conditions and would stalk his way to Queensland to commit a worse crime, less than one short year later. When he absconded this time, he began using his mother’s new married name, buying him some time before the police came after him, and became the man we have come to know as Ernest Austin.

Austin must have felt a strong and lingering sense of rage at a little child clinching his fate with such strong and confident words when she identified him in court. No doubt, it was her testimony that also sealed the fate of Ivy Mitchell, ensuring he would never leave anyone to testify against him again.

Extract from Innocence Lost: The last man hanged in Queensland

RRP $25.00 through Dymocks or online at www.jacksim.com.au

The book will be officially launched in Victoria at the Old Melbourne Gaol in September this year.

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