Victoria’s worst serial killer wants tarot cards in jail to read future
EXCLUSIVE: THE state’s worst serial killer, Paul Steven Haigh — who will never be released from jail — is wasting taxpayer dollars fighting for a pack of tarot cards so he can read his future.
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THE state’s worst serial killer, Paul Steven Haigh — who will never be released from jail — wants a pack of tarot cards so he can read his future.
Haigh is serving six life sentences without parole at Barwon Prison for seven murders.
But in an appeal to the Supreme Court, which taxpayers will have to pay for, Haigh claims his religious rights as a Pagan have been abused because Barwon Prison governor Brett Ryan has refused his request for a pack of tarot cards.
In an accompanying affidavit Haigh, who is self-represented, claims to be a labourer by occupation, “but a prisoner for the time being”.
In 2012 Haigh failed in a bid to have a minimum term set for his crimes, which are possibly the most vile series of murders ever committed in this state.
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Haigh’s victims during a two-year killing spree included his girlfriend of three weeks, Lisa Brearley, 19, who he murdered in 1979 after first letting another man rape her so his DNA would be connected to the crime and ensure his silence.
Haigh confessed he had feared Ms Brearley would talk to police about his guns and stabbed her 157 times.
He later wrote, “I only intended to do twenty but I lost count”.
He also killed Sheryle Gardner and her 10-year-old son, Danny Mitchell, saying he “consoled” the sobbing youngster before shooting him three times in the back of the head.
He later claimed Ms Gardner was a bad mother for putting the boy in the “terrible situation” of being a witness.
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Haigh claims the refusal to give him tarot cards has restrained his religious practice in breach of his right under the Corrections Act to practise a religion of his choice and possess articles necessary for the practising of that religion.
He further claims it is a breach of his human rights to both a religion or belief and practice of his choosing and to hold an opinion without interference.
“I was verbally advised on May 30 that the (governor) had made a decision to not allow me access to a set of tarot cards which are a necessary part of my Pagan religious practice,” he says.
Haigh said the reasons given were vague and caused “uncertainty in my mind” so he asked for written reasons, which the governor provided on June 22. The next day Haigh filed his legal challenge.
The killer’s affidavit claims Paganism is a religion and the use of tarot cards a recognised and well-established practice of that religion.
He goes on at some length to explain the basis of his religious views and belief in supernatural beings.
“For me, the Pagan religious practice and use of tarot relates to matters that are more than merely trivial, and it possess a high degree of seriousness and importance to me,” he writes.
Haigh argues a deck of 78 tarot cards is little different to a paperback book, which inmates are able to keep as many of in their cell as allowed under a points system used to control the amount of property individual inmates can keep.
The serial killer claims Mr Ryan has applied policy from a document titled “Deputy Commissioner’s Instruction — Contraband and Controlled Items” in breach of the law and says a “consider yourself lucky” comment in the last paragraph of the governor’s June 22 letter is evidence of a “meanness of spirit and a prejudice against Paganism”. Haigh has asked the court to overturn the ban and for a declaration of his right to practise a religion of his choice; that Paganism and using tarot cards meets the test of a religious activity; and that the decision to bar him from possessing tarot cards was therefore unreasonable, unjustified and unlawful.
Haig’s killing spree began in 1978 when he shot dead Windsor Tattslotto agency worker Evelyn Abrahams, 58, and Caulfield pizza shop owner and family man Bruno Cingolani, 45, in separate holdups.
In June 1979, he shot dead associate Wayne Smith, 27, in his St Kilda Rd flat so he “wouldn’t look weak” in front of accomplices.|
The next month in Ripponlea he shot Ms Gardner, 31, in a car to “shut her loosened, troublemaking mouth” and her son.
In August 1979, Haigh killed Ms Brearley and in November 1991, while in prison, he killed fellow inmate Donald Hatherley. A court heard that, before hanging Hatherley in his cell, Haigh was upset that Julian Knight had slain one more person than he had.