Killer in legal fight over trust money he says Barwon Prison is unlawfully withholding

Mass murderer Paul Steven Haigh, who is serving time for killing seven people, is seeking a Supreme Court hearing in his legal stoush with prison authorities.

Paul Steven Haigh is in a legal fight with the management of Barwon Prison over trust money.

Victoria’s worst serial killer Paul Steven Haigh is in a financial and legal stoush with prison authorities.

Haigh – in jail for the murders of seven people – has taken on the management of Barwon Prison over trust money he says it is unlawfully withholding.

He is seeking a judicial ­review of a decision to disallow him access to the trust cash.

Haigh’s Supreme Court motion, lodged last month, states that twice in July he asked for money being held by Barwon Prison’s governor, Colin Thompson, in his prisoner trust account.

Haigh is seeking a judicial ­review of a decision to disallow him access to the trust cash. Picture: Jon Hargest

The legal paperwork says the prison and Mr Thompson four times rejected the request in writing, with the convicted killer claiming it was “so unreasonable that no decision-maker acting reasonably could have possibly come to the decision, and therefor (sic) the decision is without jurisdiction and unlawful”.

Haigh said Barwon was “unable to advise want (sic) I consider to be reasonable” while rejecting his request for access to his cash.

In papers, he suggested Barwon had claimed the murderer had no release date, he would need the cash to “sustain you for the duration of your term … to purchase personal items, such as runners, CDs, books, and religious items, during your term of imprisonment”.

But Haigh argued that Barwon owed him a “duty of care” and “did not identify or properly consider the relevant human right” in the Corrections Act, in that it shouldn’t “unlawfully” deprive a prisoner of their property.

Haigh claims he has been ‘unlawfully’ deprived of his property. Picture: Photo File

It argues that ­irrelevant and unlawful considerations were the basis for the decisions and the reasoning for them “could not be ­articulated”.

He questioned whether Barwon owed him a “fiduciary duty at law … for the management of funds in (his) prisoner trust account”.

The killer is seeking a ­Supreme Court hearing before a judge alone.

Haigh will spend the rest of his life in prison for seven murders between 1978 and 1991.

In 1978, he fatally shot lotto agency worker Evelyn Adams and pizza shop owner Bruno Cingolani in separate armed robberies.

The next year, he murdered three people who he thought knew too much about his crimes, among them an associate, Wayne Keith Smith.

Sheryle Gardner was shot dead as she sat beside her 10-year-old son Danny Mitchell in a car, before Haigh turned the gun on the boy.

Haigh later stabbed his 19-year-old girlfriend 157 times after allowing another man to rape her at knifepoint.

In 1991, he murdered fellow inmate Douglas George Hatherley in a cell at the old Pentridge Prison.