Jailhouse rules may have prompted Mokbel attack in Barwon Prison
Two Barwon Prison inmates have admitted to ambushing Tony Mokbel and stabbing him with cutlery, with the young thugs likely to be following jailhouse rules.
Police & Courts
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Two young thugs who stabbed and beat drug kingpin Tony Mokbel within an inch of his life were likely following jailhouse “rules” that forced them to assert themselves at the top of the prison hierarchy, a court has heard.
Teira Bennett and Eldea Teuira have admitted to ambushing the underworld figure in a savage attack behind bars in February last year, using cutlery and sharpened wires as makeshift weapons.
The assault, which left Mokbel with bleeding on the brain, came a day after a news report which appeared to “threaten the Islander brotherhood” inside Barwon Prison.
The court previously heard prison sources labelled Mokbel an enforcer in the high-security prison who had disrupted an extortion racket run by Pacific Islander inmates, which was reported in the Herald Sun.
County Court Judge Liz Gaynor said if it were not the young men who attacked Mokbel, it likely would’ve been another member of their cohort.
“(Bennett and Teuira) are brought into that strict culture … (that) involves judgments and behaviours which in the outside world are simply unacceptable but are de rigueur in the jail,” Judge Gaynor said during a plea hearing on Tuesday.
Judge Gaynor said the report was a “complete affront” to the Islander community and retaliation would’ve been considered “the way to go”.
“You have to assert yourself in no uncertain terms. That, in the jail, is not considered a disproportionate response,” her honour said.
Judge Gaynor said it was a tragic situation that the offenders, both aged 22, had been involved in the violent attack.
“They’re young men in a very difficult environment run by all sorts of rules and regulations that are entirely reasonable to inhabitants (of prison) and unreasonable to society at large,” Judge Gaynor said.
Her Honour earlier called into question evidence presented by Teuira’s defence that he was suffering PTSD after his family failed to visit him the day before the attack on Mokbel.
Psychologist Carla Ferrari said she believed Teuira was harbouring an “underlying anger” triggered by feelings of rejection at the missed family visit.
But Judge Gaynor said she had “real problems” with Ms Ferrari’s evidence.
Barrister Simon Moglia, for Teuira, argued his PTSD made his less capable of dealing with the “perceived indignity encapsulated in that article directed at his community”.
“It doesn’t cause it, neither does it make it irrelevant,” Mr Moglia said.
Prosecutor Kristie Churchill said both men had shown “no insight, no remorse and no explanation as to why” they attacked Mokbel in the exercise yard on February 21 last year.
During the attack, Bennett yelled: “You are not an enforcer. This is what you get for talking to the screws, you dog.”
Mokbel was so severely injured he underwent emergency surgery and was placed in a coma. Bennett and Teuira last year pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence.
They have also pleaded guilty to recklessly causing injury to the prisoner who came to Mokbel’s aid and was stabbed once in the ribs.
Judge Gaynor will sentence this pair on May 29.
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