EXCLUSIVE: Backpacker killer Bradley Murdoch treated ‘more like a prison guard’ in Darwin jail and ‘wields significant influence’

EXCLUSIVE: Backpacker killer Bradley Murdoch treated ‘more like a prison guard’ in jail and ‘wields significant influence’

LIBRARY: **PHOTO MUST NOT BE USED ON ANY WEB SITE - MESSAGE TO LIBRARY FROM LINDSAY FOYLE x1631 VIA EMAIL LATE 29/11/05** NO...

PETER Falconio’s killer Bradley Murdoch is treated “more like a prison guard” inside the Darwin Correctional Centre, regularly throws tantrums and wields significant influence over the kitchen work gang, leaked documents reveal.

According to a complaint made by a prison officer working in the kitchen alongside Murdoch to the Professional Standards and Intelligence Unit, he harassed her and others by spreading malicious rumours, playing officers against each other and standing over prisoners.

“…I started to notice that Prisoner Murdoch had a fair bit of power and when things did not go his way he would throw a tantrum so to speak,” the complaint stated.

“He would huff and puff around the kitchen and threaten to quit his job.”

The complaint also alleged Murdoch was allowed to sign for deliveries and put combination locks on things in the kitchen that not even the officers had the codes for.

Murdoch, 57, was convicted in 2005 for the 2001 roadside execution-style murder of British traveller Peter Falconio and assaulting his girlfriend, Joanne Lees.

British tourist Peter Falconio, who was killed by Bradley Murdoch near Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory in 2001, pictured with girlfriend Joanne Lees, who escaped Murdoch’s abduction attempt. Picture: Supplied

He is serving a 28-year non-parole period in the Territory at the new jail in Holtze.

The documents revealed the officer first raised concerns about Murdoch’s behaviour with her superiors in June last year but was never provided a response to her complaint.

The Professional Standards and Intelligence Unit found that because the officer’s complaint was about a prisoner – and not a fellow colleague – a response was not mandatory.

However, it did find that the matter should have been escalated by managers because the officer “had concerns for her own safety”.

The investigation into the complaint found that there was no rule against Murdoch being allowed to sign for deliveries but that it was not a “common practice”.

It also found there were locks placed on prisoners’ fridges and a storage cage but, according to prison management, Murdoch was not the only one with the combination to open them – officers were also privy to the code.

NT Department of Corrections spokesman David Harris said Commissioner Ken Middlebrook was satisfied the matter was properly investigated.

“As a result the prisoner is no longer employed in the prison kitchen,” Mr Harris said.

Murdoch has never admitted to murdering Falconio and rejected inducements that would have allowed him to shift to a WA prison to be closer to his family in return for revealing the location of Falconio’s body.

In 2012, Murdoch was transferred back to Darwin’s Berrimah Prison, in order to “destabilise him” – prison-speak for preventing him from becoming too settled, and too powerful, in his environment.

Murdoch had been earlier shifted from Berrimah to Alice Springs because he was becoming too familiar with guards and certain prisoners.