Mackay’s Robert John Thompson in court for Rockhampton prison riot

A convicted drug trafficker who worked as a stonemason and in the mines has fronted court for his role in a huge Queensland prison riot which lasted 18 hours and saw cells completely destroyed.

Extensive damage as a result of the 16-hour riots at Capricornia Correctional Centre.

A convicted drug trafficker who worked as a stonemason and in the mines has fronted court for his role in the infamous 2021 Capricornia Correctional Centre prison riot.

Mackay’s Robert John Thompson, 34, was one of 64 prisoners charged over the 18-hour riot at the Etna Creek jail, north of Rockhampton, on October 21, 2021.

Judge Jeff Clarke said Thompson was locked down in his residential unit when the riot broke out about 9am, and he covered a CCTV camera, obscuring the view of prisoners escaping about two hours later.

He said Thompson remained in his unit, watching what was happening before leaving an hour later and supplying a fellow inmate with a jumper “as if to disguise themselves”.

Judge Clarke said Thompson then roamed about the jail “while all this uproar was going on” before he joined the demonstrators on the roof of the activity centre until fires were lit about 8.30pm.

This was when Thompson surrendered.

Damage caused to the Capricornia Correctional Centre during the October 2021 riots.

During Tyson Lee Trathen’s sentence in April 2024, it was revealed that the other prisoners on the roof, many who had been sniffing substances, surrendered because they were hungry.

One cocky prisoner rode around Capricornia Correctional Centre on a lawnmower wearing a guard’s hat while sniffing petrol and flipping the bird when a photograph was taken of him.

The riot started at 9am after Graham James Tilberoo and Roy Maxwell Major were told of an unscheduled lockdown, meaning visits by Tilberoo’s mother and elders from Woorabinda would not take place.

Tilberoo pleaded guilty to one count of riot and was sentenced to 15 months prison, wholly suspended and operational for two years.

Major pleaded guilty to one count of riot and was sentenced to four years prison, with parole eligibility on April 12, 2025 and declared three days of pre-sentence custody as time already served.

Judge Clarke, during Tilberoo’s sentence, said the $1.2m damage bill seemed “a fairly conservative estimate given that many prisoners had to be rehoused in other correctional centres throughout the state because the parts of the unit became so uninhabitable… cells were completely destroyed”.

The court heard this week that Thompson was not suitable for any more community-based orders after failing to report four times while on probation and testing positive for methamphetamine or amphetamines three times.

Judge Clarke said Thompson was serving a three-year prison term for property crime at the time of the riot, which he committed while on parole for drug trafficking.

The court heard his nine-page criminal record included convictions for drugs and property offences.

“(Thompson’s) criminal history is otherwise quite deplorable and has been consistent, although, I accept it’s slowing up now,” he said.

Defence barrister Maree Willey said her client, who obtained his year 10 equivalency while in prison after dropping out of school in grade 8, had worked at Tint Master, Whitsundays Security Screens and Blinds, and in stonemasonry.

She said he had also worked at the mines in draglines initially and later in industrial cleaning.

Ms Willey said Thompson started offending when he was 18 or 19 years old while hanging “with the wrong crowd at the time”.

She said he was consuming marijuana at this time and spent 43 days in custody in those early days.

Ms Willey said it was when a long-term relationship ended poorly while working at the mines in the dragline sector that he started consuming methamphetamines, leading to trafficking for which he was sentenced in 2019 and released from custody.

She said he returned to the mining world but reoffended and returned to custody and was released in June 2022.

Ms Willey said he had reoffended since, but the offence was minor, and now lives with his sister in Mackay.

She said Thompson was in an e-scooter accident on April 2024 for which he is pursuing a personal injury claim.

Thompson pleaded guilty to one count of riot, aggravated, and was sentenced to a nine-month prison term, wholly suspended with a 12-month operational period.

Originally published as Mackay’s Robert John Thompson in court for Rockhampton prison riot