Prison bosses chided as Carl Williams's killer Matthew Charles Johnson gets life

AS the judge recounted the brutal details of Carl Williams's death, his killer looked at the court ceiling, scratching his jaw.

Matthew Charles Johnson

AS the judge recounted the brutal details of Carl Williams's death, his killer looked at the court ceiling, scratching his jaw. Eight times did he bludgeon Williams in their shared high-security jail facility. Not once did his expression change as his life sentence was delivered.

At 38, Matthew Charles Johnson has been in and out of jail for 20 years. He won't see the other side of razor wire until he is at least 70, and probably not then. He was described as a career criminal, a menace to society and beyond rehabilitation.

And that was all before he was found guilty of murdering Williams.

This was a brief sentencing hearing by Supreme Court of Victoria standards. Compared with the usually complex task of balancing the need to protect the community, deter other offenders and allow rehabilitation, judge Lex Lasry's task was a doddle: Johnson was never going to get less than life.

As Johnson sat in the dock, his head freshly shaved and his suit a dull grey pinstripe, Williams's former wife Roberta wept in the public gallery. George Williams, who served time alongside his son Carl and Johnson, was also there. Neither offered a comment as they left the court.

Johnson argued he had killed Williams only because he learnt Williams was planning to kill him. The judge dismissed his claim of self-defence as "fanciful". Instead, he found that Johnson killed Williams for one reason -- because Williams was helping police.

"It was a killing which appears to demonstrate your belief that you have some special entitlement to kill when you think it appropriate or your ego demands it according to some meaningless underworld prison code," Justice Lasry said.

At trial, the jury was told that Johnson knew Williams was co-operating with police trying to solve one of Victoria's most notorious gangland killings: the 2004 double murder of police informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine.

Johnson said he wasn't fazed by this, that he thought Williams was simply milking the system for preferential treatment.

Neither the jury nor Justice Lasry was convinced. The judge noted Johnson's role as the leader of a jailhouse clique who called themselves "Prisoners of War" and despised prisoners who co-operated with police or turned informer.

Two days before he snuck up behind Williams in April last year, brandishing a metal bar unscrewed from an exercise bike, Johnson had downloaded files containing Williams's statements to police.

Those statements incriminated former Victoria Police detective Paul Dale and an underworld assassin now serving time for other murders. Dale was charged, but those charges were dropped after Williams was killed.

The statements were "pivotal" to the case police had built, Justice Lasry said.

While most of Justice Lasry's comments were directed towards Johnson, he reserved one pointed remark for the prison authorities who thought it a good idea to house Johnson and Williams together. "How the prison authorities permitted that to happen is beyond me," he said.

Johnson's father died when he was young and he quit school at year 10. He was first sent to jail at 19 and with frequency thereafter. Before this trial, he was sentenced for 16 years for various offences including armed robbery, aggravated burglary, theft and firearm offences.

In handing down that sentence last month, Victorian County Court judge Geoffrey Chettle described Johnson as "a career criminal who is a real menace to society" and whose "prospects for rehabilitation must be seen as effectively nil".

"I respectfully agree with him," Justice Lasry said yesterday. He set a minimum term of 32 years.