‘Just lost it’: Launceston prison guard who mopped urine with inmate’s clothes says he snapped

Launceston Reception Prison has been blocked from sacking a guard who mopped up an inmate’s urine with his own clothing – then gave the soiled clothes back to the detainee to wear home.

The Launceston Reception Prison on Cimitiere Street. Picture: Tim Martain

Launceston Reception Prison has been blocked from sacking a prison guard who mopped up an inmate’s urine with his own clothing when it seeped out underneath a cell door.

The inmate, a watch house detainee, wore the urine-stained clothes home the following day.

Correctional officer Michael Eade was sacked in 2022 – nearly two years after the August 2020 incident – but he fought back on the basis his dismissal was “unfair and disproportionate”.

The stoush between the state government and Mr Eade has now been running for years, but the Tasmanian Industrial Commission (TIC) has as of Friday made its final call – that Mr Eade must retain his employment.

The TIC first ordered Mr Eade be re-employed by March 13 last year.

It noted he had been continuously employed since 2005 until he was found to have breached the State Service Code of Conduct with the urine incident – conduct that he admitted to and that was captured on CCTV.

The TIC found that on August 29, 2020, Mr Eade said words to the effect of “f … that” in the presence of his colleagues when asked to grab a towel to clean up a prisoner’s urine that was seeping out into the hallway.

Mr Eade used the prisoner’s jumper and shirt to wipe up the urine with his foot, leaving the clothes against the door until the following morning – when he gave the man his clothes back in a clothing bag.

After he was fired, Mr Eade successfully argued the working environment at the remand centre was violent, with workers subjected to abuse and threats from detainees.

He said staff was also overworked and given little support from management.

Mr Eade said the detainee in question had been making explicit comments about Mr Eade’s mother, with words like “I’m gonna f … your mother”, which had come just after the death of Mr Eade’s mother-in-law.

He said the urine incident was a “one-off” in which he “just lost it”, and that it was the first time a detainee had “ever got to me”.

“I appreciate that I behaved poorly. I accept that I made a significant error of judgement. With hindsight, I believe I acted out of frustration,” Mr Eade said in a statement.

“I accept that there should be some adverse consequences for me, as a result of what I did. I do not believe that termination is fair in the circumstances.”

The TIC agreed that while the conduct was “completely unacceptable” and his employer had a valid reason for terminating him, ultimately doing so was unfair.

In its newly-published appeal decision, a three-member panel of the TIC upheld its deputy president’s previous decision.

It found the state did not make out any of its five grounds of appeal, including that Mr Eade was not remorseful, and that the decision to re-employ him was “plainly unreasonable”.

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