Mulawa Jail
Heike Fallago
The Silverwater Correctional Complex, an Australian maximum and minimum security prison complex for males and females, is located in Silverwater, 21 km (13 mi) west of the Sydney central business district in New South Wales, Australia. The complex is operated by Corrective Services NSW, an agency of the New South Wales Government Department of Communities and Justice.
The complex comprises four separate facilities including Silverwater Correctional Centre (a minimum security prison for males); Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre (a maximum security institution for women and the major reception centre for female offenders in NSW); the Metropolitan Remand & Reception Centre (a maximum security correctional facility for males); and the Dawn de Loas Correctional Centre (a minimum security correctional centre for males).[1]
The Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre (formerly known as the Mulawa Correctional Centre), an Australian maximum security facility for females is located within the complex. The centre is divided into twelve living units, a protection/segregation area, an induction unit, a hospital annexe, and provides accommodation for both sentenced and unsentenced inmates and various special program units.[4] The facility opened in 1970 as the old women's prison at Long Bay was converted into a medium security facility for men.[5]
The Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre (MRRC), an Australian maximum security facility for males is located within the complex. The prison opened in 1997, and has a capacity of 900 inmates. It is the largest single correctional centre in Australia.[5] The majority of inmates are unconvicted or unsentenced.[13]
In March, 1999, Russian Australian librarian Lucy Dudko hired a helicopter supposedly to check out the upcoming Olympic site in Sydney. Using a gun, she forced pilot, Tim Joyce, to land within the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre grounds. Waiting was her partner John Killick, who was serving 28 years for armed robberies. He jumped in the helicopter making an escape while being fired on by guards and cheered on by inmates.[14] They landed in a park where Killick hijacked a taxi at gunpoint. The two were able to elude authorities for six weeks before being arrested at the Bass Hill Tourist Park.[14]
In 2004, the Independent Commission Against Corruption conducted an investigation at the prison which concluded that mobile phones were becoming a significant security threat in Australian correctional facilities.[15]
In October 2021, a former prison guard who used to work at Silverwater was sentenced to jail for assault. Before this she was punished for having inappropriate contact with a prisoner at the jail.[23]
WHEN Roseanne Catt was behind bars in Mulawa Correctional Centre, one of the most violent prisons in NSW, she found a way to make her own hair rollers. One of the state's longest-serving female prisoners, who says she was bashed, threatened and had scalding water poured on her while in jail, would collect paper scraps and tightly roll them into cylinders, securing them to her hair with sticky tape.
Her determination to maintain her appearance amid the bleak surroundings is telling. She may have grown up in a large struggling family on a South Coast dairy farm, left school at 15, married her first husband and become a mother a year later, but Catt has always had aspirations. When she moved to Taree in the early 1980s, the then divorcee drove a white Corvette and enjoyed socialising. She was the blonde blow-in who would later divide the town and be labelled one of Australia's most hated women.
Arrested in 1989 and charged with assaulting, stabbing, poisoning and conspiring to kill her second husband, Taree mechanic Barry Catt, Roseanne denied the charges, claiming she had been framed by her husband, his lifelong friend Adrian Newell and the police officer in charge of the investigation, detective Peter Thomas, who has since left the police service. The sordid small-town saga included threats, rumours, tit-for-tat pettiness, family breakdown, domestic violence and sex abuse. At Catt's 1991 trial, judge Jane Matthews said she was either "an evil, manipulative woman or the innocent victim of a monstrous conspiracy". She was jailed for 12 years.
She served almost 10 years before being released on bail in 2001 after fresh claims that evidence against her was fabricated and her trial tainted by Thomas. The then NSW attorney-general, Bob Debus, asked for a fresh appeal against her convictions.
Fronting the court, which was crowded with family, supporters from the Free Roseanne group and media, Catt was a model of composure with her blonde coiffured hair, manicured nails, meticulous make-up and matching accessories.
For a few minutes following Justice Peter McClellan's judgement, the teary 58-year-old appeared rattled. It was not the clear-cut result she had been seeking. But after a meeting with her counsel, Catt emerged smiling. "It is good. It is good," she repeated like a mantra. And later: "I feel as though I'm still living under a cloud, but it's still a victory. I've done very well considering what I was up against."
During the rare and costly 2003 District Court inquiry into whether Catt was wrongfully convicted, the mother-of-two worked day and night with her "guardian", Sister Claudette Palmer, to prepare her case. The pair would walk into the drab room with a suitcase filled with files and throughout proceedings take notes, cross-reference statements and scan hundreds of documents.
She would talk manically about every legal detail and occasionally, very occasionally, she'd simply sit in the punishing straight-backed benches, shoulders hunched, hands clasped, deflated and exhausted.
And while her declarations that God's support and the example set by Nelson Mandela and Lindy Chamberlain motivated her to keep going were predictable, there was no doubt that something extraordinary sustained her.
As her book about her ordeal in jail (Ten Years, PanMacmillan) is readied for publication and Harry M. Miller organises her publicity schedule, Catt will be preoccupied with the possibility of a retrial.
Arrested in 1989 and charged with assaulting, stabbing, poisoning and conspiring to kill her second husband, Taree mechanic Barry Catt, Roseanne denied the charges, claiming she had been framed by her husband, his lifelong friend Adrian Newell and the police officer in charge of the investigation, detective Peter Thomas, who has since left the police service. The sordid small-town saga included threats, rumours, tit-for-tat pettiness, family breakdown, domestic violence and sex abuse. At Catt's 1991 trial, judge Jane Matthews said she was either \\\"an evil, manipulative woman or the innocent victim of a monstrous conspiracy\\\". She was jailed for 12 years.
For a few minutes following Justice Peter McClellan's judgement, the teary 58-year-old appeared rattled. It was not the clear-cut result she had been seeking. But after a meeting with her counsel, Catt emerged smiling. \\\"It is good. It is good,\\\" she repeated like a mantra. And later: \\\"I feel as though I'm still living under a cloud, but it's still a victory. I've done very well considering what I was up against.\\\"
During the rare and costly 2003 District Court inquiry into whether Catt was wrongfully convicted, the mother-of-two worked day and night with her \\\"guardian\\\", Sister Claudette Palmer, to prepare her case. The pair would walk into the drab room with a suitcase filled with files and throughout proceedings take notes, cross-reference statements and scan hundreds of documents.
The deceased was in the psychiatric unit at Long Bay Prison. He approached a nurse on 25 July 1989 at 2.30pm and stated he was feeling ill. She gave him advice as to the illness and provided him with medication. He later approached another nurse and said he wanted to return to his cell. The nurse checked with a prison officer and he was taken to his cell at about 3.30pm. At 4.10pm he was discovered hanging in his cell.
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