Killing Time by Andrew Fraser Page A

inexcusable.
    I noted with interest that one of the other officers dismissed over “Sausagegate” was an officer by the name of Russell Davies. Mr Davies had an unpleasant disposition and clearly didn’t like his job at all. One evening I had finished a visit with my family, and I was coming back out to the strip room where you are taken out of the monkey suit that you wear on a visit and then strip searched. The monkey suit is a one-piece garment with a zip up the back with a cable tie placed around the top of the zip, the theory being to stop you secreting any contraband around your person. It clearly doesn’t work because the entire jail is riddled with drugs. However, the procedure is that you come out from your visit, you take your key off the key ring board, unlock your locker and take your clothes into the strip room where you are strip searched. After the strip search you head back to your unit.
    I followed this usual procedure and Mr Davies, without warning, started screaming abuse, venting a tirade of fuck this and fuck that upon me. It was all to do with me taking the key off the key rack. I was absolutely dumbfounded at his attitude, and I told him in no uncertain terms. A hush descended over the entire strip room because not many prisoners spoke back to the officers. There were three other officers on duty there and they all said nothing. The crooks thought there might be some fun and games as a consequence, so they all stuck their heads around the corner into the strip room to see what was going on.
    Davies screamed at me that the procedure wasn’t to (fucking this and fucking that) take the keys off the key rack, but rather for the officer to do it. Talk about a storm in a tea cup. I had been in jail about two years by this time and that was the first occasion on which this alleged procedure had ever been outlined to me. I was merely following the practice that I’d been following whenever I had received a visit. Nevertheless, Davies continued to scream abuse and berate me, becoming so red in the face that I thought he was going to blow a valve. I just stood there.
    I made every attempt I could not to infuriate the screws for obvious reasons, and this bloke’s berating out of the blue really shocked me.
    We subsequently went into the strip room and he conducted the strip search. As I was leaving I said to him: “I want you to remember one thing. One day my sentence will be over. I will go home and I will work hard to make a success of myself once again. In the meantime you will still be here looking up blokes’ arses in the strip room!” I did not know at that time how prescient my comments were but after Sausagegate it became clear that Mr Davies had gone one step further than just looking up blokes’ arses!
    The next day I was on my run when Davies appeared in the compound where I was running and walked over. He said he wanted to talk to me about what had happened last night. I said to him “Is this official business?” He said “No.” I said, “Don’t talk to me ever again unless it’s on official business” and I kept running. I looked back as I was running around and he was still standing there clearly nonplussed by my reply.
    If you stick to your guns and let them know that you are not prepared to be walked over, or stood over, then by and large the officers are essentially gutless bullies and only prey on the weak.
    While on the subject of officers, the other aspect that is perennially kept quiet is the issue of trafficking of contraband by officers to prisoners. It is not just drugs, it is general contraband. Pornography can be purchased, even alcohol can be purchased. While I was at Fulham, a medium and minimum security prison, you were at some stages able to buy for $100 a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label Scotch whisky, which at that time had a retail of less than $20. Some blokes were that desperate for a drink that they paid