The “boys’ club” is still alive and well within NSW Corrective Services (CSNSW) despite the state government saying it had made “significant strides” to boost standards and safety in the system.
It has been 18 months since a special commission of inquiry’s findings were released into former corrections officer Wayne Astill, who raped 14 inmates over five years at Dillwynia Correctional Centre.
The Astill inquiry, led by former judge Peter McClellan and initiated by the government, found multiple failings in the management and culture at Dillwynia and across CSNSW. It exposed the myriad failures within the system and the toxic culture at the prison that allowed him to offend against so many women for so long. “Instead of investigating the rumours, the management of the jail sought to suppress them at multiple levels,” the report said.
The government said nine of the 31 inquiry recommendations had been fully implemented and in the September 8 press release Corrections Minister Anoulack Chanthivong said: “The NSW government is committed to implementing the reforms needed to ensure that the deplorable and unconscionable crimes outlined by the Special Commission can never be repeated.”
Yet the system is still “broken”. It is not just inmates but also female prison officers who are under threat of sexual harassment and assault by male guards.
The lifting of non-publication orders on August 18 after an application by the Herald means details about former prison officer and convicted rapist Scott Barry Hawken’s crimes, acquittals, charges, alleged victims, and his relocation by CSNSW to a women’s prison after the first of his four rape trials, can be revealed for the first time.
Scott Hawken at during his trial at Parramatta court in June 2024. Sexual assault accusations against the former prison guard date back almost 15 years.Credit: Edwina Pickles
A judge is now deliberating over charges relating to a female prison guard who says Hawken turned up to her house one night in 2011 when her children were asleep, and began sexually touching her, even though she kept telling him to stop. “If I reported it to the police … my life wouldn’t be worth living,” she told the court. “You just don’t do that in Corrective Services.” She did anyway.
As the complaints rolled in, Hawken was reportedly moved around prisons “like a paedophile priest”.
The Hawken and Astill cases are part of a wider cultural problem. A CSNSW submission to the Astill inquiry said it was considering a review into the handling of sexual misconduct, harassment or assault in 14 jails and workplaces across the state.
