David Eastman is suing the ACT government for wrongful imprisonment after spending almost 20 years in jail. He was initially found guilty of murdering Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester, but his conviction was later quashed. At a retrial last year a jury found him not guilty of murder.
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This is his full statement to the court, although some names and details have been redacted.
It is the first time Mr Eastman has publicly outlined his experiences through the process, and what life was like for him in prison.
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STATEMENT OF DAVID HAROLD EASTMAN
1. I cannot describe what it was like to stand in the dock, as I did on 10 November 1995, and to hear that I had been sentenced to life imprisonment for a crime I didn't commit.
2. For the next 23 years until I was finally acquitted on 22 November 2018, I feared that my plea of innocence would never be listened to, and that I would die in gaol.
3. I was born in Melbourne on 29 September 1945. My father was Allan James Eastman, and my mother was Marie Adele O'Reilly.
4. My father had an Arts and Law degree from the University of Sydney and graduated with First Class Honours and the University Medal. He had also been a Judge's Associate and practised at the bar.
5. During the Second World War, he was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Australian Army and served in Syria, Egypt, and New Guinea. At the end of the war, he joined the Commonwealth Department of External Affairs.
6. My first memories of my family are from 1947. In that year, my father was appointed Consul General in Bangkok. My twin sisters, Patricia and Elizabeth, were born there in 1947. My other sister, Janet, was born in 1954.
7. The family returned to Canberra in 1949.
8. Between 1950 and 1953 my father was at the Imperial Defence College in London attached to the Australian High Commission. We lived near a village in the countryside in a former coach house called Hooley Lodge, on the road between London and Brighton.
9. I went to Chipstead Primary School, which was a small co-educational country school. It had a caring, nurturing environment.
10. In 1953, my family moved back to Canberra. We lived in Bremer Street, Griffith. I was enrolled at St Christopher's, a little school run by the nuns in Manuka.
11. In 1954, I went to St Edmund's Christian Brothers College. At that time, the College took enrolments from Grade 4 and upwards. The usual age for Grade 4 was nine years, but I was only eight years old. From then on, I was always a year younger than my contemporaries at school and later at University.
12. In 1955, my father was appointed Deputy High Commissioner to Singapore. There, I went to a co-educational British Army school called Pasir Panjang School.
13. In 1956, my father was appointed High Commissioner to Ceylon, and we lived in Colombo. In Colombo, I went to the "Fort School", a co-educational school run by the Royal Navy for children of Navy personnel. I was happy there.
14. The Fort School closed in 1957, and I then did my schooling by correspondence for a while through the Blackfriars College, which in those days was in Broadway in Sydney.
15. Later, while my parents were in Colombo, they decided to send me back to boarding school in Australia. I was enrolled at St Ignatius College, Riverview and was there for two years during 1958 and 1959. At Riverview, I served as an altar boy at Mass.
16. At Riverview, there were rumours that some teachers sexually molested the boys. I heard about [redacted] who would take boys to his flat for "sex education" where he had wall charts showing human genitalia.
17. I was fearful the whole time that I was there at the thought of being sexually molested. I had decided what I would do if a priest molested me. I would run to the local police station and ask them to call my parents.
18. I believed the police would protect me and I wouldn't be molested.
19. In the Christmas break of 1959, I told my parents that I didn't want to return to Riverview, and they sent me to Canberra Grammar where I finished my schooling in 1961.
20. I did the NSW Leaving Certificate and received first class honours in French, A level marks in English, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics 2 and a B in Mathematics 1. I received the Alliance Francaise award for the best pass in French for the whole of Canberra. I was Dux of the school in my final year. I was also in the First Xl and the swimming team.
21. Some of my contemporaries at Canberra Grammar went on to be significant achievers. There was Terry Snow, now a billionaire businessman, Paul Murphy, an ABC television broadcaster and the Honourable Richard Refshauge, the former Director of Public Prosecutions and ACT Supreme Court Judge, was in the year behind me.
22. I started my tertiary studies at the University of Sydney in 1962. I studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in Chemistry and Economics. I was at St John's College, a Catholic residential college attached to the University. I was astonished at the drunkenness, bastardisation, misogyny and contempt for others that were rife at St Johns. It was appalling. It was against all my upbringing and humanity. I couldn't believe that the church allowed it.
23. My father was appointed Senior External Affairs Representative at the Australian High Commission in London in September 1962, and I went there with my family.
24. I applied to go to Oxford University, but because I did not have an "0 level" in Latin, I did not meet the entrance requirements.
25. In October 1962, I was admitted to the University of Sussex and enrolled in an Honours Arts degree majoring in Economics. I graduated in May 1965, and in that year, I was accepted by McGill University in Montreal, Canada, to study for a Masters' Degree in Development Economics.
26. However instead of taking up that position, I joined the Volunteer Service Overseas, and I was posted to teach in Jamnagar, Gujarat Province, India, for one year.
27. When I arrived in Delhi, I contracted dysentery and became very ill, and I had to return to my family in England.
28. I recovered from dysentery but returning to India was problematical, so I returned to Australia in December 1965.
29. In February 1966, I joined the Australian Public Service as a Research Officer Grade 1.
30. I worked for the Australian Public Service Board for about a year and then I was transferred to the Commonwealth Department of Defence.
31. I worked as a personal assistant to some of the most senior people in the Department, such as the Assistant Secretaries and the Deputy Secretary. I had security clearance at a high level.
32. From there, I was promoted to the Commonwealth Department of Territories, the Commonwealth Department of National Development and then to Foreign Affairs.
33. In 1973, I was promoted to the Foreign Investment Division of the Commonwealth Department of Treasury. During my time in Treasury, I was made an acting Clerk Class 11. A Clerk Class 11 was responsible for supervising a Section consisting of five or six staff.
34. In 1977, I was involved in internal disputes within Treasury, and I resigned. I made a claim for workers compensation, which was successful. During the tribunal hearing, my supervisor, Mr Ray Schoer, said that I was, "Far and away the most efficient officer of his rank in the Treasury".
35. I had first started to experience problems with my mental health after I joined the Public Service. From about 1966, I started having bouts of what I thought was depression.
36. My local doctor referred me to a psychiatrist, Dr Mcllrath. He prescribed what I thought were anti-depressants. The medication did not help much. I put on a lot of weight.
37. I kept my mental health problems to myself and, despite them, I managed to keep working and to achieve a better-than-average rate of promotion in the Public Service.
38. In December 1973, my GP referred me to a "non-drug" psychiatrist, Dr McDonald. He told me that one of the medications that I was taking was an anti-psychotic and not an anti-depressant. He told me that I was not suffering from any psychosis, but that I had something of a paranoid personality, and he took me off the medications.
39. In about 1979, my resignation from the Public Service was converted by the Public Service Board to a medical retirement on psychiatric grounds, and I was given an invalidity pension under the Superannuation Act. The pension was equal to 38.5% of my salary at the time of retirement and partially indexed to the Consumer Price Index. I continue to receive that pension. The pension was subject to periodic medical review.
40. After I left Treasury, I couldn't find work in the private sector. In my job applications, I disclosed to potential employers that I had been retired from the public service on mental health grounds.
41. By 1979 I could no longer afford the mortgage repayments on my house in Chifley. I sold the house and lived in various government flats until I settled in my apartment in Jerilderie Court, Ainslie Avenue in Reid. I lived in my Reid apartment until my bail was revoked during my first trial in 1995.
42. In 1988, I applied to the Commissioner for Superannuation for a medical review so that I could go back to work. I believed that I had recovered my mental health. The Commissioner sent me to a prominent and well-known psychiatrist, Dr Hocking in Melbourne, for review. After the appointment with Dr Hocking, the Commissioner determined on 21 December 1988 that I could return to work as a Clerk, Class 7. I asked the Commissioner to reconsider the decision regarding the Grade that I could be employed at, and in August 1989, he determined that my health was such that I could be employed as a Clerk, Class 9. I never actually resumed duties.
43. During 1988, I was dealing with charges relating to an incident with a neighbour in the apartments at Jerilderie Court.
44. On 22 December 1992, I was charged with the murder of Mr Winchester.
45. By that time, my father had died in 1987. I had become estranged from my mother and my sister Janet. My only close family were my twin sisters.
46. Patricia and Elizabeth were lovely, sweet, beautiful girls, and we were always very close. They were born with an intellectual disability, but they had gone to normal schools and had been cared for at home until they left high school when they were placed in institutional care.
47. After they went into care, I visited them in Bowral, Goulburn and Sydney at least once a month. I would take them birthday presents and Christmas presents. I spoke to them often on the telephone.
48. After I went to prison, they were on my list of approved telephone numbers. I would ring them at least once per week, usually on a Sunday.
49. Every time that I rang my sisters from prison, they would beg me to visit them. This was very painful for me, and all I could say was, "Darling, you know I can't visit you. I'm in gaol. I shouldn't be here. But I promise you, I'm doing my best to get out. And you are right at the top of my list. When I get out, the very first thing that I'm going to do is to come and visit you, and I am going to take you for a drive".
50. It was harder after Elizabeth died. Patricia was lonely and desperate for me to visit her.
51. One of the very first things that I did when I got out of prison was to drive to Sydney to visit the graves of my twin sisters and then my mother. I was driven there by volunteers from St Vincent de Paul.
52. Not being around for my twin sisters was one of the most painful things about being in prison and I was very preoccupied with my legal struggles. Being institutionalised was very difficult for them, and I feel an enormous sense of loss and responsibility at not having been around to support them. My parents would have expected it and I wanted to do it.
53. At the time that they were first institutionalised, there was a lack of suitable facilities for people with intellectual disabilities, and they were often placed in institutions with people with profound psychosis.
54. At one stage, Elizabeth and Patricia were placed at Kenmore, which was a psychiatric hospital. This was very difficult for them. They had grown up in a loving family. Our father was a diplomat and a lot of the time we had servants or maids to look after them. One day Elizabeth and I were walking in the garden, and she said in her usually carefully considered voice, "David, some of the people here are mad". I said, "Yeah, I know what you mean, but you're not mad. You're very sensible. I love you and I will always visit you as often as I can."
55. I never told the twins about the allegations against me, but one day, Patricia said to me out of the blue, "They say that you killed someone." Those were very painful words to hear, but I am sure that they always knew that it wasn't true.
56. Elizabeth died in an accident in May 1996.
57-60 [Redacted]
61. When I heard of Elizabeth's death, I was devastated. She had always been my favourite sister. I felt her loss terribly, and I thought that I had let her down.
62. Patricia died of pneumonia at Westmead Hospital in November 2013.
63. When I was charged initially, I was remanded in custody overnight by Chief Magistrate Cahill. The next day I was brought before the late Honourable Justice Gallop. I applied for bail. I represented myself. The Crown opposed bail being granted. Justice Gallop granted me bail on conditions.
64. Initially my bail was subject to weekly reporting. Justice Gallop did not order me to report to the police but rather to the Registry of the Supreme Court. Over time, this reporting was relaxed to fortnightly and then monthly intervals. Finally, the reporting requirement was dispensed with entirely and I was bailed to appear at each Court mention of the matter.
65. Sometimes, when I had to go to Sydney or Melbourne, Ms Jill Circosta, the Registrar of the Court to whom I was to report would arrange for me to report to a local police station there. She would send a fax with my photo and drivers licence.
66. My trial commenced on 3 May 1995.
67. My bail was revoked during my first trial by Carruthers AJ on 29 June 1995. I found that difficult to understand. I had been meticulous in attending Court every day. I was sent to the Belconnen Remand Centre.
68. I had been familiar with depression, but it had been nothing compared to the utter hopelessness that I felt when I was remanded in custody.
69. Every time that I left or returned to the Remand Centre, I was strip-searched. I was made to lift up my genitals, squat and cough. One particular officer always made crude remarks about my genitals such as, "Is that all you've got" or "Is that a penis or is that a clitoris?".
70. When I was in remand, some officers would bang on the cell window with a bunch of keys at night and yell out, "Are you OK in there Eastman" until I responded. They would do this every 30-minutes throughout the night. They said that it was to make sure that I didn't kill myself. On most days during my trial, I was being taken to court exhausted from lack of sleep.
71. When on remand, I witnessed a vicious fight between a prisoner, [redacted] and another prisoner, [redacted] called in the Police and went around asking the other prisoners from his pod to talk to the police and give a statement. He did not get any takers except me. I was naive. I thought, sharing the same yard, I had a duty to back him up.
72. I didn't know that there was an unspoken rule in prison that no one speaks to the police when there is a fight between two prisoners. [Redacted] approached me the day after I had spoken to the police and threatened that if I did not withdraw my statement, I'd be stabbed.
73. I reported the threat to the prison officers. I was told that even if I retracted my statement, I would always be in danger.
74. By the time I was transferred to the NSW prison system, I had been classified as a "non-association" prisoner. I carried this with me when I entered the NSW prison system. Because of this, I was often imprisoned with the most vile prisoners.
75. After I was sentenced, I entered the NSW prison system. During that time, I was moved from prison to prison on 90 separate occasions.
76. While I was at Long Bay, I was assessed by a senior psychologist working for NSW Corrective Services, Shane Latimer. He interviewed me over a long time and in December 2006, he submitted a report to his superiors, a copy of which I saw. He recommended that the rotation policy be abandoned and that, at least for the next 12 months, I should be kept at Long Bay and be allowed to take part in appropriate programs. However, within weeks of his submission of that report, I was moved again. This time to Lithgow.
77. I was in the New South Wales prison system for about 14 years. I was classified as a "non-association" prisoner for about eight of those years. That meant eight years of virtual solitary confinement. As a "non -association" prisoner I was housed in what were called Multi Purpose Units where the most violent and dangerous prisoners were kept as well as those whose crimes meant that they needed protection. I was neither.
78. There are good and bad officers in every gaol. Every time that I was moved, I would try to identify the good ones and try to develop a good relationship with one of them, in the hope that he would let me associate with non-violent prisoners and help me get a job. Hope as I might, I spent most of my life in NSW gaols under the control of bad officers, on my own, and with no job.
79. On the few occasions that I started to settle into a routine, I was moved to another goal where I had to start all over again. The constant transfers from gaol to gaol disrupted my preparation for my appeals and applications for judicial review. I was never able to gain the trust of the officers or other prisoners, and I never knew which officers or prisoners I could trust.
80. I was never in any place long enough to feel safe. I was in constant fear that I would accidentally breach the unspoken rules of each prison and that I would be bashed.
81. My frustration at my circumstances would sometimes overwhelm me. I would protest vehemently. I was punished for it. I was never violent. I used words. I sometimes swore at those whom I saw as bad officers, and I would sometimes press the emergency button excessively.
82. On some occasions, I protested by smearing faeces on the wall of my cell. I am not proud of that. It was difficult not to break sometimes.
83. It is almost impossible to describe the extent of the random, unpredictable and aimless violence which occurred on an almost daily basis in prison. It was an ever-present danger. The yards that I was in contained many of the most violent high-risk prisoners and many other prisoners who were reviled by the rest of the prison population.
84. One of the ways a prisoner who was reviled by the rest of the prison population was dealt with by other prisoners was by having a jug of boiling water poured over him. This was called "jugging".
85. On one occasion, on 6 January 2006, while I was in Goulburn, I was king hit for no reason by a prisoner. My glasses were broken and smashed into my eye. I had bleeding in the eyeball, and I have some impaired vision in that eye.
86. There was an incident in Long Bay involving the riot squad. I had been returned to Long Bay from somewhere else, and for some reason, the reception officer decided to put me in a holding cell to spend the night with another prisoner who I didn't know. I had never previously been asked to spend the night in a holding cell with another prisoner. I had known of prisoners murdering their cellmates and given all the harassment that I had been receiving, I was scared.
87. I told the officer that I feared for my safety and asked to be put in a safe cell. He refused. I then did a silly thing. I smashed the television of the other prisoner on the ground. After I did that, the officer removed me from that cell, and as a temporary measure, put me into another vacant normal cell.
88. The prison officer could have left me in that cell, but he called the riot squad to move me to the safe cell. I told him it wasn't necessary and that I would go voluntarily, but he ignored me.
89. After a while, the riot squad barged into my cell. Before they barged in, the usual procedure was used, which was to direct me to go to the back of the cell, face the wall, kneel down, cross my legs behind me and put my hands on my head. I did as I was instructed.
90. One of the members of the riot squad stayed outside with a camera and audio. The others charged in while I was kneeling with my hands on my head and grabbed me.
91. One of the officers who spoke in a Scottish accent applied a finger hold. By this, I mean that he grabbed my finger and pressed it inwards towards my palm with this much force as he could muster. This caused excruciating pain. He kept yelling, "Stop resisting, Stop resisting" for the camera and audio the whole time that I was dragged from the normal cell to the safe cell. I was not resisting.
92. I thought that he had broken my finger. It took many days for my finger to return back to normal.
93. After this incident, I wrote a letter of apology to the prisoner whose television I had broken and sent him money for him to buy a replacement television.
94. There was another incident involving the same member of the riot squad at Long Bay. For some reason that I don't recall, I was placed in a safe cell. It was not common to be handcuffed in a safe cell. On this occasion, I was placed in a security belt. It might have been because I had been pressing the emergency buzzer.
95. A security belt is a leather and canvas belt that is put around your waist. It has metal rings to which handcuffs are attached. You are effectively restrained with your hands in front of you at about waist level.
96. I had been restrained like that for hours and had to go to the toilet. I managed to slide the belt down below my hips so that I could lower my pants and go to the toilet. Because of the position that I was in, I couldn't even wipe my backside after I had finished. I couldn't get the belt back on to its normal position, and I just lay on my bunk in a dishevelled condition. This must have been observed on a security camera and the riot squad was sent in.
97. When the riot squad arrived, I immediately recognised the voice of the Scottish officer. They took off the restraining belt, and they put on heavier handcuffs and cuffed my hands very tightly behind my back. I was left with my hands cuffed behind my back all night, and well into the next day, unable to sleep or lie down. I was in excruciating pain as my hands swelled. They swelled so much that they went completely numb. One of my hands seemed to me as if it had swelled to twice its normal size. The swelling persisted for days, and it was weeks before I recovered normal feeling in my hands.
98. There were 3 or 4 occasions when I was in Goulburn that I was punished for various reasons such as pressing the buzzer. I was taken out into the yard and my hand was handcuffed to a high point on the metal bars so that I could not sit or rest. I was left there for many hours, sometimes most of the day, with no water, in the hot sun, burning. If I had to go to the toilet, I had to urinate there in the yard.
99. I particularly remember Christmas Eve in 2006, when I was at Long Bay.
100. In the early hours of the morning, I was woken by a group of prison officers kicking the door of my cell and rattling the lock.
101. Later that day, I started getting threats and abuse by the other prisoners. [Redacted] constantly shouted out at me, "I'll rape your mother. I'll kill you. I'll put my cock in your mouth. Hang yourself you dirty dog. Your mother is a dirty slut, I'll rape her. We'll find out where she is and we'll rape her". That went on for hours late into the night accompanied by constant banging on the wall of my cell. [Redacted] shouted similar vile abuse at me throughout the day and into the evening.
102. The prison officers were there and did nothing about it.
103. I had to have frequent contact with some of the worst criminals imaginable in prison. They included [Redacted]
104. I came into contact with a string of paedophiles, [redacted] at least two paedophile Catholic priests and an Anglican priest, and other infamous paedophiles, [redacted]
105. [redacted]
106. The contact with paedophiles, particularly the Catholic clergy paedophiles, was particularly distressing because it brought back memories of St Ignatius College, Riverview.
107. Prison officers often made threats. One incident happened on 24 May 2006. I was being taken to Canberra. The officer in charge of reception at Goulburn said, "I would like to see you on a Coroner's slab. I'll be waiting for you when you return from Canberra." Every time I moved from prison to prison, I was farewelled and welcomed with comments such as this.
108. Threats from other prisoners were common. They usually involved threats to kill or rape me or my family members. They were almost always made in the presence of prison officers.
109. When I was in Lithgow, [redacted] threatened to kill me.
110. I had been using his computer to write legal letters. I usually saved the files on a floppy disk, but one day I saved them on the hard drive.
111. The next day the file had been deleted. I asked [redacted] if he knew what had happened to the file. He immediately took it as an accusation that he had deleted it. He became angry. I apologised and told him that I was not accusing him and said, "I just wasn't thinking".
112. He looked at me and said with a straight face, "What if I came up behind you with a hammer and smashed your head in and said I just wasn't thinking?" I had no doubt that he meant it as a serious threat. I tried to stay away from him from then on.
113. Some years later, after I had been moved to several different prisons, I was transferred to a prison that [redacted] was in at the same time. One of the other prisoners came up to me and said, "[Redacted] said to tell you that he still remembers what you said to him at Lithgow".
114. On Boxing Day 2006, after complaining about what had happened on Christmas Eve, the prison officers conducted a search of my cell and confiscated my stapler, the batteries from my television remote control, my chair, my rubbish bin and my pillow. These were all items that I was authorised to have. I complained to a prison officer named [redacted] I wrote down what he said, and this is what I wrote:
"I am going to come in there and bash you. There is no camera, you can't prove a thing, why don't you slash up, you murdering c---".
115. I asked the manager of security, to call the police for me because I wanted to have [redacted] charged. I also asked the Governor of the prison to call in the Corrective Services Investigation Unit but no one came.
116. There were other occasions, in both NSW and the ACT, when officers remarked about there being no camera in that area and what they could do.
117. It wasn't just threats of violence. Sometimes the officers would just engage in pure bastardry, such as when I was in Unit 6 of Goulburn gaol from February to May 2006. Several officers including [redacted] regularly taunted me with comments such as, "When you visited your sisters at Kenmore you used to take them to a motel and rape them, didn't you David"; "Did they give you good head David?"; "ls that why Elizabeth committed suicide?" and "Do you still get wet dreams about Elizabeth?"
118. How they found out about my sister's name, I don't know. I was profoundly distressed, disgusted and shocked by this behaviour. I lodged a written complaint. I never received any reply.
119. I will never forget those dreadful words.
120. On one hot day, I was so thirsty that I had to drink water from the toilet bowl by scooping the water with my hands while the toilet flushed. The next day, the prison officers called me a dog and said things like, "He even drinks out of the toilet, like a dog".
121. I could not believe the extent of the brutality and barbarity which existed throughout the whole of the prison system. I could not believe that such things could happen in Australia.
122. It was common, particularly at Goulburn, for my personal items and legal documents to be stolen from my cell by the prison officers. In the middle of 2006, two of my legal diaries were stolen. It could only have been the prison officers. When I complained about it, all they said was, "It must be frustrating to know that something happened, but you just can't prove it".
123. There were instances when I would give my mail containing copies of affidavits and other legal documents to the Wing Officer whose job it was to mail them. They were never received by my solicitors.
124. An incident occurred in the early part of 2006 at Goulburn. The wing officer's name was [redacted] and the area manager for the day was [redacted]. I was in the process of making a complaint to [redacted] about [redacted] had been denying me access to complaint forms. [Redacted] overheard the complaint, became enraged and began wrestling with [redacted] trying to barge past him and get into my cell. [Redacted] restrained him and locked my cell door. Later [redacted] came into my cell and moved me to another unit, away from [redacted].
125. In April 2019, The Canberra Times reported that a [redacted], formerly a guard at Goulburn Gaol, had been charged with the murder of three people near Mt Isa in 1978. This shocked me and brought back the fear and anxiety that I had experienced at the time.
126. In 2011, a prisoner tried to hang himself in the Management Unit in the AMC. Officers rushed into the unit to rescue him. While they were there, I heard someone say, `It is a pity Eastman didn't neck himself' An officer replied, "Yeah, wrong cell". After this, for weeks, other prisoners would constantly shout out to me, "Eastman, neck yourself". They did this in the presence of some of the prison officers with their apparent approval.
127. Over the years, I came to know about 10 inmates who committed or attempted suicide in prison.
128. The first was at Maitland. A prisoner a few cells down from mine attempted suicide. I heard the sound of him kicking the chair away and the officers rushing to revive him. I never found out if he lived or died.
129. In Silverwater, an Islander prisoner committed suicide in a cell close to mine. The next day, his family were allowed to inspect his cell. I could hear them crying and wailing.
130. At Goulburn, one of the prisoners told me that he woke one morning with his bunk covered in blood that had dripped down during the night from the top bunk where another prisoner had suicided.
131. At Canberra, I came to know a prisoner who was a paraplegic because of an unsuccessful suicide attempt.
132. I knew of a prisoner at Lithgow who committed suicide on his first night in gaol.
133. I feel very deeply about one of the suicides. This was in 2013 at the AMC. A prisoner who had been in the Acute Crisis Management Unit had been discharged from it and placed in the medical unit, which was next door to my unit. The medical unit had been there for some years but never staffed as a medical unit.
134. He was put in the medical unit about 10.00am on the morning of the day he killed himself. I tried to talk to him and engage him in conversation, but he didn't seem to want to speak. He was very withdrawn. When he spoke, it was in a whisper.
135. I think he was on half hourly observations. At about 6.30pm, I heard a commotion in his cell. He had hanged himself. The unit that he had been put in had an ensuite bathroom which could not be seen into through the cell window. They tried to revive him but they couldn't.
136. I am still deeply affected by this young man's death. I feel that in some ways I failed him.
137. There were other occasions where I feel that I prevented suicides.
138. Two officers that I knew committed suicide, one at Maitland and the other at Lithgow. One shot himself and the other hanged himself.
139. In December 2000, I attempted suicide.
140. In May 2000, the High Court handed down its decision in my appeal. I was bitterly disappointed with the result. I found it very difficult to accept that the highest court in the land would keep me in gaol based on what I thought was a technicality. My mental state deteriorated.
141. I didn't read the decision for some time. When I read it, I noticed, or maybe one of my lawyers drew my attention to it, comments by the judges about the possibility of making an application for judicial inquiry.
142. I made enquiries with the Supreme Court about how I could make an application for a judicial inquiry. No one could tell me how to do it because, apparently, no one had ever done it.
143. I prepared a document and called it a Petition because that was the word used in the legislation and sent it to the court. It was rejected.
144. In September 2000, my solicitor rang me and said, "Look, I can't act for you anymore. I can't get any more legal aid. I've got 40 cartons of documents here. I can't just continue to keep them. I can put them in storage or send them to you".
145. A short time later, the 40 cartons of documents arrived at the prison. At first, they were refusing to accept them, but eventually, they did, only after all the staples and bull clips were removed from the documents because they could have been used as weapons.
146. I was only ever allowed to have one carton in my cell at a time, and it seemed to take forever to read them. At that point, I gave up.
147. I began to have thoughts of suicide. I didn't think there was any other way out. I asked to see a psychologist but was refused. Eventually, in October, I was placed in a safe cell at Silverwater. I was in the safe cell for about two months, hoping to see a psychologist, but it never happened.
148. A few days before Christmas, I reached my breaking point.
149-152 [Redacted]
153. When I was at the clinic, one of the officers came in and started taunting me, and I started becoming agitated and yelling out. At first, the nurse did nothing, but eventually, she intervened and asked him to leave.
154. [Redacted]
155. The prison officers told me that as soon as the operation was done, I would have to go back to Silverwater into the same safe cell. I was very distressed by this. At some stage, I was taken into a cubicle away from the prison officers by one of the doctors. We discussed what happened and my fear about being returned to the prison.
156. The doctor rang Long Bay Psychiatric Ward and spoke to Dr Allnutt, who made arrangements for me to be admitted to the Ward. I stayed there for the next couple of months.
157. When I was in Goulburn, I witnessed a murder.
158. A prisoner was sweeping out the yards when an officer was escorting another prisoner from the yards when that prisoner suddenly attacked the prisoner sweeping the yard. I didn't see who threw the first punch, but I heard and saw some of the fight and the nurses trying to revive the victim.
159. After the murder, I came into contact with the prisoner who had killed the other prisoner. I dared not say that I had seen what happened. I dared not tell the prison officers what I had seen.
160. I was later subpoenaed to give evidence at the inquest. On the day of the inquest, I was picked up by a van to be taken to court. I kept telling them that I didn't know anything and that there was nothing that I could say that would help.
161. A few hours into the journey, the van turned around and took me back to prison.
162. I saw at least three incidents where prisoners set fire to their cells. The worst was at Silverwater. A prisoner set fire to his plastic shower curtain and mattress cover and the fire spread suffocating toxic fumes throughout the area and the prisoner who set the fire had to be revived.
163. A prisoner about two cells down from me at Long Bay set fire to his cell. He was taken out by ambulance, unconscious and on a breathing apparatus. There was a similar incident in Canberra in the management unit where a prisoner set a fire.
164. In April or May of 2006, I came down with pneumonia. I had been denied treatment for two or three days. When a nurse was finally called, I had a temperature of 40 degrees. I was taken by ambulance to Goulburn Base Hospital, where I received treatment for about a week.
165. In May 2009, I was first transferred to the Alexander Maconochie Centre. I was initially placed in the management unit as a non-association prisoner. Again, being a non-association prisoner meant that I was in the area with the worst prisoners. They continually harassed and threatened me.
166. Eleven weeks later, I was moved to cell 3 in "the Cottage". The usual harassment continued.
167. One of the prisoners was particularly bad, and he was eventually moved to another pod because of his harassment of me. Unfortunately, one of his friends took his cell in my pod. He immediately began harassing and threatening me for getting his friend moved. He let his friend back into our pod, so that he could attack me. I pressed the emergency button. I was rescued by the officers, and they were both moved out of my pod.
168. The harassment became even worse. Prisoners would yell out day and night abuse like "dog" and "c---", making barking and other dog noises and making gestures to indicate they were cutting their throats.
169. There was an internal order made that I not be allowed to associate with some of the prisoners, but some of the prison officers refused to acknowledge the order. Eventually, I had to be moved out of the cottage and back into the management unit with the "limited association" prisoners.
170. On one occasion in 2010, the prison officers got me out of my cell to make a phone call in the Management Unit. They forgot to lock one of the other cells which was occupied by a particularly violent prisoner, [redacted]. In the middle of my phone call, the prisoner suddenly opened his cell door and with the door ajar, said to me, "See, the screws f--- up all the time. I could have got you, but I didn't. Remember that for next time."
171. After about the first two years or so at the Alexander McConachie Centre, prison life started to improve a bit. Up to then it was just as bad as New South Wales prisons.
172. I was allowed to study for a Certificate 4 in Training and Assessment. That would allow me to tutor fellow prisoners. This was very exciting for me as I had always wanted to have a job in prison, but I had not been able to get one in the previous fifteen years.
173. Between June 2009 and 2012, I made three applications to the ACT Government for release on licence. None of them was successful.
174. By the time I made the third application, I had obtained a Certificate 4 in Training and Assessment and been given a full-time job as an English tutor. My third application was supported by statements from nine prison officers which were submitted to the ACT Government.
175. The rejection of the third application was devastating. I was 67 years of age. I had been in prison for 17 years. I could see no reason why the government would knock back my application. It seemed nothing I could say or do would make any difference. After the third rejection, I doubted that any application for release on licence would ever be seriously considered or granted.
176. In 2011, I was moved to one of the two medical cells at Alexander McConachie. The cells were intended for prisoners needing short-term overnight medical care, but had remained empty. My cell was slightly bigger than a normal cell and had a bigger shower recess, and I was away from the general population. This made me feel safer, especially at night, and I was able to get more sleep.
177. At about that time, one of the prison officers, [redacted], gave me a gardening job. I turned one of the prison gardens into a Japanese Garden.
178. During the whole time of my imprisonment, I only ever really had regular visits from lawyers. I only ever had about 20 personal visits.
179. A former school friend who I had not seen since my days at Riverview visited me on one occasion when I was at Maitland. When I was transferred to Canberra, I started getting visits from a very nice Christian lady who had read about my plight and came to offer her sympathy. I still have regular contact with her and her husband. I also had some visits from an ex-girlfriend.
180. I refused to take visits from my sister, Janet. I felt too much shame to let her visit me in gaol.
181. I have lived with harassment through the whole of the time since 1989 until the last two years or so at the Alexander Maconachie Centre.
182. The harassment started during the criminal investigation.
183. Early on, the head of the investigating team came to my unit for some reason. At one point, he actually had his foot in my door, preventing me from shutting it and he said, "David, we've been checking your background and everything. We've been talking to your doctors, and we know everything about you. Do you know what I'm worried about, David? I'm worried that with the stress of it all, you will crack up and you're going to be committed to an institution and this case will never be solved. I hope you're taking good care of yourself, David."
184. From the very beginning of the investigation, I started getting endless nuisance telephone calls, day and all hours of the night. I changed my silent number again and again, but the calls continued. The telephone calls were intense for a couple of years to the point that I started taking the phone off the hook during the night.
185. Some were silent calls. Some were threatening where they said things like, "Go on, you killed once. Kill again you murdering c---". They might say silly things like, "Can I order a pizza, please". Sometimes there would be the sounds of birds tweeting like someone was playing a recording.
186. The telephone calls were so constant that I got to know the voices. Some of them had what I would call signature bad language or phrases. One of the people who was making some of these calls was a person who later achieved a very high position in the Australian Federal Police. I met him once, and I recognised the voice, the words, and his manner of speaking.
187. The other form of harassment was the constant, 24 hours a day "surveillance". There seemed to be a whole squad of undercover officers working in shifts that followed me everywhere that I went. They would get very close to me and make themselves obvious. I came to know and remember the faces and the registration numbers of the cars.
188. When I walked down the road, unmarked police vehicles would drive slowly along the road as I walked. The drivers or passengers in the vehicle would get my attention, make eye contact and do gun or throat slashing gestures with their hand. If I ignored them, they would blow their horns or flash their headlights.
189. There was someone following me on foot everywhere I went. There was always someone walking close to me and someone else a little further away, but obviously following me. They would make eye contact and smile. Sometimes they would talk to me and with a sarcastic smile, say things like, "Hello David, how are you, David?". Sometimes they would be close to me and make gestures with their hand as if they were shooting me in the head.
190. At one stage, I started riding a bicycle everywhere. When I did that, they also got bicycles.
191. There was always a car at the front of my house and out the front of everywhere I went.
192. Being followed everywhere was driving me crazy. There was no respite or sanctuary.
193. My flat was bugged, and I had a camera trained at my door.
194. I was told about the bug by one of my solicitors. At the time, we were having conferences at my home because my leg was in plaster. He came to my house one night and told me he had been drinking at the Travelodge Hotel that used to be on Northbourne Avenue and that he bumped into some of the investigation team. A woman went up to him and said, "It's nice to put a face to the voice". He said that he questioned her about what she meant and she said, "I work for the AFP. I'm a typist there, and I've been typing up the transcripts of the bug in your client's flat".
195. One camera was installed on the roof of a block of flats opposite mine. I saw the workman installing it. It was a pretty big camera, and the sun shone off the lens at certain times of the day. About two years into the investigation, I climbed up and pointed the camera away. I don't know whether it was ever functional. I suspect now that they intended me to see it and that it was part of the harassment.
196. During the time I was on the bail granted by Justice Gallop, the Crown made an application to have my bail revoked. The Crown produced some evidence of me throwing pebbles at some of the police cars and phone calls which I had made to members of the ACT Legislative Assembly complaining about the harassment. I made repeated complaints to the Police about the harassment but nothing was done.
197. I was self-represented during the application. I protested that it was a deliberate setup and that they were trying to provoke me.
198. I presented the court with scores of colour photographs that I had taken on an instant camera that I started taking with me everywhere that I went. I kept diaries and wrote down the registration numbers of the vehicles. I worked out that the squad consisted of a total of about 30 officers working in shifts with approximately eight being on duty at any one time.
199. I subpoenaed the head of the surveillance squad of the Australian Federal Police. I got to cross-examine him, and he admitted that all of the vehicles that I identified, except one, which was a Telstra vehicle, were from the surveillance squad. He admitted that the photographs that I took were of officers from the surveillance squad. He said that the officers were under strict instructions to remain covert at all times. After being shown about 15 colour photographs of the surveillance officers close to me, he couldn't explain how I could have taken the photos if they had been instructed to remain covert at all times.
200. The judge did not revoke my bail.
201. At least one of my lawyers was also harassed by the investigators. The harassment included an abusive call during the night from someone high up in the investigating team.
202. Towards the end of the second coronial inquest, I had warning from the media that the coroner was about to commit me for trial. When they came to arrest me, I knew that they were coming. I made sure that I was dignified, and I didn't resist.
203. The harassment continued even during my trial. [Redacted] was seated in the well of the Court while a jury was being selected. He was sitting immediately behind me. He was one of the officers who harassed me in the time leading up to the trial. I turned around to put a tissue in a bin behind me. As I did so, [redacted] said, "you f---ing murderer."
204. There were other similar incidents throughout the trial when AFP officers who had been involved in harassing me would place themselves in the courtroom in my direct line of sight. They stared at me and smirked at me during the trial itself.
205. This harassment escalated after my bail was revoked. At that time, the cells beneath the Court were staffed by the AFP. When I would go down to the cells during adjournments, I would find the same AFP officers who had been harassing me in the pre-trial period supervising me in the cells.
206. By the time the trial started, I was in a poor state of mental health.
207. After the High Court decision, I persisted with the applications for an Inquiry and eventually succeeded. An Inquiry was ordered on 3 September 2012 by Justice Marshall. I was the moving party on the application and it was opposed by the DPP.
208. The Inquiry by Justice Martin went on for some months. I was represented at the Inquiry. The DPP and the AFP had representation at the Inquiry.
209. I attended the Inquiry by audio-visual link.
210. I was astonished by what came out during the Inquiry. I couldn't believe that I had been convicted in the circumstances which were being revealed during the Inquiry. I felt devastated and empty by what came out.
211. By the time the Inquiry was drawing to a close I felt some hope. I thought that it might go my way.
212. It was a hard blow when the DPP brought its challenge to the whole of the Inquiry before the Report was handed down. I couldn't believe that this was happening.
213. After my conviction was quashed, I started to think that I could get on with what was left of my life. By that time, I was 68 years of age.
214. Then the DPP announced that I was to be put through the whole ordeal again. I thought, surely I have been through enough already. It took me right back to when I was first charged.
215. There were four years between the announcement of the DPP and the jury's acquittal of me.
216. It is very hard for me to describe my feelings during that time. I didn't think I could feel any lower. It all just seemed so unreal. In many ways, I just didn't know what to think. I had been in prison for 19 and a half years. An Inquiry had brought to the surface matters about my charging and trial which I found devastating. I had had my conviction quashed. In some ways, I thought that the whole of the process of being tried again must be happening to somebody else.
217. I guess the turning point came when the jury handed down its verdict.
218. I often look back at what had happened to me and my family during the whole time since I was charged. Three members of my family died while I was in gaol; my twin sisters, Elizabeth and Patricia and my mother. I didn't go to any of their funerals. I would have been too traumatic. I couldn't bear the thought of going in a prison van, handcuffed and accompanied by corrective services officers, then coming back to gaol again. Family was central to me.
219-223 [redacted]
224. Since I was released, I have tried to find work without success. I want to work in research, and I have applied for work with the Australian National University and the University of Canberra.
225. I have sent my curriculum vitae to 6 recruitment agencies. The only referee I could get was my work supervisor from the Alexander Maconochie Centre. I have not had any requests for interviews or any telephone calls from any of them yet.
226. If I could get a job, I feel like I could work for at least another 10 years. I just feel that I want to work. I feel that I must do something to make up for all those wasted years.
227. I would like to travel and experience the world. I know so little of a world that has changed so much during the 20 years that I was in prison. I struggle with what people can do with mobile phones, computers, email, and the Internet.
228. I would like to meet someone and have a lasting relationship. Someone to spend my remaining years with.
229. Since my acquittal, strangers have approached me on the street on several occasions and asked me if I was David Eastman. I said yes, and they said something like, "I want you to know how happy I am that you were finally proven innocent. I hope you can get on with your life now."
230. That gives me hope for the future.
Dated: 3 June 2019
D.H. Eastman
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- Support is available for those who may be distressed by phoning Lifeline 13 11 14; Mensline 1300 789 978; Kids Helpline 1800 551 800; beyondblue 1300 224 636; 1800-RESPECT 1800 737 732.