NSW: Prisoner took pleasure in describing homicidal urge - court

AAP General News (Australia)
08-27-2009
NSW: Prisoner took pleasure in describing homicidal urge - court

By Josh Jerga

SYDNEY, Aug 27 AAP - Three days before a prisoner killed his cellmate, he took pleasure
in telling a psychologist he wanted to bash someone in the head with half a brick, a Sydney
inquest has been told.

Long Bay prison inmate Craig Behr, 24, died of severe head injuries on March 27, 2004
after being beaten by the man he was put into a cell with less than an hour before.

Michael Allan Heatley, a convicted armed robber, pleaded guilty to manslaughter over
Behr's killing and was jailed for that crime in 2006.

In an interview with Heatley on March 24, 2004, forensic psychologist Dannielle Matsuo
said he told her "he wanted to kill someone" and that he "had homicidal urges".

In the report Ms Matsuo subsequently wrote, read to Glebe Coroner's Court on Thursday,
she stated Heatley took pleasure in his urges to kill.

"He took pleasure to describe how he wanted to kill someone and how that urge felt,"

the report stated.

Heatley then remarked: "my little secret's out now".

Ms Matsuo noted her belief that Heatley would not need to be provoked into killing
someone and posed a genuine risk to other inmates.

"My opinion was he could not guarantee me, by his thoughts or verbalisation of those
thoughts, that he would not follow through with those thoughts," she told the inquest.

Immediately after the interview, Ms Matsuo recommended to officers that Heatley be
placed in a one-man cell.

"There was two officers and I verbally informed them that he was not a risk to himself
but a risk to others and (should) be put into a one-out cell," she said.

Deputy State Coroner Malcolm McPherson is examining whether it was reasonable for corrective
services officers to then lock Behr in the same cell as Heatley.

The inquest continues.

AAP jsj/hn/dep/de

KEYWORD: BEHR

2009 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.