OLD-TIME CELLS

Hokitika Guardian, 29 September 1933, Page 8

OLD-TIME CELLS

IN SYDNEY GAOL The acting-Clfief Justice of New South Wales, Sir John Harvey, speaking recently in Sydney at a meeting of the Prisoners’ Aid Association, described “the dungeon at Darlinghurst Courthouse.” His Honour said that most of the people, whether convicted or acquitcd, who passed before the Judges went away and were not seen again by the Judges or the juries of the Court officials. He felt that possibly when a Judge had dealt with a case, wiped his pen and called for the next ease,he had not made a very good fist of it. Nevertheless, great advances had been made. It was not generally known that ill tho courthouse at Darlinghurst, where most o-f the criminal cases were tried, there, were to-day cells which were unfit for any human beings over to be in.

These cells, said Sir John, had not been used for years, and he did not know any living person in the precincts of the Court who had seen them used. They were dungeons, which were open to tbe light and air only by an aperture above. How they came to be constructed as recently as they were he did not know-. No doubt, he added, there were many habitual offenders past the aid of the association, but there were also many of them who long ago would not have become habitual offenders if the association had been in existence

A prominent- official, who had experience of tlie working of Dai linghurst Gaol when it was the principal penal estub'isbment, savs that the cells fo which the aoting-Chief Justice referred were off the underground passage, and were used only while prisoners on the day of trial were waiting to be taken to the Court rooms. In any case, the men were not kept there very long. To-day they are not used.