Top judge blasts system failures after veteran’s prison ordeal

Surging into a Taliban compound in Afghanistan, elite Australian soldier Christopher Finn saw his hero and commander shot and killed in front of him.

Highly decorated Cameron Baird, VC, had shoved past Finn that fatal day in 2013 as they entered the building.

Under fire, Finn assumed control of the team, retreating to safety with Baird’s body.

It is one of the many traumatic flashbacks Finn now suffers with on the floor of a Queensland jail.

In another incident, Finn’s fellow soldier and mate was blown to pieces after he stepped on a concealed bomb. Finn, who was walking three metres in front of his mate at the time, later had to have his friend’s bone fragments surgically removed from his neck.

Finn, who grew up in NSW before joining the Australian Army, completed three tours of Afghanistan and was deployed to East Timor during his highly commended career.

When he arrived back home though, Finn had little access to the help veterans often require.

As a result of the trauma overseas, Finn’s lawyer and psychologist say he developed severe complex PTSD, depression and anxiety. He has since pleaded guilty to drug offences, including trafficking, amid the grip of his severe mental illness.

Finn’s other offences include being found by police to have a loaded gun in the waistband of his pants.

Finn, 35, now sleeps in an overcrowded cell at Woodford Correctional Centre, a maximum security prison north of Brisbane, on the floor with his head against a toilet.

The prison is full of hardened criminals and gangs, and because of overcrowding, Finn must share a one-person cell with another inmate. He has been forced to join a gang to stay safe.

As an intense political war wages on regarding youth crime, overcrowding, and full jails, Supreme Court judge Peter Applegarth lambasted the system, in which Finn has no access to the specialised PTSD treatment he requires.

Amid a 20-page judgment, Applegarth bluntly said: “Prison overcrowding makes our community less safe”.

This week, a Townsville magistrate granted bail to 13 children, prompting fierce debate in the legal and political sectors. The Police Minister said the decision may have been made because there was no room at the nearby youth detention centres.

A day later, Applegarth delivered a judgment in which he said overcrowding makes the rehabilitation of the mentally ill within prison harder, and inadequate treatment of mental conditions of individuals in custody overburdens parole officers upon the offender’s release.

During his 14 years as a judge, he said the typical sentence for Finn’s type of street-level trafficking had drifted from three to four years, to four to five years.

“One consequence of steadily increasing sentences for street-level drug dealing is its contribution to prison overcrowding and the perceived necessity to build more prisons,” Applegarth said.

“... But the grim experience of the United States in recent decades in building more prisons to accommodate more prisoners is a reason for our community to reflect on whether it can imprison its way out of the social blight of drug offending, and, even if it could, what the social and economic cost of doing so would be.”

Applegarth said it is the executive government, not the courts, who decide on priorities and resource allocations in the criminal justice system. His comment comes after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk recently told the courts to “do their job” during an announcement of tougher penalties for child criminals.

“It [government] decides whether to build more prisons or more secure rehabilitation centres for mentally ill offenders like Mr Finn, who are motivated to rehabilitate themselves and have the character to do so,” Applegarth said, adding he hoped the decisions were based on evidence accumulated by social scientists and bodies like the Queensland Productivity Commission about what works best to rehabilitate people.

“It remains to be seen whether, by the time Mr Finn reaches the last part of his terms of imprisonment, government resources will be spent on building even more prisons or, instead, be spent on secure rehabilitation centres in which offenders released on parole are securely accommodated, rather than drifting through the community in search of accommodation.”

Applegarth adjourned Finn’s sentencing to a later date, to allow time for Corrective Services to move Finn to another jail where he can access the required mental health treatment and to finalise an appropriate plan for him.

If you need help, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, or Open Arms on 1800 011 046.