ANTIQUATED CELLS

Southland Times, Issue 22157, 27 October 1933, Page 2

ANTIQUATED CELLS

SYDNEY “DUNGEONS.” OLD-TIME DARLINGHURST. The acting-Chief 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 acquitted, who passed before the Judges went away and were not seen again by the Judges or the juries or the Court officials. He felt that possibly when a Judge had dealt with a case, wiped his pen, and called for the next case, he had not made a very good fist of it. Nevertheless, great advances had been made. It was not generally known that in the courthouse at Darlinghurst, where most of the criminal cases were tried, there were to-day cells which were unfit for any human beings ever 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 the 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 the working of Darlinghurst Gaol when it was the principal penal establishment, says that the cells to which the acting-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 were not used.