More time for prisoner over ‘vicious’ jail bashing

A young prisoner who helped lure another inmate to a garden before beating and stabbing the man with a dinner knife has had three years added to his sentence.

Jack Hall, 23, faced the Supreme Court in Melbourne on Monday March 27 after pleading guilty to intentionally causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence over an August 2020 jail bashing.

He was at Barwon Prison awaiting sentencing for driving at police officers in Geelong during a crime spree earlier that year, when he and another prisoner, Daniel Condon, ambushed fellow inmate Derek Collett.

On August 14, Condon and Hall asked Collett “is your name Derek” and then told him to walk with them towards the prison chapel, the court was told.

As they walked down a path in the chapel garden together, Hall swung a clenched fist at Collett, knocking him to the ground.

While Collett lay face down on the ground, Condon pulled out a sharpened metal dinner knife and stabbed him to the lower back and abdomen nine times.

Hall kicked, punched and stomped on Collett while he was being stabbed.

After the beating the pair told him: “Stay down you dog and die.”

Collett was rushed to hospital and required emergency surgery. He would not have survived without being operated on and continues to suffer psychological harm from the attack.

Justice Jane Dixon condemned the bashing as a “vicious and cruel attack on an unsuspecting prisoner” as she added three years onto Hall’s sentence.

His five-year sentence and nine-month term for the Geelong crime spree was extended to eight years and nine months.

“If you’re not granted parole you will have served most of your twenties in prison,” Justice Dixon said.

Hall will be eligible for parole after serving six years.

Condon was last year sentenced to another eight years in prison for the attack.