Man jailed after meeting bikies in pub says warders oppose harsh Qld laws

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/16/man-jailed-meeting-bikies-pub

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A man who was held in solitary confinement in Queensland for meeting alleged bikies at a pub has said the warders in his jail are opposed to the harsh anti-bikie laws.

Joshua Carew, 30, became known as one of the Yandina 5 when he was arrested in December after police viewed footage of him socialising at a pub with four other alleged members of the Rebel bikie gang. Under the state’s anti-bikie laws three or more bikies are not allowed to meet in a public place.

Carew denies he is a member of the Rebels and says he was delivering pizza to the Sunshine Coast pub when he was caught on CCTV cameras. The other men arrested were Carew’s boss, who owns a pizza parlour, a renderer, a truck driver and an IT student.

Before being granted bail on Tuesday when the supreme court overturned the initial decision not to release him, Carew spent a month in solitary confinement.

Carew spent 23 hours a day in his cell at Arthur Gorrie correctional centre. He was allowed a radio and a six-minute phone call each day and has told of how he talked to himself to try to stay sane.

“Most of them [the jail employees] thought it was unfair, some of the employees at the correctional centre said ‘I could be an associate because I’ve been on a bike run’,” he said.

“They would say it was unfair I was being held in solitary confinement, or arrested at all, but at the end of the day they’re being paid to do a job and they have to do the job.”

Carew spent four days in the mainstream jail before being moved to solitary confinement and said inmates could be completely changed by the experience.

“If a screw [correctional officer] talks to you the wrong way you end up taking the littlest thing and you’ll keep it to yourself and it will build up and build up and build up and build up. You can brew on it for 48 hours and then that screw is back again. You start thinking the wrong thoughts from the littlest things,” he said.

Carew said a correctional officer would glance at him and he would spend days stewing on it.

“You start making it all up in your own head, he might have just glanced through the window and you just start thinking ‘he’s not going to give me a phone call’, it can go on and on,” he said.

Carew said the hardest moments came when it was time for his daily phone call and he would dial the number but nobody would pick up.

“It’s pretty hard, you spend a lot of time talking to yourself. I ended up taking medication because I couldn’t sleep at night, you just talk to yourself that much, you just go round in circles and start going bananas in your own head,” he said.

“You’re cut off from contact from the outside world and you’re told when you can make the phone call and then the call doesn’t answer or they just don’t pick up, you just don’t know what’s going on. A million things go through your head. How’s your family? You start answering your own questions.”

While Carew was being held in solitary confinement online support for him was growing with the Facebook page Free the Yandina 5 attracting more than 13,000 likes.

Carew says his brother-in-law and father-in-law – who he lives with – are bikies but he has never been part of the gang. He has previously faced drug trafficking charges and was fined in 2012 for possession of speed, ammunition and a loaded semi-automatic pistol which he told police he kept for protection.

In the wake of the decision to grant Carew and four others bail, Queensland’s premier, Campbell Newman, said he hoped to repeal the anti-bikie laws within three years though they were “necessary” for now.

"That's the intention of the government, to have a three-year review and they go," he told reporters in Cairns.

"The sooner we can get rid of them the better but it starts by seeing us getting rid of the gangs."

In a written decision, Supreme Court Justice John Byrne said Carew's risk of re-offending was "not unacceptable".

He acknowledged there was a risk he would commit a serious drug offence if released on bail.

But Justice Byrne said that because Carew's trial was imminent there was not much time for him to re-offend, and Carew's "anxiety not to return to solitary confinement" was a "substantial incentive" not to offend.

"All considered, the risk of re-offending, though real, is not unacceptable," he said.

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