NSW: Paedophile bashed in prison fails to win damages

AAP General News (Australia)
12-02-2003
NSW: Paedophile bashed in prison fails to win damages

By Kim Arlington

SYDNEY, Dec 2 AAP - The NSW Department of Corrective Services was not liable for injuries
suffered by a convicted paedophile bashed in jail, a Sydney court ruled today.

Peter Andrew Bujdoso served two-and-a-half years in prison for sexually assaulting
a boy over a period of 15 months, when the boy was aged 14 and 15.

He sued the Department of Corrective Services after masked assailants wielding iron
bars bashed him at Silverwater Jail on September 21, 1991.

Bujdoso, 51, claimed the department failed to provide adequate supervision and protection,
but today lost his case and was ordered to pay costs.

The NSW District Court heard that, while in jail, Bujdoso was taunted as a "rock spider"

- prison slang for paedophile - and in March 1991 escaped injury when attacked by another
prisoner.

In September 1991, he was part of Silverwater's work release program, where inmates
were under minimal supervision because they were trusted to work in the community.

Bujdoso gave evidence that, on the night of the assault, three or four men wearing
balaclavas forced their way into his cell.

He said his brain "felt like jelly" after they beat him with iron bars, spraying the
walls and floors with blood.

Bujdoso spent four days in Westmead Hospital with a fractured skull, broken thumb and
other injuries.

For his own safety he was later transferred to a different prison until his release
in August 1992.

Delivering his judgment today, Judge Harvey Cooper acknowledged that, as a paedophile,
Bujdoso was the kind of person despised by fellow inmates and could be subjected to physical
violence.

But he found the department had not breached its duty of care and was right to place
Bujdoso in the work release program to increase his prospects of rehabilitation.

Judge Cooper said the only way to stop prisoners being assaulted by other inmates was
to place them in protective custody, and Bujdoso had refused such protection.

Judge Cooper noted that while many people inside and outside prison believed paedophiles
"deserve whatever punishment they receive ... such an attitude is not only immoral but
is also contrary to the law".

"Offenders go to prison as punishment and not for punishment," Judge Cooper said.

AAP ka/sd/tma/br

KEYWORD: BUJDOSO

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