Claims cigarettes, dessert were denied to inmates during pandemic behind fire-setting in riot, court hears

A Supreme Court Justice has strongly criticised a “substantial, unjustifiable” delay in the case of a man involved in a prison riot during the pandemic.

Norman Robert Collier, 31, was one of the inmates being held at the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) in November 2020.

He appeared via audio-visual link before Justice Louise Taylor in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday (31 October) for sentencing on charges of arson and damaging property.

Collier was one of the inmates involved in the lighting of five fires in the AMC to protest COVID-19 restrictions and because detainees weren’t being given cigarettes or dessert.

Justice Taylor said the restrictions – such as limits around visitors and internal lockdowns – had “contributed to detainees being ‘pretty much on edge'”, while the lack of cigarettes or dessert left them feeling like they were being treated unfairly.

In response, a group of detainees decided to resist being locked in their cells that evening (10 November 2020), but it turned into a riot that lasted until the early hours of the following day.

The rioters started five fires, with Collier’s actions including adding material to fires and breaking a cabinet.

“The conduct the offender did engage in, I am satisfied, was deliberate,” she said.

A report into the fires found they caused $5.7 million of damage, which Justice Taylor described as being “significant and extensive” to the AMC.

“Arson is a very serious crime and the need for deterrence must be given substantial weight when an offender is sentenced,” Justice Taylor said.

While noting a delay in a police investigation or the legal process was “not in itself a mitigating factor”, Justice Taylor criticised the slow progress of Collier’s case.

The gap between the offending in November 2020 and his sentencing in October 2024 had placed him in an anxious state over his future, she said.

Collier has been in full-time custody since August 2020.

“There’s an incongruity between the seriousness of the crime and the leisurely progress of the criminal justice system, such that years pass before the matter first appears in court,” she said.

He is currently serving a sentence for assaulting and ‘jugging’ a fellow inmate in October 2020, which has a release date in January 2025. That sentence was handed down in February 2022.

The delay denied Collier the opportunity to have the charges “dealt with together”, she said.

During his time in custody, Justice Taylor noted he had shown a “commitment to rehabilitation”.

Collier had started using cannabis at a young age before using cocaine and methamphetamine. Before being arrested and taken into custody at the AMC, he was “frequently” using the latter.

Since becoming sober in custody, he had reached a “level of clarity that a significant period of sobriety has afforded him”.

He had also participated in a program that helped inmates get their driver licence, and was working in the NSW prison where he was being held to work off his fines.

Justice Taylor sentenced Collier to two years, ten months and six days of imprisonment, which would be suspended on 31 January 2025. He received a 10 per cent discount due to his “last minute” guilty plea.

“[The January date means] you are able to continue to work towards the release date that you have worked towards for some time,” she told him directly.

Justice Taylor said it was “just and appropriate” that he would not be spending more time in custody due to the “unexplained” delay.

“Now, years having passed, it is not just a hope of rehabilitation that would be crushed [if he was sentenced to more time in custody], but a demonstrated achievement of it that would suffer detriment,” she said.

Collier will also be subject to a good behaviour order until 30 January 2027.

He is the second person to be sentenced over involvement in the riot. Earlier this year, then-34-year-old George George was sentenced to a total of three years’ jail.