Day, Mark Walter
Deceased
Mark Walter Day
Demographics
male
Date of death
2003-10-08
Finding date
2006-12-19
Cause of death
Pressure to the neck (asphyxiation) from murder by fellow prisoner Jason John Nixon
AI-generated summary
Mark Walter Day, a prisoner at Sir David Longland Correctional Centre in Brisbane, was murdered on 8 October 2003 by fellow prisoner Jason John Nixon during an exercise yard session. Nixon, who had previously murdered another prisoner, violently assaulted Day with soap bars in a sock and stood on his neck for approximately 11 minutes until he died from asphyxia (pressure to the neck). The coroner found no direct criminal liability of correctional staff but identified serious systemic failures: the correctional services officer (CSO Smith) assigned to monitor the exercise yard via CCTV failed to watch the monitors during the 14-minute attack, and Nixon was not properly searched before entering the yard. While supervised association between the two prisoners was reasonable, the actual supervision completely failed. Disciplinary action was taken against three officers. The Department subsequently implemented new procedures for maximum security unit operations and prisoner association protocols.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Error types
Contributing factors
- Failure to monitor exercise yard via CCTV by correctional services officer CSO Smith between 10:30am and 11:02am
- Failure to properly search prisoner Nixon in accordance with relevant policies before allowing him into the exercise yard
- False entries made in search logs indicating Nixon had been searched when he had not been
- No intervention during 14-minute violent attack despite video surveillance capability
Coroner's recommendations
- Commencement of show cause and/or disciplinary action against the officer who failed to adequately monitor prisoners in the exercise yard
- Commencement of show cause and/or disciplinary action against officers who failed to adequately search prisoners and made false entries in search logs; consider referring potential breaches to Queensland Police Service
- Full internal audit of Maximum Security Unit including review of management, monitoring and reporting systems to establish compliance with legislation, policies and procedures
- Review of current policies and procedures for operation of Maximum Security Units to develop more specific policies recognising heightened security and management risks
- Review of policies and procedures relating to prisoner association to incorporate wider range of risk factors when determining safety of prisoner associations
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