William John O'Meally (born Joseph Thompson; 25 November 1920 in

Young, New South Wales Young is a town in the South West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia and the largest town in the Hilltops Region. The "Lambing Flat" Post Office opened on 1 March 1861 and was renamed "Young" in 1863. Young is marketed as the Cherry Ca ...

– 1995 in rural Queensland) was an Australian criminal, notorious as the last man to be flogged in Victoria.

Early life

O'Meally was born Joseph Thompson and was the second of four children. When he was aged 11 the family moved to Sydney. The marriage of his parents soon dissolved and he became a ward of the state. He left that care when aged 14. O'Meally claimed to be the grandson of Johnie O'Meally a member of

Ben Hall's gang Ben is frequently used as a shortened version of the given names Benjamin, Benedict, Bennett or Benson, and is also a given name in its own right. Ben (in he, בֶּן, ''son of'') forms part of Hebrew surnames, e.g. Abraham ben Abraham ( he, ...

. It is unclear when he changed his name. On his own he was soon in trouble. He was sentenced to two days hard labour for riding on a train without a ticket. In June 1936 he was convicted of assaulting a policeman. As a result, he was classified as "uncontrollable" and sent to Gosford Reformatory. He escaped but was lost for a week in the mangroves on the

Hawkesbury River The Hawkesbury River, or Hawkesbury-Nepean River, is a river located northwest of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Hawkesbury River and its associated main tributary, the Nepean River, almost encircle the metropolitan region of Sydney. ...

. As a juvenile he received a number of convictions for assault, housebreaking and riotous behaviour. Before 1952 he had 42 convictions including five for assaulting police.

Murder of Howell

On the night of 30 January 1952 Constable George Howell was working at the Malvern East Police Station. He was unarmed when he left the station on a bicycle to patrol the area around the Crystal Palace Theatre, Caulfield where there had been a number of thefts from cars. Howell was 21 years old and due to be married on 26 February. When Howell arrived at the cinema he saw a man loitering near the parked cars. When the young constable approached him, the man dropped his torch and a set of car keys and ran. Constable Howell grabbed the man but the man shook him off and continued to flee. Howell chased the man and caught up with him. The man turned and shot George Howell once, in the stomach, at point-blank range. Howell died on 1 February 1952. O'Meally was charged with the murder. He had been released from prison in May 1951 after serving six months for the assault of another policeman. O'Meally claimed to be innocent of the murder. He claimed that the police had conspired to "frame" him. He said he knew who the murderers were but would not name them. O'Meally claimed that he was at home with his wife in Bonbeach. His wife supported that claim. Coincidentally, Constable Howell had also lived in Bonbeach. O'Meally claimed that, because he and Howell were known to each other Howell would have identified him before he died. After 10 days of evidence from 41 witnesses the jury took four hours to find O'Meally guilty. He cried as the verdict was delivered, and again denied his guilt. O'Meally was sentenced to hang for the murder of the policeman. This was commuted by the new State Labor government to ""imprisonment for the full term of his life without any remissions whatsoever and without the benefit of the regulations relating to the remission of sentences", that is, life without parole. In 1955 O'Meally escaped from H Division of

Pentridge Prison HM Prison Pentridge was an Australian prison that was first established in 1851 in Coburg, Victoria. The first prisoners arrived in 1851. The prison officially closed on 1 May 1997. Pentridge was often referred to as the "Bluestone College", " ...

. He was re-captured the same day, in

Coburg Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it ...

, not far from the prison.

Escape of 1957

In March 1957 O'Meally again escaped from Pentridge. With an accomplice, John Henry Taylor, who was armed with a .38 automatic handgun, he ran through the main gates of the gaol. Chief Penal officer Robert Davis tried to stop them and was shot in the thigh, breaking his femur. O'Meally then took the firearm and engaged in a gun battle with warders. They were re-captured 13 minutes after escaping. On 31 October 1957 Mr Justice Hudson told O'Meally and Taylor; "You are both clearly beyond hope of reform. Simply to sentence you to a further term of imprisonment would be to impose a totally inadequate form of punishment, and would provide no real deterrent against further attacks of a like character." They were sentenced to 10 more years in gaol. In O'Meally's case, this added nothing to his sentence. Both were also sentenced to 12 strokes of the

cat o'nine tails The cat o' nine tails, commonly shortened to the cat, is a type of multi-tailed whip or flail that originated as an implement for severe physical punishment, notably in the Royal Navy and British Army, and as a judicial punishment in Britain ...

to be delivered in one session. This would be the first flogging since 1943. The order to flog O'Meally was appealed to the Supreme Court of Victoria and the High Court of Australia, both of whom upheld the order. The flogging was delivered on 1 April 1958. Taylor and O'Meally were the last men flogged in Victoria. O'Meally claimed that the flogging opened his rib cage, that he was placed back in his cell with open chest and back wounds, and was not given any medical attention. He said he took three months to recover. In June 1965 O'Meally's wife divorced him on the grounds of his imprisonment. From February 1966 O'Meally spent four and a half years breaking rocks. He was moved again when he assaulted a warder and broke the warder’s false teeth. He was also placed in solitary confinement for two weeks. O'Meally went on to become Victoria's longest serving prisoner. He served 27 years before being released on parole on 5 July 1979. The State Cabinet had accepted a recommendation of the Adult Parole Board. The State Governor, Sir Henry Winneke, ratified the decision. Sir Henry had led the prosecution of O'Meally at the 1952 murder trial. O'Meally was last heard of living in Queensland and according to relatives, died in 2011 in Brisbane at the age of 92. Osborne, "Pentridge: Behind The Bluestone Walls"

Notes

Sources

*"In Their Honour…", ''Journal of the Police Association'', Victoria, Volume 76 Issue 4 April 2010 *"Two Criminals To Be Whipped", ''The Advertiser'', Adelaide, 1 November 1957 *''Examiner'' (Launceston Tasmania), 24 May 1952 *Richardson, Hal; "O'Meally Sentenced to Death", ''The Argus'' Saturday 24 May 1952 *Sharpe, Alan, "The Man They Couldn't Break"; in ''25 True Australian Crimes'', Kingsclear Books, Sydney, 1997
Walsh, Geoff; “Lonely Lifer sees the Light of day”
''The Age'', 5 July 1979,
Willis, Richard, Murdoch, Lindsay & Comerford, Damien; “Freedom for O’Meally”
''The Age'', 5 July 1979, *Osborne, Don, "Pentridge: Behind The Bluestone Walls", Echo Publishing, Sydney, 2015 {{DEFAULTSORT:OMeally, William John 1920 births 1995 deaths Australian people convicted of murder People from Young, New South Wales Australian people convicted of assault Australian prisoners sentenced to death Prisoners sentenced to death by Victoria (Australia) People paroled from life sentence Criminals from Sydney