Everard Mitchell and Jack Nelson went to jail
A typical day at work
Barry Morgan was a real prick. Everyone thought so. He was late arriving and had missed both site induction and the sensitivity workshops, then wanting to get straight on with the job drove straight across the old burial ground to the mine head.
Everard was coming along in the road grader. As Morgan pulled up outside the office he drove the grader straight over the top of the Subaru, the blade neatly taking off the roof before the big rear wheels squashed the car flat. The man only had time to roll out sideways onto the gravel verge else his head would have come clean off with the roof.
Even then he barely had time to stand when a spear whistled past his ear, then Jackie was on top of him with his woomera whacking him about the head and shoulders before the mine manager and his chief engineer were out of the office and dragged him off.
The ghost gums along the dry river bed watched silently when eventually the district magistrate set up his court outside, under the shade. The day was stiflingly hot so nothing much was said. Neither made any attempt to defend himself; pleading guilty on all charges including attempted murder, assault, actual bodily harm, destruction of property, disturbing the peace, and so on.
Taking the aggravated nature of the attack into account, the real problem was that Morgan was on contract through a subsidiary and had taken out a mortgage on a new house in Brisbane. He refused to leave. A flurry of phone calls to head office found no vacancy for him either, but they guessed he already knew that. He had a reputation. This was his last chance and he had tied the deal up nice and tight just in case.
When he finished this last tour of duty, he explained, he wanted to find himself a nice woman and settle down to raise a family. What was wrong with that?
Everard got seven years with a four year non-parole period and Jack five, out in two with good behaviour.
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