EXCLUSIVE How Pheobe Bishop's alleged killers will be treated in jail - as a criminologist warns they'll be a target of 'convict justice'

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Pheobe Bishop's alleged murderers will have to be isolated from other prisoners to protect them from 'convict justice', a leading criminologist says.
Pheobe, 17, went missing near Queensland's Bundaberg Airport about 8.30am on May 15 after booking a trip to WA to visit her boyfriend. On Friday, officers discovered what were believed to be the teenager's remains near Goodnight Scrub National Park.
The teen's housemates, James Wood, 34, and Tanika Bromley, 33, have been charged with her murder, three weeks after she missed her flight and vanished. Police say they moved her body more than once.
Neither Wood nor Bromley appeared when the case was mentioned in Bundaberg Magistrates Court on Friday, and both were still being held in custody in a police watch house on Tuesday afternoon.
They have not entered pleas and are expected to be sent to jail on remand. A Queensland Police Service spokesperson declined to comment while the matter was before the courts.
Dr Vincent Hurley, a criminologist at Macquarie University who was a NSW police officer and negotiator for 30 years, told Daily Mail Australia the pair would be under massive 'anticipatory stress' while they await being sent to jail.
'They will be terrified of the unknown, so that anticipatory stress, along with things like poor nutrition, fear of ramifications for family, and just the sheer danger, will emotionally exhaust them,' Dr Hurley said.
'I anticipate they'll be put into protective custody because of the age of the girl, Pheobe.
'That means they'll be further isolated from the mainstream prison population. They'll be housed in a different wing, exercise and take their meals at different times.
'What would be considered a normal life in prison - they'll be at the extreme end of that situation.'
Dr Hurley said Wood and Bromley will have to be housed in protective custody with other inmates at risk of harm for the full extent of their time in jail in order to prevent acts of 'convict justice' being carried out on them.
'In jail, those accused of murdering a child are held in even lower esteem than a police informant,' he said.
'Under the social norms of jails, they will have a target on their backs and hardened criminals will try to flog them within an inch of their life.'
Dr Hurley also predicted that Bromley would have a more difficult time in a women's prison than her partner, Wood, in a men's facility.
'She'll be treated far worse than he will be,' he said.
'Some of the inmates will be mothers with children of similar ages to Pheobe.'
Dr Hurley's grim prediction comes after Pheobe's mum Kylie Johnson urged the Gin Gin community to 'respect' Bromley's family following the charges against her.
At a candlelight vigil for her daughter on Sunday, Ms Johnson called on the local community to remain peaceful and said her daughter would want people to show 'compassion'.
'I also want to remind our community - a very important reminder - and this is imperative for our family and for us to move forward in our healing,' she said.
Bromley cares for two children, including one living with a disability, as part of a shared custody arrangement.
Ms Johnson continued: 'I know Tanika has been charged. I know her family live within our community and I expect them to receive respect... those kids mean the world to us as a family.
'They meant the world to Pheobe as a family as well. It is imperative to us, as a family, that they are supported just as much as us. They are hurting probably more than us, even though we have lost our child.
'But I really need you to know that Pheobe's compassion would have reached that depth.
'There is to be no anger or hate towards that family.'
Ms Johnson read out two poems in memory of her 'gypsy warrior' daughter and shared how Pheobe 'always sung her own tune' and 'lived to the fullest'.