Whatever!
Julian Knight was never any underworld figure. Nor was pseudonym ‘Sly’ for that matter – it’s all in Silvester’s fake news propaganda for his celebrity status and relevance on Melbourne radio stations, Melbourne newspapers, and in print about Melbourne crime stories and featured the writing behind the TV series ‘Underbelly’.
Sly’s target of Julian Knight has been since 2014 being condemned a political prisoner and an ongoing victim of cult media by Silvester.
He can dish out the garbage slurs, but can the ‘head’ take blowback?
Julian was born and bred Aussie soldier and larrikin keen to fight for his country, but he was duped by ADF false promises of promotion from enlisted soldiering to ‘advance’ to Army officer status. But the ADF shutdown its true and proven Australian Army Office Cadet School (Portsea, in Victoria) in 1985 and so forcing officer cadets to attend Duntroon is politically correct Canberra. Canberra was always going to be the wrong place at the right time for Julian, but Duntroon was upsold by the ADF to him at the time. Julian was and remains ambitious, but not for rank, moreso military (Army) experience at the highest committed level in combat.
Duntroon never recognised the hardcore signs of Julian’s fearless and committed combat potential, nor his marksmanship nor his tenacity 24/7 to take crap, survive, plot, hide, wait and kill enemy (such as when in the Army ruthless with a trained targeted accurate fatal head shot) unexpected at the killers’ choice timing, like at 2:58 am.
That’s all yesteryear. Tragically Julian at aged just 18 during Duntroon training was criminally abused at its RMC Duntroon cultural bastardisation conditioning sheepish asylum in 1987 (January to May) till the cows (and moreso sheep) come home. The history is known. This website serves to be a testament explanatory hub to that. RMC Duntroon was and remains indubitably the ADF’s ‘underworld’ in many ways.
‘Sheep‘ in slang means:
“a timid, docile, and compliant person who blindly follows others without thinking critically, similar to how sheep are perceived to follow a flock. It’s a disapproving term used to imply a person lacks independence and is easily influenced or led by others.”
Such immoral training culture is otherwise referred to in academic management as ‘negative leadership’. It lead to Julian’s sad and so unnecessary 1987 Hoddle Street anti-social outburst against undeserving civilians going about their lives. Duntroon deserved a payback Fort Hood legacy instead.
The Duntroon bullying/bastardising senior cadets who vandalised SCT KNIGHT’S car at Duntroon in June 1987 should thank their corrupt lucky stars that they are still alive today. They were the legitimate targets of SCT KNIGHT’s revenge against their bastardisation torment, and though criminal, it would have been well justified.
Yet this ‘Sly’s’ a coward to go after defenceless prisoners denied a right of public reply and to not have the gall to go after the true culprits, to avoid the underlying truth by failing to investigate and expose Duntroon bastardisation, that indeed lead to Hoddle Street! Has Silvester ever copped a threatening bayonet by a military colleague at his chest, like Julian has?
Silvester would never had made acceptance into RMC Duntroon let alone acceptance as any worthy journalist into ABC Four Corners; but just fed ghastly publicity to those who agreed with him like opinionated Neil Mitchell. He with Mitchell are voices of ignorant scapegoat hate – for profit and media ego.
For instance , why didn’t Silvester uncover Ben Roberts-Smith, VC in his sustained ignorant persecution by the politically correct mainstream media back in insular Australia?
Reason: outside Silvester’s zone of interest – Melbourne. may be there is so much going on in Melbourne’s crime scene for decades that Silvester is busy enough. He’s found his columnist/authoring niche.
SCT Knight never got the chance for such combat skill, experience nor opportunity to perform selfless bravery in front of the enemy, not that he sought it. Then again CPL ROBERTS-SMITH never attended Duntroon; he had preferred to stay Army – a wiser move in hindsight.
Julian just pops up from time to time perhaps from the newspaper editors getting a tip-off from Port Phillip Prison staff set to be retrenched due the privately run prison’s government closure set by the end of 2025.
Silvester’s few articles to date…
[For clarity on this webpage, we put the articles inside French chevon parentheses (<< … >>), while we add in text commentary by The Knighthood in square brackets. At the end of these articles by John Silvester, we then critique and ‘fact check’ his articles line-by-line in detail. The articles are listed in reverse chronological order].
‘Hoddle Street killer Julian Knight is on the move’
by John Silvester, 26th September 26, 2025
<< Prison authorities and the government are facing a dilemma – what on earth are we going to do with Julian?
The Julian in question is Julian Knight who on August 9, 1987, went to Hoddle Street, Collingwood [The Knighthood: No, in 1987 it was the suburb of Clifton Hill and at a stretch the police chase for the shooter then extended into adjoining suburb of Fitzroy North. So get your facts right Silvester! In 2025, politics and council boundaries have long since changed and morphed like the crap ‘City of Yarra’ – thus so bloody irrelevant to Julian Knight of 1987, now an historical Melbourne figure of 38 years ago! Yes we note that there currently exists also a different unrelated Julian Knight MP as a politician in the UK. Got that!]
… and fired 200 rounds of military-standard ammunition [The Knighthood: Is that statistic a guess? … killing seven people, wounding 19 and shooting the police helicopter. He was 19 years old.
Knight pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life with a minimum of 27 years.
There was little outrage at such a tiny sentence for a mass killer back then, but as the time came for him to be eligible to apply for parole, the public mood had changed.
In 2014, the then Coalition state government brought in one-off legislation shutting the cell door – effectively banning him from parole.
“This is guaranteeing that he remains in jail until he’s dead, or so seriously incapacitated he’s no risk to other people in Victoria or indeed in the community,” then-premier Denis Napthine said.
As telling was the response from the Adult Parole Board two years earlier when Knight asked to be given an indication when he would be eligible for parole. General manager David Provan responded: “The board considers there is no prospect of an order for release on parole in the foreseeable future. In the board’s view, the prisoner continues to represent a danger to the community.”
Since he was sentenced, Knight has had three jail homes – Pentridge from 1988 until 1994, Barwon from 1994 until 2005, and Port Phillip for the past 20 years. [The Knighthood: Silvester’s research nicked from this very website without any source acknowledgement courtesy? Well, we retain a right of reply, herein.]
Port Phillip is due to close by December, means Knight will be heading to another jail. For years, he has lobbied to be transferred from maximum security, arguing other notorious inmates have been allowed to progress through the categories while he remains stuck in time.
One option for Knight under consideration is the more relaxed cottage accommodation at Castlemaine’s Loddon Prison.
[ The Knighthood: Bullshit! Middleton is a MINIMUM SECURITY Prison at 19 Hitchcock Street Castlemaine with so-called quote “more relaxed cottage accommodation’ and is adjacent to MEDIUM SECURITY Loddon Prison at 19 Hitchcock Street. Take a drive to Castlemaine Mr Silvester and get your facts right, if you are into facts that is and not opinion, innuendo and unfair slur against a confined political prisoner with no counter voice! ]
John Silvester perpetuates his hate-filled rant…according to Corrections Victoria, Loddon is “a campus-style prison within a secure perimeter. The landscaped grounds, modern buildings and wide range of programs and activities provide an environment, which as closely as possible, resembles those available in the general community”.
There are two forms of accommodation at Loddon.
- “Four-bedroom, self- contained units with a fully equipped kitchen, laundry, communal bathroom and living room”, or;
- “Three two-storey single cell blocks divided into units of 34 or 36 cells, each with a toilet, shower, hand basin, bed, desk, chair, shelving, bed light, notice board, mirror, floor carpet, window, curtains, television, heating and intercom.”
Asked which prison Knight would continue to rot in, Corrections Victoria responded with its traditional straight bat: “More than half of the prisoners located at Port Phillip Prison have been transferred to other prisons, this is a staggered process that will continue until the end of the year. For security purposes, we cannot provide information to media on where prisoners are placed.”
For a bright man (he says that shortly after the massacre, his IQ was tested and was scored at 132, in the top 2.2 per cent of the population and given a rating of “superior”), Knight lacks self-awareness.
He was particularly annoyed when someone had the audacity to knock back his application to be a mentor for young prisoners. So a mass murderer who will never be released wants to teach prisoners on how they should prepare for life on the outside.
They would be better off watching The Shawshank Redemption, Cool Hand Luke, The Great Escape and Hogan’s Heroes on high rotation.
Knight is fastidious. His cell is obsessively organised with everything having a place, so much so that the mischievous sneak in to move objects just to annoy the man who loves to annoy.
Yet, after he went on his murderous rampage, the organised Knight told police he had managed to mislay the one round of ammunition from his pocket he intended to use to shoot himself. Instead, he threw down his gun and surrendered. It tells us much about Knight and the arresting police that he was taken alive.
Inside the prison, Knight is a master manipulator. Port Phillip staff say he knows how to play the angles, and as a chronic complainer, gets an easy run because staff don’t want to get caught in his spider web of complaints. “If you try to discipline him, he whips out a notebook and starts taking notes to be used in a complaint. It’s just not worth it,” one said. “In his cell, they have found a mobile phone, USB sticks, a mini camera and micro recorder and pornography.
“He thinks he is the king, but he isn’t, and many prisoners hate him because he gets so many special privileges they don’t.” A staff member said officers felt pressure not to lay charges against inmates but to try to “just get along”.
The fact that Knight is unlikely ever to be released is just. The way he is being kept in prison is not. Retrospective laws that re-sentence inmates are dangerous, taking decisions from the courts and into parliament. Back when Knight was given a minimum sentence of 27 years, the prosecution didn’t even appeal.
On the Julian Knight-approved website (yes, that’s right), he is described as a political prisoner. To prove the world is barking mad, his so-called supporter base says: “We term ourselves the Knighthood.” They go on: “Julian Knight is a classic larrikin, like the best of Australian soldiers in history.”
Knight is not a man who on one tragic day lost his mind and started shooting. We know he fantasised two years before Hoddle Street of a bullied victim coming back to kill in an act of vengeance.
While he was a student at Melbourne High (school), he wrote and illustrated a four-part cartoon called Seymour The Six Million Dollar Mouse.
The six-million reference is about the television show, The Six Million Dollar Man, about an injured astronaut who is bionically rebuilt to become a superhero. Seymour is the town next to the Puckapunyal Army base where Knight’s adopted soldier father was stationed. Seymour is shot, recovers and goes on a shooting rampage, killing 16 people. I showed it to a psychologist who told me: “It looks very much like a rehearsal.”
Is Knight a political victim?
Yes. He was given a minimum term of imprisonment and then the government of the day changed the rules.
Has he reformed?
Certainly, he has expressed remorse for his crimes. “The Hoddle Street shootings were despicable, cowardly and senseless … My crimes were also heartless because I gunned down innocent people going about their daily lives,” he wrote.
Yet, a prison officer says that during the 1996 Port Arthur massacre where 35 people lost their lives, Knight sat watching the television then stormed off in a huff when he realised he was no longer Australia’s biggest mass killer. ‘He thinks he is the king, but he isn’t, and many prisoners hate him because he gets so many special privileges they don’t.’ – staffer from Port Phillip prison
The evidence suggests he is a leopard who uses foundation to conceal his spots. He remains desperate for attention and wants to be a person of influence.
First, it was through an endless stream of legal action, where he would often represent himself. That is until he was declared a vexatious litigant and was in effect banned from court.
He also attempts to interfere with police investigations, tipping off his favourite inmates on likely informers who may have turned on them. It comes as no surprise that one of those alleged informers was an inmate he fought on June 23, 1993, in Pentridge’s notorious H-Division.
Knight writes to his mates inside and outside prison using his own letterhead, Mr Julian Knight, Port Phillip Prison, with a logo, usually a dark figure attached to a ball and chain.
He has also used an image of Homer Simpson and, more disturbingly, two armed soldiers on patrol with the caption, “Call of Duty 2”.
He monitors my regular crime segment on 3AW’s breakfast program, and if it is of interest to other prisoners, will transcribe the conversation and send it to the subject.
Nothing wrong with that, but he insists on including my (incorrect) home address. And for some reason, he refers to my father, his rank when he was a police officer plus his date of birth and date of death. He attempts to pass this information to some of the worst criminals in the state. Decades ago, he wrote to me asking if I would ghost-write his book. When I declined, he wrote to Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read suggesting he was being ripped off by his publishers (colleague Andrew Rule and me).
Should Knight be transferred from maximum-security Port Phillip to the more relaxed Loddon Prison?
How he does his time is decided by his prison behaviour not the vile crimes he committed nearly 40 years ago. He might be a manipulative man but is he a dangerous one?
There are three simple questions.
- Is he at risk from other inmates at Castlemaine?
- Is he a risk to prisoners at Castlemaine?
- Will he try to escape from Castlemaine?
If the three answers are no, he should be transferred to Loddon, despite the inevitable outrage.
Knight, 57, remains supremely fit and may well remain in custody for another 30 years. It is entirely possible that when the sun sets on Knight, he will have served 70 years in jail. That is his punishment. > >
‘Inside the mind of Hoddle Street killer Julian Knight’
by John Silvester, The Age, 4th August 2017
<< These are words you thought you would never read in a mainstream media publication. Mass killer Julian Knight is right. The decision to ban him from applying for parole is unjust and has left him the victim of political populism. (The Knighthood: think Ned Kelly – him and his Irish family lifetime persecuted by then English colonial police authority since childhood; Ned’s sister Kate (14) raped on 15 April 1878 by Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick in the Kelly’s family home).
On Wednesday, August 9, it will be 30 years since Knight took three firearms to Hoddle Street on a quiet Sunday night with a plan to hunt down and kill as many innocent people as he could.
In just 38 minutes the 19-year-old failed (and bullied) army officer candidate fired 200 rounds of high-grade ammunition, killing seven people, wounding a further 19 and nearly shooting the police helicopter out of the sky.
When police closed in on him he threw down his guns and surrendered, later telling detectives he intended to shoot himself but misplaced his last bullet.
Knight pleaded guilty and was sentenced to multiple life sentences but because of his age was given a minimum sentence of 27 years – meaning he should have been eligible to apply for parole in 2014.
The thing is the outrage about Knight’s sentence has grown over the years. Back then the headlines shouted “Life” and there was little emphasis on the bottom end of his potential jail term.
Indeed, sentencing judge Justice George Hampel made it clear Knight needed to reform to be freed telling him the 27 years was just the minimum he could serve and was not a guaranteed release date.
Many thought Knight would die in prison – either by his own hand or from the career crooks who would show him less sympathy than Justice Hampel. But Knight had the instincts of a survivor – first shown when he meekly surrendered the moment he saw anyone who could return fire at Hoddle Street.
Slight but fit, Knight went to prison and taught himself to box, hitting the heavy bag at every opportunity and – more importantly – used the sound military tactic of developing strong allies including some of the worst killers Australia has known.
But there were other heavyweights who didn’t warm to him. In 1993 prison authorities discovered a mass escape plot involving up to 30 inmates in Pentridge’s notorious H Division. The plan included attacking Knight in his cell.
While Knight was not a model prisoner (there were a few minor assaults and discipline issues) he was usually well behaved. “He quickly learned to fly under the radar and keep a low profile,” a veteran Pentridge officer said. “He didn’t steal anything and didn’t try to stand over anyone.”
“He has a huge ego,” another prison officer said of Knight, who was once assessed as intelligent but a “chronic under-achiever”. “He always believes he is the smartest in the room,” a prison source said.
In one conversation Knight talked of an international mass killing then added that if you wanted to create maximum casualties, “you would just fly a plane into the MCG”.
“It chilled me to the bone,” said the officer.
His cell has always been maniacally ordered and he even lined up his soft drink bottles “like little soldiers”. Sometimes uninvited guests would sneak in to rearrange his possessions. “He would be furious,” a source said.
Even in prison, the military-obsessed Knight has been ranked by prison inmates – referring to career criminals and murderers as “long-termers” while those serving shorter sentences were “shit-kickers”. Sick institutions like Duntroon and prisons evolve their own terms and language, such is human group think behaviour.
By 2012 Knight started to prepare to apply for parole telling people he would “make a mark” on release. “He wasn’t talking about crime – he just thought he was special and a natural high achiever.” Julian Knight had mentioned this source was from an inmate and alleged police informer to triple murderer, Ashley Coulston.
Then by 2014 the then Liberal/Nationals coalition Victorian State Government brought in one-off legislation shutting the cell door – effectively banning him from parole.
“This is guaranteeing that he remains in jail until he’s dead, or so seriously incapacitated he’s no risk to other people in Victoria or indeed in the community,” then premier Denis Napthine said, obeying Melbourne Radio’s 3AW king-making shock jock Neil Mitchell.
Knight recently wrote:
“The Victorian state government changed the law to keep me in prison not because I pose a threat to the community, but because they believe I did not deserve to be given a minimum non-parole term. The fact is a minimum term was not opposed by the prosecution and the minimum term that was set was not appealed against. They didn’t think I would survive to see the end of my 27-year minimum term and when I did they brought into law retrospective legislation that rewrote history to suit their views as to what they thought my sentence should have been.”
Knight is right.
In reality he has been re-sentenced by politicians with a law designed to trump the courts entrusted with the job of setting prison terms and the parole board that should decide release dates. If Knight has reformed he should be able to apply for parole in the same way as any other inmate. If.
So we know what Knight did 30 years ago but what has he become? Let’s not ask those traumatised by his actions nor look at the image Knight would like to portray. Let us look at the real Knight – the one he shares with the killers and the crims who have been his friends and allies for decades. To do so we must reach back to an investigation that does not directly relate to Knight but shows his actions are at odds with his claims to have reformed.
In February 1992, schoolgirl Prue Bird was abducted from her Glenroy home and murdered. Her body has never been found. Police believe the 13-year-old was targeted as revenge against her grandmother’s partner who gave evidence against the men responsible for the 1986 Russell Street bombing. One of those convicted of the bombing was Craig Minogue (a Knight ally) who is alleged to have said, while warning people not to talk, “It would be a shame if anything happened to your sweet little Prue, wouldn’t it?”
In February 2012 police charged Bega schoolgirl killer Les Camilleri with Prue’s murder. Camilleri, who was already serving life with no minimum for the 1997 murders of Lauren Barry, 14, and Nichole Collins, 16, eventually pleaded guilty to the Bird murder. He refused to implicate anyone else in the crime and gave a clearly bogus account of what happened. There was never any incentive to tell the truth as his papers have been marked never to be released over the Bega double murder. Within weeks of the charges being laid Knight involves himself, identifying a fellow prisoner he claims was the police informer. He claims the prison source was paid $500,000 for information – an allegation that put the man’s life in danger.
Two years earlier, drug boss Carl Williams was bashed to death in Barwon prison because he had been identified as a police informer. The man Knight repeatedly claimed was the informer in the Bird case was an old enemy – one of the inmates from Pentridge who had planned to attack him in 1993 during a prison break-out.
On March 19, 2012, Knight wrote to Minogue saying, “I have been following the Prue Bird investigation … I have it on good authority who the prison source is. “On a completely different subject, [names prisoner] is on the loose after being sentenced in a closed court. I hear he is hoping to invest $500,000.” In another letter he tries to organise another inmate who is a Minogue associate to connect with Camilleri to compare notes, implying police will not be able to link the Russell Street bombers to the Bird murder. “I predict no one else will get charged and the case against Les will collapse. We will wait and see.”
In a letter of support to Camilleri he sends him media transcripts on the case before ending, “Take care of yourself Big Boy”. In another letter he names the suspected informer asking Camilleri to remember where he met him. “Mate, think hard.”
In a note to triple murderer Ashley Mervyn Coulston, Knight says, “I predict the case against Les will collapse. A gaol-house informant has 500,000 reasons to make up stories. Say no more.”
Knight says he has changed. In his latest plea he writes: “Thirty years have passed since the Hoddle Street shootings and I am far from the immature disturbed, desperate teenager who committed them.”
There is something else in Knight’s letters that remains deeply concerning. This mass killer who says he is no longer violent has chosen to use as his personalised letterhead the image of two armed soldiers on patrol with the caption “Call of Duty 2”. He says he wept for his victims but when it came to the murder of the innocent Prue Bird he shows no compassion at all – preferring to use the crime to even an old score and curry favour with killers.
Knight should be able to apply for parole and there can be no doubt the Parole Board would reject any such submission – not because his initial sentence was inadequate – but because he would be judged as still being too great a risk.
Julian Knight went to jail for what he did then and should remain there for what he is now. He stands condemned by his own words. >>
The Knighthood’s critique of the above:
Mmm… let us, The Knighthood, play Tweety Bird in all this as a reciprocal take…and to critique Silvester, da Bad ol’ Putty Tat:
The Knighthood didn’t ‘come out’ for Julian Knight during the 27 years that he was duly serving out his criminal sentence incarceration.
But upon his prep for being granted judicial parole entitlement in 2012, we took an interest in the political injustice of the very ‘Victorian’ Adult Parole Board, and associated political actors in both parliament and the media. Ol’ Putty Tat wonders why this website dares exist?
Our Right of Reply:
Well…The Knighthood’s response to Mr John Silvester…and none of us pretend to be journalists, reporters, nor columnists…
Old legacy media figures that choose to replace objective journalism with personal opinion are ‘Columnists’ in newspapers, ‘Shock Jocks’ on radio and ‘Pranksters’ on late night TV slots.
How low-brow is it to vilify a political prisoner such as Julian Knight? He has long served out his sentence (1987-2014) so a decade ago, but who remains politically in indefinite detention with no access to the media, or internet or reply to opinionated media slurs slung against him?
Aging opinionated John Silvester is the latest to cowardly back stab, full well aware that Julian cannot retort and fight against the hate-filled biased crap being dished against him in the public domain. Hoddle Street was in 1987, bloody 38 years ago! Silvester is all about his own overinflated ego and afflicted by relevance deprivation syndrome.
Reading the above two articles by John Silvester, we respond to both in order as follows for the benefit of truth, media scrutiny, the public’s better informed comprehension and as a right of reply that political prisoner Julian Knight currently lacks due to his perpetual incarceration and denial of communications, phone and internet access (but he does get access to read The Age and Herald Sun).
We ignore commenting on the regurgitated hackneyed use of the media’s use of archival images from 1987, nearly four decades ago. Such is just termed ‘old news‘, which of course what it is…
OUR RESPONSE to ARTICLE #2: Silvester’s article of 26th September 2025: “Hoddle Street killer Julian is on the move“
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #1]: <<Hoddle Street killer Julian is on the move>>
The Knighthood comments:
This is the article’s heading and this rank fish head smells similar to the previous by Silvester in The Age back in 4th August 2017 by rehashing the label ‘Hoddle Street killer Julian Knight’. So, likely this heading was again editorial license over Silvester’s column piece, using a continuum branding media campaign. It’s rather like resurrection anti-Ned Kelly by corrupt English police hating the Irish in colonial times.
However, point be known, Julian Knight is not “on the move” as if on some constant prison inspection tour, or media speak on TV Chanel 7 of this move being to some equivalent of quote “a caravan park”.
Instead, political prisoner Knight (since 2014) is being forcibly relocated under orders from Corrections Victoria from his 9 years incarceration at Port Phillip Prison (north Laverton) to Loddon Prison (Castlemaine) as a one-off imposed prison transfer within the Australian state of Victoria. This transfer is because the Victorian State Labor Government has recently decided to shut down Port Phillip Prison permanently because it is foreign privately run and controlled, and that government is rolling out its recent policy of replacing privately run prisons with state-run prisons (aka by the department Corrections Victorian).
The Victorian Government’s justifications for this policy is for various reasons – mostly private prison poor performance, enquiry reports identifying staff corrupt collusion with prisoners in various privately run prisons, also Labor Party anti-privatisation politics, and cynically – federal Labor driven migrant housing demand in outer western Melbourne. So privately run Ravenhall and Fulham prisons in Victoria perhaps should look out, as you could be next for the chopping block.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #2]: <<Prison authorities and the government are facing a dilemma – what on earth are we going to do with Julian?>>
The Knighthood comments:
Well, quite simply, just release him. Simple solution.
Else, what hate-filled propaganda by this rag of a newspaper!
No, the prison authorities and the Victorian Government are not facing a dilemma? They bloody well instigated the problem by Labor policy – that is, to close Port Phillip Prison and so consequently have to then relocate Julian Knight to some other prison in the State of Victoria. Julian has had no say in all this; he is the victim of their whim system and whim political policy. He is denied outside communications from his cell. Go figure!
Well, frankly Sly Silvester, the spiteful Victorian Government could have indeed faced any “dilemma – what on earth are we going to do with Julian?” So, allow him parole as per his 1988 judicial sentence prescribed.
This statement is a ruse by a hate-filled columnist deranged by some personal ulterior motive of condemning a persecuted man who has long served out his criminal sentence. It is cowardice by Silvester.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #3]: <<The Julian in question is Julian Knight who on August 9, 1987, went to Hoddle Street, Collingwood, and fired 200 rounds of military-standard ammunition, killing seven people, wounding 19 and shooting the police helicopter. He was 19 years old.>>
The Knighthood comments:
Well, “the Julian in question” is Australian Julian Knight (b.1968) is not to be confused with the British Julian Knight (b. 1972) a Conservative politician who up until recently served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Solihull (2015 – 2024).
Both Julian Knights feature on the Internet.
Just may be our own Julian Knight downunder also could well become an Australian MP one day. This is given that he is Australian-born, has the qualifications, a substantial legal background, has become a public figure thanks to the Victorian media mainly, and plus that past criminal records do not seem to preclude one from becoming a member of Parliament. Parliament in the State of Victoria, and indeed across the nation is full of crooks and anyway Julian since serving our his 27 years in prison (four tours of duty now) has become a political prisoner, so ideally suited and well inclined to venture next step into politics.
Thanks for the inference Silvester!
But to correct Silvester, yes on 9th August back in 1987, Australia’s own Julian Knight lived just 200 meters from Hoddle Street, so he just walked toward the noisy bright traffic in a temporary psychotic state of stupor and paranoia likening Hoddle Street to a carnival shooting gallery (these days a gaming video). He selected his cache of legal rifles and ammo and “went to Hoddle Street”. But it was then in 1987 known as the inner northern Melbourne suburb of Clifton Hill, whereas Collingwood was a different suburb situated south of Alexandra Parade a few kilometres away back towards the CBD.
Also, (fact check) …Julian did not fire 200 rounds, but just 126. But yes, all three long arms were military grade and used military-standard ammunition. He left his air rifles behind. Yes he killed seven random passers-by in the traffic along Hoddle Street and wounded 19 more. Then after Julian came under counter fire by multiple police and so fled the scene, and the Victoria Police helicopter arrived shining its search light on him he shot back at it and manged to hit it, so the chopper pilot rightly took off. Yes, he was 19 years old.
Silvester with ‘The Age’ editor are adding this historically reported news statement to make this latest columnist opinion piece appear to be somehow newsworthy.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #4]: “Knight pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life with a minimum of 27 years.”
The Knighthood comments:
Yep, is Silvester telling us something we don’t already know? His he and his editor at The Age newspaper punctuating this opinionated piece with one or two historically regurgitated facts to pretend the article appears informed and legitimate? Actually, the statement is factually wrong – Julian was sentenced to 27 years concurrently before being eligible for parole (2014).
Between 10am-10.40am on Thursday the 10th November 1988, Knight appeared before Mr Justice George Hampel in Court 4 of the Supreme Court of Victoria at Melbourne.Sentencing Justice Hempel, who stated:
“In fixing the minimum term, it is necessary to ensure that it does not destroy the punitive effect of the head sentences. On the other hand, in a case such as this an unduly high minimum term would defeat the main purpose for which it is fixed, namely your rehabilitation and possible release at a time when you would still be able to adjust to life in the community.
In all the circumstances, I consider that the appropriate minimum term before which you will not be eligible for parole is 27 years.”
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #5]: <<“There was little outrage at such a tiny sentence for a mass killer back then, but as the time came for him to be eligible to apply for parole, the public mood had changed. In 2014, the then Coalition state government brought in one-off legislation shutting the cell door – effectively banning him from parole. “This is guaranteeing that he remains in jail until he’s dead, or so seriously incapacitated he’s no risk to other people in Victoria or indeed in the community,” then-premier Denis Napthine said.”>>
The Knighthood comments:
Julian at the time in 1987 confessed his guilt instantly to police and to the court. The Court imposed a 27 year sentence of incarceration. Julian served out that sentence. Media and public may complain all they want. But the Judiciary and its decisions are not politically influenced in Victoria or Australia.
Approaching some 27 years later, as Julian had served his judicial sentence, he duly applied for parole.
But politics intervened and the Liberal Party media ran a concerted campaign to deny this prisoner’s right of parole – all lead by Melbourne Radio’s biased shock jock Neil Mitchell.
It was Neil Mitchell alone who bullied the incumbent unelected Victorian Liberal Party Premier at the time, woke Denis Napthine in 2014, that changed (re-instigated) a “public mood” of hate.
In 2014, the then Coalition state government brought in one-off legislation shutting the cell door – effectively banning him from parole. “This is guaranteeing that he remains in jail until he’s dead, or so seriously incapacitated he’s no risk to other people in Victoria or indeed in the community,” then-premier Denis Napthine said.”
Napthine lost the election and later went on to oversee the federal Gillard Labor Government’s agency as chairman of the $29 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). But he was sacked for incompetence after just three months into his three-year appointment. Why?
Dr Napthine’s resignation came a month after NDIA chief executive Martin Hoffman quit, leaving his $720,000-a-year role a week after Mr Shorten was sworn in as Disability Minister in the Albanese government. Mr Shorten was highly critical of both men while in opposition. He labelled the appointment of Dr Napthine a “disgrace” when it was announced by the Morrison government in February. And in April, Mr Shorten said he had not “spoken to anyone in the disability sector who has a good word to say about Mr Hoffman”.
Shit appointments in politics can often perpetuate to being systemically chronic, though in hindsight wholly predictable.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #6]: “As telling was the response from the Adult Parole Board two years earlier when Knight asked to be given an indication when he would be eligible for parole. General Manager David Provan responded: “The board considers there is no prospect of an order for release on parole in the foreseeable future. In the board’s view, the prisoner continues to represent a danger to the community.”
The Knighthood comments:
There was no substantive basis for such view, except that it was politically charged and so corrupt.
The Adult Parole Board’s dominating General Manager David Provan opinionated outside his delegated role authority to illegally presume his role as justice: “The board considers there is no prospect of an order for release on parole in the foreseeable future. In the board’s view, the prisoner continues to represent a danger to the community.”
Yet we can find no evidence nor basis for such a claim and judgment. Provan in so doing improperly abused his para-judicial power and exceeded his lawful authority, so acting with bias and in exercising his power in an unreasonable way. Provan became ‘Judge, Jury, and Executioner’ – applying judgment unchecked, using unilateral authoritarian and arbitrary, unjust power to make his unqualified nor explained decision, to determine Mr Knight’s guilt and purgatory and thus carry out such punishment without due process or oversight.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #7]: “Since he was sentenced, Knight has had three jail homes – Pentridge from 1988 until 1994, Barwon from 1994 until 2005, and Port Phillip for the past 20 years.”
The Knighthood comments:
Corrections Victoria has had inconsistencies with incarceration Julia Knight as a convicted criminal. It has forcibly relocated him from its prisons at Pentridge, the Barwon then Port Phillip and ow Loddon. It’s as if it’s war tours of duty. Will Loddon Prison for our Julian Knight become temporary as well?
Does the Victorian Government have any stable due policy for its responsibility of its prisoners in its care? We think not, since its record demonstrates systemically incompetence left, right and centre. Moreso media stories allude to the Victorian Government’s ongoing political process to be dictated by the Victorian media like Nine Entertainment’s Melbourne Radio scab 3AW.
News is all about ENTERTAINMENT, not journalism.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #8]: “Port Phillip is due to close by December, meaning Knight will be heading to another jail. For years, he has lobbied to be transferred from maximum security, arguing other notorious inmates have been allowed to progress through the categories while he remains stuck in time.”
The Knighthood comments:
Yes, “Port Phillip is due to close by December, a policy decision of the Victoria Labor Government to disband the former Victorian Liberal Government Premier Jeff Kennett’s (1992-1996) model of privatising prisons across Victoria. The spin was to save the Victorian taxpayers money, but the so-called cost effective offshore outsourcing option has seen all fail to have lived up to their performance criteria (financially, operationally) and security wise. Indeed some have been exposed as being corrupted.
Yes, “Knight will be heading to another jail”. Silvester found this out by reading the HeraldSun newspaper, his old employer. ‘Port Phillip Prison to close, inmates to move to (government run) Western Plains Correctional Centre”, Herald Sun, 26th June 2024 ..quote: “The maximum-security prison will close by December 31 next year (2025), with prisoners to be transferred to other maximum security prisons including the soon-to-be-completed Western Plains Correctional Centre … (The Allan Victorian Labor Government announced) its decision to close the maximum security prison in June 2024, while it announced plans to finally have Western Plains Correctional Centre in Lara in operation after it was completed in 2022.”
Yes, “for years (since 2012), he (Julian Knight) has lobbied (legally challenged Corrections Victoria’s refusal for him) to be transferred from maximum security, arguing other notorious inmates have been allowed to progress through the categories while he remains stuck in time.”
Again, Julian Knight was initially a criminal prisoner of the Victorian Government (1987-2014), but since 2014 as a political prisoner of the Victorian Government has been subject to the Victorian Goverment’s changing prison policies and whims. They’ve got him doing a ‘Grand Tour‘ of Victoria – Pentridge, Barwon, Port Phillip, Loddon.
Of note, ‘The (traditional) ‘Grand Tour‘ was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tutor or family member) when they had come of age (about 21 years old). The custom—which flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transport in the 1840s and was associated with a standard itinerary—served as an educational rite of passage. Though it was primarily associated with the British nobility and wealthy landed gentry, similar trips were made by wealthy young men of other Protestant Northern European nations, and, from the second half of the 18th century, by some North and South Americans. By the mid-18th century, the Grand Tour had become a regular feature of aristocratic education in Central Europe as well, although it was restricted to the higher nobility.’ (SOURCE: Wikipedia)
Well, political prisoner Julian is certainly not receiving much education from his prison hopping charade. Corrections Victoria have continued to deny him university applications, text books, a computer, Internet access, tutoring access, and at times even snail mail (intercepted and marked by G4S “Return To Sender“). So much for rehabilitation in prison. Prison Hate culture has superseded the 1987 Duntroon Hate culture pre-1987 Hoddle Street.
In no way has Julian Knight has had any choice in the matter on each relocation occasion.
So, Port Phillip Prison is due to close by December. So Corrections Victoria just two weeks ago relocated Julian to another gaol – selecting medium security Loddon Prison situated in historic colonial gaol town of Castlemaine. It gets a tad chilly up there in the old inland goldfields hills – Elevation 311 metres. Castlemaine’s winter temperatures plummet typically down to 4o overnight to 12o maximum during the day.
Since 2012, ahead of his judicially schedule parole date in May 2014, having served out his 27 year incarceration sentence Julian as a model prisoner requested that his security risk be downgraded from maximum security to medium security risk status. But that was rejected by Corrections Victoria politically. So Julian was forced to challenge that in the courts, which after a decade he finally won.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #9]: “One option for Knight under consideration is the more relaxed cottage accommodation at Castlemaine’s Loddon Prison.”
The Knighthood comments:
“One option for Knight under consideration is the more relaxed cottage accommodation at Castlemaine’s Loddon Prison.”
Well now of course, the G4S prison staff at Port Phillip Prison had leaked this to the media including obviously to Silvester weeks ahead of Silvester publishing his article on 26th September 2025. That is clear. Silvester lies; Loddon was not an option. It was pre-arranged with the assistance of The Knighthood’s intelligence gathering – we’ve been on to this for over a year, basically for the last 15 months since .
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #10]: “According to Corrections Victoria, Loddon is “a campus-style prison within a secure perimeter. The landscaped grounds, modern buildings and wide range of programs and activities provide an environment, which as closely as possible, resembles those available in the general community”.
There are two forms of accommodation at Loddon.
“Four-bedroom, self- contained units with a fully equipped kitchen, laundry, communal bathroom and living room”, or;
“Three two-storey single cell blocks divided into units of 34 or 36 cells, each with a toilet, shower, hand basin, bed, desk, chair, shelving, bed light, notice board, mirror, floor carpet, window, curtains, television, heating and intercom.”
The Knighthood comments:
Silvester has it all wrong. He hasn’t done any research for his novel piece, yet again!
Medium security Loddon Prison at Castlemaine is not minimum security Middleton Prison (the two are separated by a road but not in anyway shape or form interconnected). The latter of which Silvester indulges in; but the former is where Julian Knight is incarcerated – and again in a solo prison cell like at Port Phillip Prison.
It is Middleton Prison (minimum security prison) adjacent and quite separate to Loddon Prison, that it is in fact Middleton Prison that is the so-called “campus-style prison…with the landscaped grounds, modern buildings and wide range of programs and activities provide an environment, which as closely as possible, resembles those available in the general community”, plus “four-bedroom, self- contained units with a fully equipped kitchen, laundry, communal bathroom and living room.”
Julian doesn’t get any of that!
Instead, Julian Khight has been incarcerated into medium security Loddon Prison, comprising the “Three two-storey single cell blocks divided into units of 34 or 36 cells, each with a toilet, shower, hand basin, bed, desk, chair, shelving, bed light, notice board, mirror, floor carpet, window, curtains, television, heating and intercom.” See image below.
Yes, the two compare…
Frankly, the below image is what Julian Knight had at Port Phillip Prison (being a medium security risk), so few if any noticeable changes. The two prison sections are so similar that they could well have been designed by the same government prison architect, and replete with upper level railing.
Now why would that be?
(1) Each respectively two-storey single cell blocks divided into units of multiple cells – not cottages, like Silvester conveniently confuses with Middleton Prison
(2) Each cell with a toilet – the alternative?
(3) Each cell with a shower – the alternative being communal shower blocks? What happens when you drop the soap to pick it up? Duntroon all over!
(4) Each cell with a hand basin – for hand washing sanitation perhaps?
(5) Each cell with a bed – the alternative? A visit to Old Melbourne Gaol demonstrates the ‘Victorian’ 19th Century alternative – pay a visit!
(6) Each cell with a desk – to write home perhaps?
(7) Each cell with a chair – can be a handy accessory when at a desk.
(8) Each cell with shelving – for a few books and personal stuff?
(9) Each cell with a bed light – for reading in bed perhaps?
(10) Each cell with a notice board – to warn of the prison’s many changing rules
(11) Each cell with a mirror – to check for any green parsley piece on one’s front teeth
(12) Each cell with floor carpet – what’s wrong with cold grey concrete, Silvester? Don’t you similarly have such throughout your own home?
(13) Each cell with a window – what, natural light? How dangerous?
(14) Each cell with curtains – beats a bright light – like sitting on a small timber chair in front of spot lights each night – that’s termed torture!
(15) Each cell with a television – what is a TV? Apparently, they even offer these things in 2-star motels and backpacker accommodation.
(16) Each cell with heating – in Castlemaine at 311 metres elevation in winter? Nuh, why? What happened to ye ol’ Army blanket and jogging on the spot?
(17) Each with intercom – for only the prison authority’s benefit? Like used to announce prisoner muster, impending lockdown else cell search, or some emergency et al… (but prisoners don’t get issued with loud hailers!) A prisoner issued his own intercom Silvester, seriously? What drugs are your taking Silvo?
So Silvester, get your facts right before you blabber fabricated fiction as if factual!
Your lies about Loddon Prison being like this (image below) are deliberate fake news propaganda to renew and stir public disquiet about a old story whom few these days are interested in.
The article you wrote is more about resurrection your relevance to your employer, now Nine Entertainment that bought out dying Fairfax tabloidism.
Old Silvester ought to be offered a night or two at both prisons paid for by his employer, so that he can narrate his comparative experiences. Come on Silvo, take up the challenge!
Did Silvester ever write gossip pieces for Melbourne’s notoriously salacious Weekend Truth rag? [SOURCE] Since we don’t think tertiary courses are offered in columnist opinionated writing. A student of a Journalism Degree doesn’t automatically ‘advance’ to any so-called ‘Masters of Columnism’ – hatespeech, defamation and propaganda was a NAZI qualification during Germany’s 1930s-1940s, if you read your history. That is because its a downhill low-brown career move.
Read our website for genuine updates. Here’s a relevant link which includes a link to the official website of Loddon Prison, and we know Silvester refers to it from his published text, selectively to suit his fictitious narrative we note.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #11]: “Asked which prison Knight would continue to rot in, Corrections Victoria responded with its traditional straight bat: “More than half of the prisoners located at Port Phillip Prison have been transferred to other prisons, this is a staggered process that will continue until the end of the year. For security purposes, we cannot provide information to media on where prisoners are placed.”
The Knighthood comments:
So, Sly Silvester has contacts with prison staff inside Port Phillip Prison who are happy to grass. Who are your sources Sly Silvester? It wasn’t official Corrections Victoria who would early on reveal to the lathering media “which prison Knight would continue to rot in”?
Sly of the Underworld (aka prisoners paid on commission for grassing on fellow inmates), can be the only way Sly had time well in advance of Julian’s transfer from Port Phillip Prison to Loddon Prison – perhaps weeks to scribe his article. His time was all paid for by The Age newspaper.
We can provide information to media on where Julian Knight is placed dude, Julian’s now in Loddon Prison, dude! But only by Julian’s decade-long battle against Victoria’s politically corrupted system from 2012, Julian persevered and ultimately legally won to legitimately have his prisoner risk rating status after 27 years to be duly downgraded from maximum to medium security risk.
So Julian had seen his cards play out. He subsequently did not get transferred from Port Phillip Prison to maximum security Western Plains Prison at Lara.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #12]: “For a bright man (he says that shortly after the massacre, his IQ was tested and was scored at 132, in the top 2.2 per cent of the population and given a rating of “superior”), Knight lacks self-awareness.”
The Knighthood comments:
Is Silvester a bright man or just envious? Is Silvester self-aware or suffering acute condition of aging columnists, known as Relevance Deprivation Syndrome?
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #13]: “He was particularly annoyed when someone had the audacity to knock back his application to be a mentor for young prisoners. So a mass murderer who will never be released wants to teach prisoners on how they should prepare for life on the outside. They would be better off watching The Shawshank Redemption, Cool Hand Luke, The Great Escape and Hogan’s Heroes on high rotation.”
The Knighthood comments:
Has Sly Silvester envy to be a mentor for young opinionated columnists at The Age newspaper, perhaps after hours? Teaching buddy journos to prepare for columnist life could be Sly ‘s calling before he contracts dementia. They would be better off watching ‘Ace in The Hole‘ (1951), ‘All The Presidents Men‘ (1976), ‘Balibo‘ (2009), ‘Spotlight‘ (2015), on high rotation.”
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #14]: “Knight is fastidious. His cell is obsessively organised with everything having a place, so much so that the mischievous sneak in to move objects just to annoy the man who loves to annoy.”
The Knighthood comments:
Fastidious? In contrast to Sly’s own self and his research avoidance?
Seriously, so how does Sly Silvester possibly know how Julian Knight may organise or disorganise his prison cell – whether it may be organised or not? Silvester is once again imagining his inner psycho-therapist.
The only take on this is that someone on the prison inside has perhaps taken photos and passed them illegally on to the outside such as to the likes of desperate Sly. Does Sly pay for such? We presume he is again on the take and a grass when it suits his ego. This makes Sly in possession of unauthorised photographic material taken illegally within a prison.
Perhaps Sly may be inclined to back up his claim with hard photographic evidence of Julian Knight’s cell that Sly holds in his possession to make such a clearly informed statement. How can Sly otherwise state that Julian Knight’s cell “is obsessively organised with everything having a place”?
Now, truth be known, that SCT KNIGHT at RMC Duntroon way way back in 1987 (and so before many herein readers were born) was as part of his disciplinary training as a budding Army offer cadet required daily, and indeed apparently at all times, required to maintain his barracks room (cell) is pristine condition – clean, neat, tidy and organised. So perhaps that rubbed off after Duntroon, Hoddle Street and on to Prison.
Although, others tell of varying accounts…
But Julian does not seek to annoy anyone. Unlike our extended-brain columnist of fiction.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #15]: “Yet, after he went on his murderous rampage, the organised Knight told police he had managed to mislay the one round of ammunition from his pocket he intended to use to shoot himself. Instead, he threw down his gun and surrendered. It tells us much about Knight and the arresting police that he was taken alive.”
The Knighthood comments:
Silvester has personally never experienced what Julian Knight experienced, nor has any friggen clue about his psychotic and delusional state of mind when Julia had just did when cornered after Hoddle Street. In all the combat turmoil and trauma perhaps Victoria Police constables arresting, actually found Knight’s suicide bullet.
Perhaps the arresting police took Knight alive as the alcohol had worn off.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #16]: <<Inside the prison, Knight is a master manipulator. Port Phillip staff say he knows how to play the angles, and as a chronic complainer, gets an easy run because staff don’t want to get caught in his spider web of complaints. “If you try to discipline him, he whips out a notebook and starts taking notes to be used in a complaint. It’s just not worth it,” one said. “In his cell, they have found a mobile phone, USB sticks, a mini camera and micro recorder and pornography. “He thinks he is the king, but he isn’t, and many prisoners hate him because he gets so many special privileges they don’t.” A staff member said officers felt pressure not to lay charges against inmates but to try to “just get along”>>.
The Knighthood comments:
Inside prison, Knight is a political prisoner, continually unjustly treated.
Silvester’s biased opinion is either imagined or more likely derived from inside prison sources (old G4S prison staff with a hatred towards Mt Knight). Mr Knight is not a chronic complainer; he just stands up for his rights.
In 2012, ahead of his scheduled parole due in 2014, as a model prisoner Knight applied to Corrections Victoria for his risk downgrade from maximum security status to medium security status. That was politically rejected, just like the Victorian Government’s Adult Parole Board was politically dissuaded to grant him parole.
Yes, Knight tries to “just get along”.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #17]: <<The fact that Knight is unlikely ever to be released is just. The way he is being kept in prison is not. Retrospective laws that re-sentence inmates are dangerous, taking decisions from the courts and into parliament. Back when Knight was given a minimum sentence of 27 years, the prosecution didn’t even appeal.>>
The Knighthood comments:
Fact check: Knight was sentenced by Justice Hempel in the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1988 to 27 years concurrently with parole option then to be considered. The prosecution did not appeal the sentence because it had made a plea bargain with Julian Knight that Knight agreed not mention his recent bastardisation at Duntroon to be associated with his state of mind in committing the Hoddle Street shootings. Knight had immediately confessed his crime and duly honoured that plea bargain.
That Knight is “unlikely ever to be released is just”is wrong and political interference. Silvester somehow slimes his hypocritical claim that “the way he is being kept in prison is not.”
Yes, “retrospective laws that re-sentence inmates are dangerous, taking decisions from the courts and into parliament.” It constitutes a flagrant breach of the separation of powers principle between the Judiciary, Executive and the Legislature enshrined in The Australian Constitution.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #18]: <<On the Julian Knight-approved website (yes, that’s right), he is described as a political prisoner. To prove the world is barking mad, his so-called supporter base says: “We term ourselves the Knighthood.” They go on: “Julian Knight is a classic larrikin, like the best of Australian soldiers in history.”>>
The Knighthood comments:
Yes, Julian Knight became a political prisoner once the Victorian Adult Parole board was politically influence by the unelected Napthine Liberal Government when then illegally passed ad hominem legislation in 2014 directly targeting only Julian Knight.
Loading...
Reload document 
Open in new tab How is Julian Knight not comparable to Ben Roberts-Smith, VC or Albert Jacka, VC save for the fact that Knight killed the wrong people? Had his car not been vandalised by Duntroon senior cadets, he would have committed a Fort Hood massacre against his real bastard tormentors!
Who’s “barking mad” ?…
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #19]: <<Knight is not a man who on one tragic day lost his mind and started shooting…>>
The Knighthood comments:
Fact check: Knight was a young man who on one tragic day lost his mind and started shooting.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #20]: << We know he fantasised two years before Hoddle Street of a bullied victim coming back to kill in an act of vengeance. While he was a student at Melbourne High, he wrote and illustrated a four-part cartoon called Seymour The Six Million Dollar Mouse. Julian Knight’s cartoon. Was it a rehearsal for the real thing? The six-million reference is about the television show, The Six Million Dollar Man, about an injured astronaut who is bionically rebuilt to become a superhero. Seymour is the town next to the Puckapunyal Army base where Knight’s adopted soldier father was stationed. Seymour is shot, recovers and goes on a shooting rampage, killing 16 people. I showed it to a psychologist who told me: “It looks very much like a rehearsal.”>>
The Knighthood comments:
“We know he fantasised two years before Hoddle Street of a bullied victim coming back to kill in an act of vengeance.” Silvester here imagining himself as a psychoanalyst again.
Julian’s cartoon was scribed when he was aged just 14. It was a joke when he was bored at school.
The montage image of Julian’s cartoons is a media compilation leaked by prison authorities/ Victoria Police to the media to enhance a message of scandal, criminality motive and to draw media support in a scheme. It was not drawn in 1985, try 1982 when Julian was aged just 14.
Fact check”: The following photo was somehow obtained by Silvester and shown to Neil Mitchell in a 3AW Radio interview. The sample photo below discloses the real source from a school scrap book. Where as the above compilation is a convenient and creative media compilation, not one compiled by Knight.
And what do psychologists know? They are not qualified psychiatrists. Many psychologists study psychology to understand their own personal mental health problems.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #21]: <<Is Knight a political victim? Yes. He was given a minimum term of imprisonment and then the government of the day changed the rules.>>
The Knighthood comments:
Yes.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #22]: <<” Has he reformed? Certainly, he has expressed remorse for his crimes. “The Hoddle Street shootings were despicable, cowardly and senseless … My crimes were also heartless because I gunned down innocent people going about their daily lives,” he wrote.>>
The Knighthood comments:
Yes.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #23]: <<Yet, a prison officer says that during the 1996 Port Arthur massacre where 35 people lost their lives, Knight sat watching the television then stormed off in a huff when he realised he was no longer Australia’s biggest mass killer. “He thinks he is the king, but he isn’t, and many prisoners hate him because he gets so many special privileges they don’t.” >>
The Knighthood comments:
So, some G4S staffer contracted for Port Phillip Prison has it in for Julian? What privileges? – an empty claim.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #24]:
The Knighthood comments:
Ditto comment #23.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #25]: <<First, it was through an endless stream of legal action, where he would often represent himself. That is until he was declared a vexatious litigant and was in effect banned from court.>>
The Knighthood comments:
This was a media beat up. Knight continues to appeal when justices err. There have only beena few actual different legal battles – most are appeals of the same matter.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #26]: <<He also attempts to interfere with police investigations, tipping off his favourite inmates on likely informers who may have turned on them. It comes as no surprise that one of those alleged informers was an inmate he fought on June 23, 1993, in Pentridge’s notorious H-Division. Knight writes to his mates inside and outside prison using his own letterhead, Mr Julian Knight, Port Phillip Prison, with a logo, usually a dark figure attached to a ball and chain.>>
The Knighthood comments:
Baseless accusations. So, he’s a bit of an artist – he’s bored again.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #27]: <<He has also used an image of Homer Simpson and, more disturbingly, two armed soldiers on patrol with the caption, “Call of Duty 2”.>>
The Knighthood comments:
So, he’s a bit of an artist – he’s bored again.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #28]: <<He monitors my regular crime segment on 3AW’s breakfast program, and if it is of interest to other prisoners, will transcribe the conversation and send it to the subject.>>
The Knighthood comments:
How so ? He is denied Internet access. Fake news.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #29]: <<Nothing wrong with that, but he insists on including my (incorrect) home address. And for some reason, he refers to my father, his rank when he was a police officer plus his date of birth and date of death. He attempts to pass this information to some of the worst criminals in the state. Decades ago, he wrote to me asking if I would ghost-write his book. When I declined, he wrote to Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read suggesting he was being ripped off by his publishers (colleague Andrew Rule and me).>>
The Knighthood comments:
Evidence? More fake news?
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #30]: <<Should Knight be transferred from maximum-security Port Phillip to the more relaxed Loddon Prison?
How he does his time is decided by his prison behaviour not the vile crimes he committed nearly 40 years ago. He might be a manipulative man but is he a dangerous one?
There are three simple questions.
-
Is he at risk from other inmates at Castlemaine?
-
Is he a risk to prisoners at Castlemaine?
-
Will he try to escape from Castlemaine?
If the three answers are no, he should be transferred to Loddon, despite the inevitable outrage.>>
The Knighthood comments:
“Should Knight be transferred from maximum-security Port Phillip to the more relaxed Loddon Prison?” Yes, Knight after many years battling Corrections Victoria in court finally won his case to be downgraded to medium security risk, which is what Loddon Prison is.
(1) “Is he at risk from other inmates at Castlemaine?” Probably not. Loddon is a medium security prison, so not accessible to prisoners of maximum security risk.
In July 2016, Loddon prisoner Hizir Ferman (35) died in his cell in adjoining minimum security Middleton Prison caused by excessive use of CS (tear) gas by anti-riot police who had been called in to transfer Ferman back to the maximum-security Barwon Prison…
<<The coronal inquiry heard Ferman, a violent standover man, assaulted officers when they asked him to stop smoking in his room in a low-security cottage in the Middleton section of Loddon Prison, where he was transitioning for release. Coroner Rosemary Carlin found Ferman “repeatedly punched [one officer] to the hands, head and face until [he] lay bleeding on the ground.”
Members of the specialist-trained Security and Emergency Services Group (SESG) were called in to transfer Ferman back to the maximum-security Barwon Prison. After a five-hour operation, during which officers attempted to communicate with Ferman, two bursts of tear gas (also known as CS gas) were sprayed into his room to bring the stand-off to an end. When Ferman was removed he was restrained while nursing staff administered oxygen and he was shackled and fitted with a security belt and sat up in preparation for his transportation to Barwon Prison.
“Hizir’s head hung limply to his chest,” the coroner found. “Hizir was laid back down, the nurses resumed providing oxygen, but it was soon realised that he had no pulse.”>> [SOURCE]
In September 2022, Loddon prisoner Clinton Austin (38) died of a clinical methadone overdose issue by prison doctors. The court heard Austin had an acquired brain injury (ABI) from a car accident in 2018, but it was two years into his sentence before the condition was officially reported. [SOURCE]
So, recent evidence shows that the only risk Julian might face would not be from other prisoners, but rather from prison staff and anti-riot police. Julian is not likely to riot.
(2) Is he a risk to prisoners at Castlemaine?
No.
(3) Will he try to escape from Castlemaine?
No. Loddon Prison is ‘medium security’ so it has :”a big wall or two”, and we know of no tunnel or day release programme into town.
As for escaping from Castlemaine the town, well there are worse towns in Victoria, and all are better than Melbourne, especially Truganina.
“The inevitable outrage” – well, induced by whom Silvester – bad ol’ putty tat!
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #31]: <<Knight, 57, remains supremely fit and may well remain in custody for another 30 years. It is entirely possible that when the sun sets on Knight, he will have served 70 years in jail. That is his punishment. >>
The Knighthood comments:
Yes, Knight is 57 and remains supremely fit. He should be released immediately. He has long served out his judicial punishment of 27 years plus 10 years as a political prisoner of the very ‘Victorian’ Parliament.
John Silvester alias ‘Sly of the Underworld’ – looks the part and matches the Looney Tunes character, in our opinion 🙂
OUR RESPONSE to ARTICLE #1: Silvester’s article of 4th August 2017: “Inside the mind of Hoddle Street killer Julian Knight“
[NOTE: This webpage currently is a work in progress, due to its content complexity and currency.]
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #1]: “Inside the mind of Hoddle Street killer Julian Knight” his article heading in Victoria’s The Age newspaper 4th August 2017; else was it editorial license over his column piece?
The Knighthood comments:
So, Silvester as a newspaper columnist is playing psychoanalyst? He cannot know what is inside the mind of Julian Knight. Silvester has no friggen idea! The only thing he got right in this heading was that Julian Knight, yes, was the Hoddle Street killer of 1987. Factually, Julian confessed to police immediately upon arrest and to detectives and to the Courts.
Was the article heading just editorial license over Silvester’s column piece?
Silvester has never met Julian nor corresponded with him. All Silvester may know is what he’s read in the media, which in Julian’s case has been dominated by Victorian-centric newspapers, which typically we’ve found is written by similar opinionated ignorant columnists (not objective Journalists) like Silvester. This website regurgitates the media under the top menu heading Media Scrutiny – so we reckon we know what we’re talking about. Unlike opinionated columnist Silvester, we at least supply the sources, whereas Silvester style is unsubstantiated vindictive ranting.
Silvester’s never been to Duntroon, never suffered military bastardisation. He has no clue about Julian’s mind back before, during and after Hoddle Street.
This website may help provide appropriate insight to Silvester, and other media types, by following this website’s top menu drop down lists, which are mostly in chronological order; that is if Silvester can be bothered. This website is wholly self-funded, but not by Julian Knight.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #2]: “These are words you thought you would never read in a mainstream media publication. Mass killer Julian Knight is right. The decision to ban him from applying for parole is unjust and has left him the victim of political populism.”
The Knighthood comments:
Yes, the decision to ban Julian Knight from applying for parole judicially due in 2014 was and remains unjust. The decision was (1) media motivated (led by Melbourne radio 3AW’s Neil Mitchell’s public campaigning), (2) politically motivated by the then incumbent Victorian Liberal State Government, and was unconstitutional – a blatant interference and ursurpation by the Executive and the Legislature over the authority and independence of Judiciary.
So, Julian was yes quite right to challenge the decision – legally, Constitutionally and morally. But he has never had a political bone. But The Knighthood has – hence this website.
But then how hypocritical of Silvester in the same sentence label Julian Knight as “the victim of political populism”!
Silvester on the one hand notes the injustice yet in the same sentence undermines Julian as a popular victim, to stir up the Hoddle Street victims, a repeat of hate tirade (by Victorian media, by Victorian Police, by Hoddle Street victims and their families and by anonymous hangers on – just to what rekindle history? How disingenuous this confirms this bloke is a columnist and never an honest objective journalist from the readings we have done. He may as well be targeting Ned Kelly of 1880. Think Ned Kelly – him and his Irish family persecuted by then English police authority since childhood. Ned’s sister Kate (14) raped on 15 April 1878 by Victorian Police Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick in the Kelly’s family home.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #3]: “On Wednesday, August 9, it will be 30 years since Knight took three firearms to Hoddle Street on a quiet Sunday night with a plan to hunt down and kill as many innocent people as he could.“
The Knighthood comments:
Yes, the date is correct. Just weeks out of RMC Duntroon, his car had been previously vandalised an a vengeful attack by senior cadets on Duntroon campus, he was broke and unemployed, his car which that he had bought in May 1987 whilst full-time training at Duntroon for about a $6000 car finance loan, yet it was not working well.
Julian became depressed, especially after being rejected by his girlfriend. Lonely, he got drunk that evening at a local pub In Clifton Hill. After some hours drinking he became momentarily psychotic, delusional and paranoid about ‘enemy’ in the immediate hours prelude before his enraged Hoddle Street shooting spree of Sunday night of 9th August 1987….
“At about 16:50, Knight went to see an old girlfriend in Clifton Hill in order to give her a magazine. He only stayed at her flat for about five minutes then he continued to drive aimlessly around the area. Minutes later the gearbox of his car – his only asset – jammed and stuck in second gear. He limped the car home, where he changed clothes and drank another can of beer before walking angrily around to the nearby Royal Hotel, his local pub, at around 17:30. None of Knight’s friends were there, so he drank alone from around 17:30. At around 20:50, Knight reportedly began to feel the effects of the beer he’d been drinking and he had a “vision” of soldiers being ambushed. He felt as if it was a “call to arms”, and at about 20:55 he rushed from the hotel and ran back to his mother’s house.”
[SOURCE] – this being readily available to Silvester, that is if he has bothered to do any research beyond old media reports and his own innuendo.
It was post-pub intoxication, now night time and dark, save for the suburban street lighting. He had dangerously had legal and ready access to his firearms and ammunition.
Julian was to momentarily and psychotically convert his state of mind into temporary insanity (still undiagnosed to this day) and take out his vengeance against Duntroon and the Army, but to feel compelled to immediately manifest it against civil society just a few blocks down the street to well-lit and noisy Hoddle Street ‘carnival’.
Within a psychotic 45 minute time mental health episode, in just a few minutes walk from where he was staying at his mother’s home, he let loose on the passing public driving along nearby busy Hoddle Street – left to right, and right to left. He was not compos mentis.
Once police arrived on the scene, and him running our of ammunition for two of his three carried military-style weapons of choice, he decided that rather than being trapped and pinned down where he was, he early on evaded on-ground police muster and with local knowledge ran upon him trying to escape police to his girlfriend’s place in nearby Fitzroy North and running out of ammunition he immediately surrendered to police and confessed to his shootings to detectives. These are the facts.
Read the following lead up to Hoddle Street on this website:
Knight’s criminal actions were not premediated like those of later the 1996 Port Arthur mass murderer Martin Bryant.
Notes of forensic psychiatrist Paul Mullen, who interviewed Bryant for more than four hours in the days after the April 1996 Port Arthur massacre revealed that Bryant’s motive for committing the Port Arthur massacre (shooting dead 35 people) was premediated, driven to kill over his hatred of an elderly couple who refused to sell his family a bed and breakfast and his hate for tourists near where he lived. Bryant had first shot Noelene and David Martin at their Seascape Cottage bed and breakfast, and said he had worked on the plan to kill the couple for more than 12 months. [SOURCE]
So such in Martin Bryant’s mass murder case was for quite a different personal motive and different mental illness, but we are not psychoanalysts either.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #4]: “In just 38 minutes the 19-year-old failed (and bullied) army officer candidate fired 200 rounds of high-grade ammunition, killing seven people, wounding a further 19 and nearly shooting the police helicopter out of the sky.”
The Knighthood comments:
Knight’s shooting spree commenced at 21:30 hours and once immediately out of ammunition surrendered to Constables John Delahunty and Ralph Lockman in a laneway in Fitzroy North at 22:15 hours. It was just forty-five minutes later. But Julian’s psychotic-induced carnival shooting at Hoddle Street had only lasted 21:30 hours to 21:45, so just 15 minutes, not Silvester’s fictional and exaggerated 38 minutes. The following 30 minutes once police arrived and then deployed their helicopter hunt with spot light.
No, the total rounds fired were not the so even “200” as fictioned by Silvester. Try instead a more factual 126. This total does not including Julian’s deranged planned spare suicide single round in his pocket that lost in all the kerfuffle nightly drama going on.
Julian used three weapons at Hoddle Street that he chose and carried in his rifle bag which he pre-loaded and fired in order as follows, with ‘Read More‘ links to readers more interested:
(1) One standard Sturm Ruger 10/22 (.22 calibre) semi-automatic rifle (U.S. made), having a 10-round detachable box magazine [Read More]
(2) One standard Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun, having a 5+1 shot capacity (‘1’ meaning pre-loaded in the firing chamber) [Read More] [Read More] [Read More about “bullpup” assault rifles]
(3) One cheap QBU-88 Marksman Rifle (7.62mm calibre semi-automatic military rifle (China-made), 10 round detachable box magazine [Read More] This would be his deadliest choice on Hoddle Street, which Julian left to use last and take with him to evade the police hunt under cover of unlit interconnecting creekside parkland into adjacent Fitzroy North.
To confirm, the total rounds loaded carried and fired by Julian were roughly 126, not Silvester’s exaggerated and rounded up to some imaged even 200. That would have been nearly 40% more rounds, particularly for Knight’s ultimate so-called M14 automatic military assault rifle.
Silvester is the known sensationalist drama queen of Melbourne Crime.
Also , according to Google AI: “There isn’t a direct Chinese variant of the American M14 rifle. However, China developed its own family of battle rifles, such as the QBU-88 Designated Marksman Rifle, and the primary caliber (sic) for Chinese service rifles was the 7.62×39mm cartridge used in weapons like the SKS, not the 7.62×51mm NATO used by the M14.” Julian’s Chinese QBU-88 Marksman Rifle is a cheap variant of the U.S. M14.
Julian’s later submitted in court evidence that in addition to pre-loading each of the three long arms, he also added and carried about 100 rounds of mixed ammunition for his different weapons before he departed his mother’s home toward the sound of the Hoddle Street traffic under 200 metres away.
Herein, we do not condone Hoddle Street, and we do not condone nor encourage any others to be in any way encouraged by our text to explore or consider the weapons information we provide about Julian Knight’s escapade of now 38 years ago nor to copy cat (like Martin Bryant did in Tasmania in 1996). Instead we seek to purely provide facts to counter the reporting media’s unsubstantiated suppositions.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #5]: “When police closed in on him he threw down his guns and surrendered, later telling detectives he intended to shoot himself but misplaced his last bullet.”
The Knighthood comments:
Yes. Knight immediately pleaded guilty and was subsequently sentenced to multiple life sentences but because of his age was given a minimum sentence of 27 years cumulative – meaning he was eligible to apply for parole in 2014.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #6]: “The thing is the outrage about Knight’s sentence has grown over the years. Back then the headlines shouted “Life” and there was little emphasis on the bottom end of his potential jail term.”
The Knighthood comments:
This is a false concocted statement by Silvester of invented “outrage“, media headlines of “Life“.
Old salts in the Victorian media think they dominate and sway public discourse – well look what happened to Fairfax! It went broke.
The public are not stupid nor easily dissuaded from truth, despite how desperate the biased mainstream media tries.
Our reply to John [Abzorbaloff Dr Who monster] Silvester:
Silvester, it’s best to retire from your fantasy ‘Sly’ persona on Radio 3AW.
In prison, if you’d grassed like this you’d go down like Leonard Gordon, Michael Black, and Carl Williams…payback bashed to death.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #7]: “Indeed, sentencing judge Justice George Hampel made it clear Knight needed to reform to be freed telling him the 27 years was just the minimum he could serve and was not a guaranteed release date.”
The Knighthood comments:
Yes.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #8]: “Many thought Knight would die in prison – either by his own hand or from the career crooks who would show him less sympathy than Justice Hampel. But Knight had the instincts of a survivor – first shown when he meekly surrendered the moment he saw anyone who could return fire at Hoddle Street.”
The Knighthood comments:
“Many thought Knight would die in prison” How so?
Silvester’s hate-filled lies continue.
RE: Hoddle Street 1987 (not like yesterday). Correction: Soldier Knight skedaddled once he quickly realised that police were starting to encircle and trap him at Clifton Hill Railway Station.
Then he shot back up at the police helicopter with is spot light and hit it, so it took off. Knight then evaded capture only to surrender the moment he ran out of ammo with nowhere to go and with police pistols aimed at him. Julian was psychotic but not stupid nor suicidal. Perhaps Kinight’s “suicide round” in his jeans hip pocket got lost (else used up) in all the excitement.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #9]: “Slight but fit, Knight went to prison and taught himself to box, hitting the heavy bag at every opportunity and – more importantly – used the sound military tactic of developing strong allies including some of the worst killers Australia has known.”
The Knighthood comments:
Knight is a born fighter.
Silvester is one for story telling – fiction. He ought dabble.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #10]: “But there were other heavyweights who didn’t warm to him. In 1993 prison authorities discovered a mass escape plot involving up to 30 inmates in Pentridge’s notorious H Division. The plan included attacking Knight in his cell.”
The Knighthood comments:
Evidence of this else fictitious story?
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #11]: “While Knight was not a model prisoner (there were a few minor assaults and discipline issues) he was usually well behaved. “He quickly learned to fly under the radar and keep a low profile,” a veteran Pentridge officer said. “He didn’t steal anything and didn’t try to stand over anyone.”
The Knighthood comments:
We are aware that Julian Knight as a prisoner in Pentridge Prison and then whilst in Barwon Prison was assaulted by violent inmates. He just defended himself, and subsequently subjected to unfair disciplinary procedures.
Knight was and always sough to be a model prisoner and yes, he was usually well behaved. Yes, “He quickly learned to fly under the radar and keep a low profile,” a veteran Pentridge officer said. “He didn’t steal anything and didn’t try to stand over anyone.”
Q.E.D.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #12]: “He has a huge ego,” another prison officer said of Knight, who was once assessed as intelligent but a “chronic under-achiever”. “He always believes he is the smartest in the room,” a prison source said.”
The Knighthood comments:
Who holds “a huge ego” Silvester?
“Under-achiever” due to Duntroon bastardisation.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #13]: “In one conversation Knight talked of an international mass killing then added that if you wanted to create maximum casualties, “you would just fly a plane into the MCG”. “It chilled me to the bone,” said the officer.”
The Knighthood comments:
Evidence for such extreme claim?
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #14]: “His cell has always been maniacally ordered and he even lined up his soft drink bottles “like little soldiers”. Sometimes uninvited guests would sneak in to rearrange his possessions. “He would be furious,” a source said.”
The Knighthood comments:
Again, no evidence for such extreme claim. Source?
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #15]: “Even in prison the military-obsessed Knight ranked inmates – referring to career criminals and murderers as “long termers” while those serving shorter sentences were “shit-kickers”.
The Knighthood comments:
Julian Knight is a born soldier, so yes a military enthusiast. Silvester, he is not obsessed; there is a difference.
But it perhaps has been moreso a nurture influence than of innate nature; this given his upbringing having a military father and surrounded by an Army environment during his impressionable childhood (infancy through to adolescence).
As for Knight ranking prison inmates:
So one presumes a “long-termer” would likely be serving a long sentence compared with short-termers. Most prisons have a pecking order culture. So those keen to get out early for lesser convicted sentences probably would have less clout in the prison pecking order that the long termers, so prone to be doing the shit-kicking for the long-termers, if they know what’s good for them. Port Phillip Prison, being a maximum security prison would house serious offenders (convicted murderers, etc). The culture would be little different to that of maximum security Barwon Prison and in the earlier days maximum security ‘H-Division’ within HM Pentridge Prison; both of which Julian Knight served time.
Recall that Knight served time in Pentridge whilst convicted murderer Chopper Read was there. Now would a short-timer (of a low level crime) challenge Chopper Read whilst in the same prison, or be content to be a shit-kicker?
We posit that the “military” lingo to which Silvester refers is not “military” at all nor is its Knight’s creation. In the military, even at the Army’s RMC Duntroon where Julian attended, neither slang terms “long termers” nor “shit-kickers” that anyone uses. One of our Duntroon sources says that at Duntroon “long-termers” don’t exist – because the military course is just 18 months, but since last year even short at just 12 months, and that the Duntroon equivalent of “shit-kickers” is “fourthies” – dating from the days of the RMC course being 4 years. “Fourthies” were fourth class cadets in the lowest freshmen year of the four year Army officer training course that then included graduating with a university degree.
Our source adds that yes, those attending RMC Duntroon should prepare themselves to be ‘RMC inmates‘. Good call Silvester!
Knight has just used the lingo of prison prisoners.
Yet, our Silvester likes to make up stories and cast aspersions Julian’s way with each opportunity to poke a stick; we’ve got used to it.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #16]: “By 2012 Knight started to prepare to apply for parole telling people he would “make a mark” on release. “He wasn’t talking about crime – he just thought he was special and a natural high achiever.” Julian Knight talks of an alleged police informer to triple murderer Ashley Coulston.”
NEXT…The Knighthood comments:
By 2012 Knight was of his sentencing terms (and his plea deal with Duntroon – influencing/bullying the Victoria Police prosecution) yes, started to prepare to apply for due parole as in 1988 had been Judicially set for 2014.
So Silvester, Julian’s supposed statement to “make a mark on release” came from what source?
Fact check: From the man himself, Julian Knight’s sole plans after release have always been to just simply disappear from the media/public limelight, live somewhere quiet in peace, unknown and to re-adjust back into normal civilian life; nothing more. No crimes, just to re-adjust back to normality and live out his life, but obviously not as a soldier he had sought when an adolescent nearly four decades ago!
No, Julian has never thought of himself ever as being “special” nor being “a natural high achiever”. He had previously been advised (wrongly) that RMC Duntroon would be the best for his soldiering career. He was just 18 and received bad advice. Julian simply retains his innate self-confidence, despite.
Where the hell does Silvester come up with such imagined and emotive crap? And what has someone called Ashley Coulston got anything to do with the price of fish?
Unbelievable!
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #17]: “Knight is right. In reality he has been re-sentenced by politicians with a law designed to trump the courts entrusted with the job of setting prison terms and the parole board that should decide release dates. If Knight has reformed he should be able to apply for parole in the same way as any other inmate. If.
But in 2014 the then Coalition state government brought in one-off legislation shutting the cell door – effectively banning him from parole. “This is guaranteeing that he remains in jail until he’s dead, or so seriously incapacitated he’s no risk to other people in Victoria or indeed in the community,” then premier Denis Napthine said.
Knight recently wrote:
“The Victorian state government changed the law to keep me in prison not because I pose a threat to the community, but because they believe I did not deserve to be given a minimum non-parole term. The fact is a minimum term was not opposed by the prosecution and the minimum term that was set was not appealed against. They didn’t think I would survive to see the end of my 27-year minimum term and when I did they brought into law retrospective legislation that rewrote history to suit their views as to what they thought my sentence should have been.”
The Knighthood comments:
Yep. Politician have usurped the Judiciary in flagrant breach of the principle of the ‘Separation of Powers’ between the Judiciary, Legislature and Executive of Government as enshrined in the Australian Constitution of 1901. Politicians in Victoria in 2014 imposed indefinite detention specifically against Julian Knight.
Yet the High Court inconsistently agreed with them in Knight’s case but nine years later in ‘NZYQ v. Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs & Anor‘ (High Court Case No. S28/2023) the High Court ruled that such… “contravened Ch III of the Constitution because the plaintiff’s detention was not reasonably capable of being seen as necessary for a legitimate and non-punitive purpose in circumstances where there was no real prospect of the removal of the plaintiff from Australia becoming practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future.“
Go figure. The High Court comprise a bunch of politicians in the Judiciary.
Indeed, “the fact is a minimum term was not opposed by the prosecution and the minimum term that was set was not appealed against. They didn’t think I would survive to see the end of my 27-year minimum term and when I did they brought into law retrospective legislation that rewrote history to suit their views as to what they thought my sentence should have been.”
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #18]: “So we know what Knight did 30 years ago but what has he become? Let’s not ask those traumatised by his actions nor look at the image Knight would like to portray. Let us look at the real Knight – the one he shares with the killers and the crims who have been his friends and allies for decades. To do so we must reach back to an investigation that does not directly relate to Knight but shows his actions are at odds with his claims to have reformed.
In February 1992, schoolgirl Prue Bird was abducted from her Glenroy home and murdered. Her body has never been found. Police believe the 13-year-old was targeted as revenge against her grandmother’s partner who gave evidence against the men responsible for the 1986 Russell Street bombing. One of those convicted of the bombing was Craig Minogue (a Knight ally) who is alleged to have said, while warning people not to talk, “It would be a shame if anything happened to your sweet little Prue, wouldn’t it?”
In February 2012 police charged Bega schoolgirl killer Les Camilleri with Prue’s murder. Camilleri, who was already serving life with no minimum for the 1997 murders of Lauren Barry, 14, and Nichole Collins, 16, eventually pleaded guilty to the Bird murder. He refused to implicate anyone else in the crime and gave a clearly bogus account of what happened. There was never any incentive to tell the truth as his papers have been marked never to be released over the Bega double murder. Within weeks of the charges being laid Knight involves himself, identifying a fellow prisoner he claims was the police informer. He claims the prison source was paid $500,000 for information – an allegation that put the man’s life in danger.
Two years earlier, drug boss Carl Williams was bashed to death in Barwon prison because he had been identified as a police informer. The man Knight repeatedly claimed was the informer in the Bird case was an old enemy – one of the inmates from Pentridge who had planned to attack him in 1993 during a prison break-out.
On March 19, 2012, Knight wrote to Minogue saying, “I have been following the Prue Bird investigation … I have it on good authority who the prison source is. “On a completely different subject, [names prisoner] is on the loose after being sentenced in a closed court. I hear he is hoping to invest $500,000.” In another letter he tries to organise another inmate who is a Minogue associate to connect with Camilleri to compare notes, implying police will not be able to link the Russell Street bombers to the Bird murder. “I predict no one else will get charged and the case against Les will collapse. We will wait and see.”
In a letter of support to Camilleri he sends him media transcripts on the case before ending, “Take care of yourself Big Boy”. In another letter he names the suspected informer asking Camilleri to remember where he met him. “Mate, think hard.”
In a note to triple murderer Ashley Mervyn Coulston, Knight says, “I predict the case against Les will collapse. A gaol-house informant has 500,000 reasons to make up stories. Say no more.”
Knight says he has changed. In his latest plea he writes: “Thirty years have passed since the Hoddle Street shootings and I am far from the immature disturbed, desperate teenager who committed them.”
The Knighthood comments:
How can Silvester guess the “real” Knight? Just may be reading this website might awaken Silvester, if he bothers.
Other criminals type are irrelevant. Knight can offer up his own opinion. Hasn’t Silvester just slightly? Isn’t Silvester a recipient of gaol informants on commission from his gossip rag employer?
“Thirty years have passed since the Hoddle Street shootings and I am far from the immature disturbed, desperate teenager who committed them.”
~ Julian Knight.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #19]: ” There is something else in Knight’s letters that remains deeply concerning. This mass killer who says he is no longer violent has chosen to use as his personalised letterhead the image of two armed soldiers on patrol with the caption “Call of Duty 2”. He says he wept for his victims but when it came to the murder of the innocent Prue Bird he shows no compassion at all – preferring to use the crime to even an old score and curry favour with killers.
Knight should be able to apply for parole and there can be no doubt the Parole Board would reject any such submission – not because his initial sentence was inadequate – but because he would be judged as still being too great a risk.”
The Knighthood comments:
Yes, Knight should be able to apply for parole. No case has been brought, including by the Adult Parole Boar of Victoria that Knight in 2025 (or for that matter back in 2014) in any way presents a risk to the community.
[SILVESTER’S STATEMENT #20]: “Julian Knight went to jail for what he did then and should remain there for what he is now. He stands condemned by his own words.”
The Knighthood comments:
Yes, Julian Knight immediately confessed his crimes on Hoddle Street to Victoria Police on the very night of his arrest late on Sunday 9th August 1987 with no legal counsel.
But since 2014 Julian Knight has become a political prisoner of the Victorian State Government, after having duefully served out his Judicial sentence.
