Brief Background and Introduction:
These updates are listed on this webpage and in chronological order since 1987. In some cases, details are described in brief, else with more information, internal hyperlinks to within this website provide more account on dedicated article posts.
Note that prior to 1987’s Hoddle Street Shooting Spree, Knight had never been in prison before, nor ever been arrested. That is a significant reason why he had gained elite acceptance for Australian Army officer training to Duntroon by its rigorous scrutinising Selection Board of senior Army Officers.
Clearly, something happened to Julian during his initial training at RMC Duntroon that caused him to psychotically alter and immediately inflict deranged vengeance upon Hoddle Street random unknown civilians and to carry a suicide bullet to plan to end his life immediately afterwards. In the physical drama and confusion, Julian misplaced that suicide round. So he surrendered to police and confessed his shooting spree immediately.
Could this scenario happen again by others subjected to Duntroon’s sick methods of torture? To date, we see no indications otherwise.
So where has the media been hiding when it comes to the truth of the evil of what Duntroon Bastardisation can do to a good soldier and not its cowardly scapegoating?
The only penalty Julian had copped as documented of his upbringing by certain researchers somehow, was apparently on 16 November 1982 at age 14, Julian at junior secondary school level in Form 2 (Year 8) at Westbourne Grammar School (Melbourne suburb of Hoppers Crossing*) he became involved and caught out in some schoolyard fight, for reasons unexplained.
Julian’s penalty was a caning punishment by some teacher/headmaster. May be Julian had been bullied; else may be he had been standing up for a school friend who was being bullied, and so Julian fought that bully. May be Julian owned up straight away and that’s why he copped his deserved punishment on the chin for doing wrong at 14.
On 31st March 1983, Julian appeared at the Werribee Children’s Court over his fighting charges resulting from the schoolyard fight on the 16 November 1982. All charges were dismissed [Case No: CC118/83]. Clearly there had been other factors involved in that 1982 schoolyard fight.
In any case by December 1982, following his father’s divorced from his mother in 1980, Knight’s mother with her three children including Julian, relocated from Hoppers Crossing to the Melbourne suburb of Clifton Hill. Julian then completed his secondary schooling at nearby Fitzroy High School (Years 10-11). Then from March 1984 to December 1985, Julian successfully completes his final two years of secondary schooling (Years 11 & 12) at prestigious Melbourne High School. He achieves an overall advanced ‘Credit’ grade average of 67% for his Higher School Certificate (HSC).
Julian has always been a happy-go-lucky larrikin since childhood; easy going, takes things as they come, puts up with what’s thrown at him, takes the piss, a class clown at times. His normal everyday character emulates many Australian lads especially from the Bush, many that went off to The Great War. But Duntroon would become his nemesis, under its perverted anti-Australian British old school inherited classism and institutionalised bastardisation torture.
No Duntroon = No Hoddle Street. But only decades later wisely with hindsight. Apologies to the victims, but not to the ADF, government nor the corporate political media like Liberal puppet and notoriously opinionated shock jock since his start at Melbourne Radio Station 3AW in 1987 Neil Mitchell.
*Note: Westbourne Grammar School at Hoppers Crossing was close to (3km) from where Knight’s family had lived in Laverton, since his father was then an Army Captain engaged in military education and despatched to nearby (7km) from RAAF Base at Point Cook.
1987: In Police Custody – St Kilda Road Police Complex then in Melbourne City Watch House
Julian Knight surrendered unarmed to Victoria Police at 10:15 pm on Sunday 9th August 1988 (night of the shootings) in a night cart laneway, situated between 227 and 241 McKean Street in Fitzroy North. This occurred 30 minutes after Knight had run out of ammunition and briefly going on the run on foot to try to evade police immediately following his 30 minute shooting spree back at Hoddle Street in the adjacent suburb of Clifton Hill. It was just 500 metres (as the crow flies) from where he had started his random shooting spree at passers-by along Hoddle Street. Police Constables John Delahunty and Ralph Lockman took Knight into custody, handcuffing him.
Numerous other police officers arrived at the arrest scene in McKean Street; and after a short, initially violent interrogation (by officers wanting to know where his accomplices were), Knight was driven in an unmarked police car to the St Kilda Road Police Complex by Homicide Squad Detective Senior Constable Richard McIntosh, Detective Senior Constable Kim Cox and Constable Robert Kovacs.
There Knight was interrogated extensively by Victoria Homicide Squad Detectives McIntosh and Cox, and briefly by the then head of the Homicide Squad, Detective Chief Inspector Brendon Cole. Knight quickly confesses his crimes and that he was acting solo. Knight was then again interrogated extensively by Homicide Squad detectives Detective Senior Sergeant Brian McCarthy and Detective Senior Constable Graham Kent. The police interrogation process lasted 14 hours straight through the night well into the next day, Monday. Following the estensive interrogation, at 12.20 pm at the St Kilda Road Police Complex, Victoria Police charge Knight with the murder of John Muscat, Knight’s first victim. Other charges would follow as police gathered evidence of the shootings.
That night and the following day the two detectives drove Knight in an unmarked police car in handcuffs back to the crime scene at Hoddle Street. Knight was further interrogated en route and he voluntarily participated in both a night-time crime re-enactment and a day-time crime re-enactment, both of which were videoed. Knight was fully co-operative with the homicide detectives throughout. He had no legal representation at that stage.
That same Monday in the afternoon 10th August 1987, Victoria Police transfer Knight under arrest is directly to the then Melbourne City Watch-House (1909-1994) – see internal image below.
Of note, the then Melbourne City Watch-House pre-dates and was situated adjacent to the then Melbourne Magistrates Court (1913-1994) (see image below) with an internal below-ground secure prisoner transfer tunnel interconnecting the two adjoining buildings.
Of note, the Melbourne City Watch-House was adjoined on the other side to the Old Melbourne Gaol (1864-1929), having a similar internal below-ground secure prisoner tunnel.
The same Monday in the afternoon, Knight is then escorted under Police guard and in handcuffs and leg chains via the prisoner tunnel promptly to and from Melbourne Magistrates Court appearing before Chief Magistrate John ‘Darcy’ Dugan in the initial charge of murder of John Muscat, and is remanded overnight in custody back in the adjacent Melbourne City Watch-House.
The following day, Tuesday 11th August 1987, Knight is transferred by police in inmate transport from the Melbourne City Watch-House 9km north to Her Majesty’s (HM) Pentridge Prison (1864-1997) in Coburg.
Upon arrival at Pentridge, Knight was unceremoniously ordered by the prison officer to strip and then beaten by same and thrown in a solitary confinement cell in H Division – the prison’s maximum security punishment division. Bastardisation repeated! Duntroon was prison.
Read more from Julian Knight’s account himself:
Six days later on Monday 17th August 1987, Knight is transferred by inmate transport from HM Pentridge Prison back to the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court and appeared before Magistrate Sally Brown back in the for a remand hearing.
Knight is relocated to a psychiatric observation ward at HM Pentridge Prison’s internal hospital in solitary confinement.
After three months in solitary confinement, Knight on 10th November 1987, Knight is relocated back to H Division.
1988:
On 18th and 19th April 1998, Knight appears before Chief Magistrate John Dugan in the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court for a committal hearing, and is committed to stand trial.
Knight continues to be incarcerated in HM Pentridge Prison H-Division until 28th and 31th October 1988 when Knight pleads guilty to all charges – 7 murders and 46 attempted murders – and pleas before sentencing are made before Justice George Hampel in the Supreme Court of Victoria at Melbourne [Case No: TSS7].
Then on 10th November 1988 Knight is sentenced to Life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole term of 27 yea rs by Justice George Hampel in the Supreme Court of Victoria at Melbourne [Ref: R v Knight [1989] VR 705].
He is returned to HM Pentridge Prison in H Division…
1988 – 1994: In H.M. Pentridge Prison, Coburg
From his sentencing on 10th November 1988, Knight was immediately transferred to H.M. Pentridge Prison, situated 9 km north of the Melbourne City Watch-House at 1 Champ Street in Melbourne’s working class suburb of Coburg. The police investigation and charge cases followed by the judicial hearing and sentencing process had taken 13 months. It was 13 months since his arrest on the night of 9th August 1987. That period would factor into being part of Knight’s overall incarceration term.
1994-2005: In H.M. Prison Barwon, Anakie
Most prisoners held in Pentridge were relocated to H.M. Prison Barwon over a period of time between January 1990 and early 1997, following the decison to shut down H.M. Pentridge Prison permanently from 1st May 1997. H.M. Prison Barwon is a male only rural prison situated at 1140 Bacchus Marsh Rd, Anakie, about 10km north of Geelong in southern Victoria on flat desolate disused sheep country.
Julian Knight was tranferred from H.M. Pentridge Prison to H.M. Barwon Prison in 1994. He continued his Bachelor of Arts studies, graduating in May 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Strategic and Defence Studies from Deakin University.
2005-current: In Port Phillip Prison, Truganina
Originally called Port Phillip Correctional Centre, Port Phillip Prison is a maximum security prison located at Truganina on the western outskirts of Melbourne. It received its first prisoners on 10th September 1997 and is able to accommodate up to 1117 prisoners. It is privately operated on behalf of the Government of Victoria by G4S Australia Pty Ltd.
Julian Knight was transferred from Barwon Prison to Port Phillip Prison in 2005, where he has remained to date. Ironically, Port Phillip Prison is situated less than 5km from Westbourne Grammar School where Julian Knight atended and volunteered as an Army school cadet.
In 2010, Knight transferred to the Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice degree course part-time and off-campus via Griffith University. He would use the knowledge of the law to challenge the prison authorities for his ongoing poor treatment in prison and denial of his human rights.
2025: Port Phillip Prison… set to close by Victorian Government policy
(content pending)