Australia’s worst ever pedophile is likely to spend the next 30 years in a secure unit in one of Queensland’s most notorious prisons to protect him from the wider prison population – but even that may not be enough to protect him from future attacks.
Ashley Paul Griffith, 46, is currently incarcerated in the segregated S3 unit at Wolston Correctional Centre, south of Brisbane.
Griffith, who was sentenced in the Brisbane District Court last Friday to life in prison with a non-parole period of 27 years for the most unimaginable crimes committed against young girls over the past two decades, has already spent a year on remand in the department.
It is home to some of Australia’s most depraved murderers, rapists and pedophiles.
Notable inmates include Leonard Fraser, the ‘Rockhampton Rapist’, who died in 2007, and Robert Paul Long, who started the Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel fire in 2000, which killed 15 people.
Brett Peter Cowan, the infamous killer of schoolboy Daniel Morcombe who he murdered on the Sunshine Coast in 2003, is also housed in the unit.
But the sealed walls of Unit S3 do not mean that high-profile criminals are completely immune from prison justice.
Last year, both Cowan and Griffith were targeted by a ‘prison napalm’ attack, leaving the latter requiring hospital treatment.
Ashley Paul Griffith (pictured), 46, is currently incarcerated in the segregated S3 Unit at Wolston Correctional Centre, south of Brisbane
Griffith, who was sentenced in the Brisbane District Court on Friday to life in prison with a non-parole period of 27 years for the most unimaginable crimes, has already spent a year in the S3 Unit at Wolston Correctional Center while on remand (pictured).
Another prisoner mixed a piping hot cocktail of jam and boiling water before throwing it over the two pedophiles.
The jam causes the sugar to increase the cooking temperature and creates a super hot slime that sticks to the skin, maximizing pain and injury.
Wolston Correctional Center houses approximately 925 inmates.
The attack occurred just days after Griffith was publicly identified as the childcare worker charged with more than 300 counts of child abuse, including rape.
“It’s no secret that Griffith will be a target for as long as he lives,” a corrections agency source told Daily Mail Australia.
“Some prisoners will see the attack on him as a reward to raise their own status among other prisoners, even if it means extending their own sentences.”
‘Of course prison guards will be extremely vigilant, but Wolston is seriously overcrowded and they have no eyes on the back of their heads, as last year’s napalm attack proved.’
If Cowan’s experience is anything to go by, Griffith will have a terrible time.
Last year, both child murderer Brett Peter Cowan (pictured) and Griffith were targeted in a ‘prison napalm’ attack, leaving the latter requiring hospital treatment
Cowan has been targeted at least four times in recent years. In 2016, Adam Paul Davidson, then 31, snuck up behind him while he was playing cards and poured boiling water on his head.
The killer was left writhing in pain and screaming “why?” over and over again, peeling the skin on his face and shoulders.
When asked about the burning, Davidson later told police, “I didn’t want to kill him or anything, I just wanted to hurt him… I just wanted him to feel the pain.”
‘Feel the pain that someone like Daniel Morcombe felt.’
In 2018, Cowan was stabbed in the neck with a makeshift knife, but the attacker drew no blood.
That same year, inmates started a riot as a distraction so they could throw reheated spices at Cowan, but their plan was foiled by the guards.
It is said that he now lives in a constant state of fear.
Ashley Paul Griffith, 46, was sentenced to life in prison with a non-parole period of 27 years in the Brisbane District Court last week
Griffith’s captivity doesn’t come cheap either.
The cost of incarceration to taxpayers is $147,900 per inmate per year, according to a report published last year by the Institute of Public Affairs.
That means if Griffith spends 30 years in prison, he will cost taxpayers more than $4.4 million.
It comes as several people have called for Griffith to be denied special treatment in prison over fears for his safety.
Last year, Liberal National Party Senator Matt Canavan told Daily Mail Australia it was time for a discussion on the death penalty.
“Life imprisonment seems too lenient a punishment for a crime of this heinous nature,” Canavan said.
‘We really need to consider the death penalty for people who have destroyed so many other lives.
‘I was just absolutely shocked by the vileness and wickedness of this behavior and also the extent of it and how this happened to so many people over so many years and why it wasn’t stopped.
‘There needs to be a thorough investigation into how information was shared, why this could not have been stopped earlier and how we can ensure that things like this do not happen again.
“I mean, surely we don’t have a punishment on the books strong enough for this heinous individual.”
He added: ‘This is so bad that in my mind there has to be something stronger than life imprisonment.’
Griffith’s crimes include 28 counts of rape, 190 counts of indecent treatment of children, 67 counts of making child exploitation material and 15 counts of maintaining an unlawful relationship with a child.
He also continues to face charges in Italy and NSW, where he worked in several daycare centres.
The Wolston Correctional Center is also home to Massimo ‘Max’ Sica, the Italian triple murderer who slaughtered his ex-girlfriend and her two siblings in 2003, and Rick Thorburn, who attempted suicide at least three times after was convicted of the murder of twelve people. year-old schoolgirl Tiahleigh Palmer.