Killer of Courtney Herron is allowed sex visits at Thomas Embling mental hospital

Melbourne wife Courtney Herron’s ruthless killer enjoys conjugal visits with a fellow ‘patient’ within the walls of one of Australia’s most notorious insane asylums.

In August 2020, Henry Hammond was found not guilty of the gruesome murder of Courtney by a judge who accepted that he was mentally disabled at the time.

Hammond was 27 years old on May 25, 2019 when he beat Courtney so savagely that the undertaker was unable to put her broken body back together.

In March 2021, Supreme Court Justice of Victoria Phillip Priest ordered that Hammond be moved from Port Phillip Prison to Thomas Embling Hospital under a detention order that could be reviewed as early as next year.

“He’s a very aggressive prisoner. He will spit on the nurses but he has a girlfriend he met inside and they are allowed into the matrimonial room,” a well-placed source told Daily Mail Australia.

Dealing with women within Thomas Embling is a known perk among murderers hoping to kill with mental disorders.

Bourke Street killer James Gargasoulas – who failed his mental disability attempt – told psychologist Michael Daffern that he was eager to serve time with Thomas Embling “because there would be women there.”

Daily Mail Australia revealed in August that authorities were preparing to let Hammond go free on day trips just over a year after he was sent there.

Channel Nine Today presenter Karl Stefanovic condemned the proposal at the time, telling viewers that the thought of Hammond being released made him “sick”.

“I am shocked that this could happen and if it was my child I don’t know what I would do,” he said at the time.

While that plan was put on hold after the media frenzy that followed, the source told Daily Mail Australia that Hammond is staying in a ward of the hospital where killers are being prepared for release.

Hammond was transferred to the ward just before Christmas last year after being severely beaten by other patients and has remained there ever since.

Revelations about Hammond’s hospital contacts have rubbed salt into the wounds of Courtney’s family, which this week marked the fourth anniversary of her murder.

Daily Mail Australia contacted Forensicare, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health that Thomas Embling manages, for comment but received no response.

John Herron – Courtney’s father and a criminal lawyer himself – told Daily Mail Australia he was shocked at the treatment of his daughter by Victoria’s justice system.

“They just waited for the last story to blow over and when it did blow over they just said ‘let’s keep going’,” Mr Herron said on Friday.

Courtney would have turned 29 today if her life hadn’t been so cruelly cut short by Hammond.

“Anniversaries really hit hard and it brings everything back at some point and you really think about the loss and you think about what Courtney could have done that day and she would have moved on with her life,” Mr Herron said.

“You think of the great tragedy, a young woman could not fulfill her dreams. It just broke down.’

Mr. Herron said he was haunted by the way his daughter met her fate.

Hammond had convinced doctors that he believed he was the Norse god Odin and that he feared that Courtney – a woman he had only just met – was possessed and would kill him.

Courtney’s body was found among logs by three dog walkers at Royal Park in Parkville the morning of her murder.

Hammond had her head smashed in during a frenzied attack that lasted nearly an hour.

“I can’t imagine the cruel way she met her end and took several minutes to die. I can’t place my mind in that space that she begged for her life and Hammond, the brute, only went on for nearly an hour,” Mr. Herron said.

Not a day goes by that Mr. Herron doesn’t remember fond memories of his daughter.

“I have a lot of thoughts, especially when Courtney was a baby, lifting her out of the crib, making her cry when I went to work, getting her first vaccination. You think of all that. It just never goes away with a kid like that,” he said.

“I remember the last time I hugged her. I remember clearly. I remember hugging her on vacation. That feeling of holding her in your arms.’

Mr Herron said he was comforted by the number of people who had contacted him this week to offer support.

“All those people in the community want to keep Courtney’s memory alive and that’s very reassuring,” he said.

But Mr Herron said he remained frustrated with the Victorian justice system’s lack of respect for women’s lives.

‘The system has not changed in the past four years. The same, if not more, women are being killed and assaulted and the system is more favorable to the perpetrator than it was four years ago. Even through legislation where it’s easier to plead not guilty on the grounds of intellectual disability,” he said.

Casualties have not been taken into account. That has gone backwards. Hammond is in Thomas Embling with the green light to do this again. He’ll be out soon and he’s mad he got in at all.’

In Victoria, killers like Hammond are routinely released by Thomas Embling under suppression orders designed to protect their identities on the outside.

“He doesn’t think he took a life, or how brutally he took it. He’s angry because he’s in and will soon be out again. The real immediate danger within the system is that he can get out quickly, have no regrets and see through other women and it’s suppressed and we don’t know about it,’ Mr Herron said.