Rapist officer ‘should never have been employed’ to work in NSW prisons, scathing inquiry finds

Wayne Astill’s file contained complaints of serious criminal misconduct before he was hired to work at women’s prison, report says

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The former corrections officer Wayne Astill should “never have been employed” to work in New South Wales prisons, an inquiry has found, after complaints of serious criminal misconduct were made decades before he was found guilty of sexually assaulting female inmates.

Handing down his report after a special commission of inquiry into Astill’s offending at the Dillwynia women’s correctional centre, the commissioner, Peter McClellan, said it was “corruption or incompetence” that saw the former police officer hired by Corrective Services NSW in 1999.

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