Noosa District State High Year 12 Social and Community Studies students spent a day touring Brisbane’s Boggo Road Gaol learning about the historic gaol’s chequered past.
During the excursion, the students were surprised to hear that 42 executions took place in the gaol.
The class toured the facility with guide former prisoner Mark ‘Itchy’ Flewell, who served 17 years in Boggo Road.
‘Itchy’ was in Boggo Road for two manslaughters, an armed robbery and various drug charges.
“Don’t ever get into crime. Think long and hard before you go down that path—some never make it out,” ‘Itchy’ said.
The tour allowed for students to venture into the cells and read some of the former inmates’ graffiti scrawling’s on the walls that housed them for the duration of their sentences.
“You had to find something to pass the time or you would go mental, ‘Itchy’ said.
The students were shocked to hear of the corruption that took place in prison; the access prisoners had to drugs and items they could fashion into weapons.
“Corruption was rife—still the case in prisons today,” ‘Itchy’ said.
They were astonished to hear of ‘Itchy’s’ ingenuity in creating a crossbow from a mop bucket.
The Boggo Road Gaol tour provided a unique opportunity for the students to take an historic look back at a gaol of the past.
