Most New Zealanders would, but not the team picked by the Corrections Department for a special taskforce in Christchurch. Selected in the mould of some crack mili-tary unit, these were the best of the best - 15 men and one woman handpicked from their associated ranks in the prison service. They were instructed to obey orders without question and, other than the members of their squad, they appeared accountable to none. Kitted in black fatigues and full-face helmets they stalked their quarry day or night, sometimes carrying out covert operations usually tasked to armed police or secret service agents. Essentially, they were the prison equivalent of special-forces troops.

This was the infamous "Goon Squad", the Corrections Department’s emergency response unit (ERU), which operated out of Paparua Prison from 1999 until 2000 when it was disbanded following complaints from inmates about the use of excessive force and intimidating tactics.

Despite the controversy surrounding the unit and damning internal audits, almost three years on there remains a great deal still unknown about its activities. That may be about to change.

Last month Parliament’s law and order select committee forced Corrections bosses to defend their decision to retain three key members of the renegade squad after a prison investigator called for them to be sacked for serious misconduct. Now a growing chorus of officials and politicians are calling for a full-scale inquiry into the activities of the unit.

But, a handful of insiders have come forward to warn Investigate that the troubles centred on the Goon Squad are only the tip of an iceberg still largely hidden within the prison’s secure enclosure.

Last year, a former member of the ERU involved in restraining that prisoner sued the department in the Employment Court, citing that the death caused him to suffer from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

As the Herald reported at the time, the case shed light on many of the allegations about the unit contained in a secret department inquiry paper that was subsequently obtained under the Official Information Act.

That paper found that there were "shortcomings in the four major strategic management areas of planning, direction, accountability and delegation".

"The ERU never had a clear business plan under which it was to operate, and combined with the Unit’s lack of management, this enabled the circumstances to arise where the Unit acted without direction or control for most of its existence," states the report.

It goes on to point out that the lack of planning also enabled ERU management to perform in a "totally unacceptable way", acting as they pleased in dealing with staff, inmates and visitors.

Squad tactics allegedly involved harassing inmates, waking them in the night, removing any prisoners who refused to remain quiet (usually under control and restraint) and locking them down in punishment cells. Control and restraint was often used as a first resort to transfer inmates to the punishment block, contravening Prison Service policy.

The campaign was not just confined to Paparua either. The unit moved from jail to jail in the South Island supposedly using inmates as part of its training operations to test compliance. In full riot gear, squad members would march through the cellblocks, stamping their boots in unison to give the impression they had arrived in great numbers.

Other findings revealed that they conducted strip searches of inmates and seized property and drugs from both inmates and civilians without recording their actions. Drugs were apparently taken and retained for "staff training" purposes and confiscated alcohol disposed of by "unknown means".

The investigating team that released the report found in many cases, particularly where alcohol was seized, no record whatsoever was made of the seizure.

Further, it was discovered many unrecorded exhibits, including weapons and drugs, lying around the ERU office. One exhibit bag found by the investigators was even empty and had never been sealed. The information recorded on the bag indicated it had contained drugs and a purse belonging to a woman. The contents were never found and there was no record of happened to them.

When a gang associate allegedly threatened to shoot a Dunedin prison manager, the unit was tasked with protecting him despite the fact that police did not take the threat seriously. At no time during or after the operation did a senior Public Prison Service manager attempt to contact the police personally to ascertain why they would not act on the matter. If this had happened, the report deemed it most probable that the operation and resultant expense could have been avoided.

In another operation in the same area, the inquiry found that the Goon Squad travelled to Dunedin and stayed two nights to conduct an unsuccessful search of the prison for a firearm. After the hunt, which only lasted six-hours, they drank $480 worth of alcohol courtesy of the taxpayer, all of which was said to have been sanctioned by a senior manager who never saw the invoice and was approved for payment by a member of the celebrating party at Dunedin.

Senior managers and eight members of the squad were called to give evidence at the Employment Court hearing. One member recalled senior Corrections officer Doug Smith telling the complainant to "harden up" because "there’s no place for soft cocks in this unit" when he started showing signs of not being able to cope with the prisoner’s death.

Another member of the unit recounted to the court the aforementioned tale of how he had put his penis on the bar of a Canterbury tavern and let Smith whack it with a beer bottle to prove he was not soft. Smith told the court that he was not a bully and members of the Goon Squad never acted aggressively.

But ever since the evidence and findings in the internal report have been aired, serious misgivings have arisen that management has not been dealt with accordingly. Concerns have also been raised about the "exclusive subculture" of the unit and the fact that a lot of its activities remain secret, among other contentions.

While there have been recommendations that the head of the unit, Tony Bird, Smith, and drug-dog handler Mike Kelly should be dismissed, all three key figures in the squad remain with the department.

The Corrections Department’s former human resources manager, Maureen Love, who led the calls for the trio to be dismissed, last month called for a far- reaching inquiry into the saga.

The NZPA quoted her saying, "An inquiry would at least establish far more clearly and transparently what actually went on. There is still an awful lot that has not come out about how the unit operated."

The law and order select committee is considering launching a full-scale inquiry, likely to centre on the Goon Squad’s activities. But according to insiders, the controversy surrounding the activities and "culture" of the former Canterbury unit, and the persisting code of silence, stems from well before its inception. They say there is still an awful lot that has not come out about prison management’s involvement.

Investigate has had contact with past and present employees of the Corrections Department and, as their accounts reveal, this is knowledge that could prove vital to any inquiry.

According to newspaper reports, Love says any inquest should look beyond the trio already investigated and focus on the roles that South Island prisons’ regional manager Paul Monk and Paparua Prison site manager Paul Rushton and head office played in the squad’s set-up and activities.

Frequently mentioned in one of the Corrections Department’s internal reports are the fundamental management issues surrounding the ERU, and yet Prison Service management seems to have been absolved of any responsibility.

This despite conclusions that, "The investigating team found management and systematic problems relating to the practices associated with personnel management practices, training, general management practices, timesheet management and payment practices." The report is even titled: "Management Issues Report – Identified as a consequence of the investigation of staff associated with the Emergency Response Unit in Christchurch Prisons."

Central to the findings were "there was never any clear lines of accountability over the Unit" and that some managers at the time considered it appropriate to accept ‘operational reality’ as an excuse for non-compliance of work system requirements. One of the key recommendations was "under no circumstances" should managers use such a defence for disobeying legislation and regulations.

Our sources say the fact that the hierarchy have not been held culpable in the face of such damning conclusions suggests something is askew. They also claim that the "management issues" go beyond the Goon Squad; that the unit is just the face of problems that have plagued Paparua for years, spawned from a culture that has dominated the prison’s management for years.

In December 1996 two inmates escaped from the high security wing and attacked three prison officers. Early the following year, 10 prisoners escaped in two months. In the January escape, three inmates broke free in spite of the fact that prison management had been informed in advance of their plans.

In February 1997 prison locks were reported to be "grossly inadequate" and on top of all of that, the prison experienced continuing problems of drugs and weapons being smuggled inside.

Then, in October, less than two years prior to the formation of the Goon Squad, an incident occurred at the prison that Investigate’s sources argue is the key to the current controversy.

If the conditions were not met, threatened the inmates, they would blow up the prison’s 70-year-old annexe with dynamite. The 26-hour drama ended only after negotiators agreed to have experts review the cases. It should be noted that at least one of our sources, while strongly disagreeing with the prisoners’ methods, does believe that one of them – Rex Haig – is innocent of the murder he was convicted of.

Condemnation was swift. Not only was the security of the prison put under the spotlight, again, but also the Corrections Minister of the time, Paul East, and department were slammed in the media for the apparently easy way in which security was subverted; for the way prisoners were able to dictate terms; and for giving in without some greater effort to establish whether the threats had any validity.

But what has been revealed to Investigate suggests there was method behind the madness.

According to one informant, some weeks before the hostage situation, Parata was taken to site manager Paul Rushton’s office by a guard. Behind closed doors, Parata allegedly produced a stick of dynamite and placed it on Rushton’s desk as a threat.

"What should have happened is that as soon as an inmate arrived with a stick of dynamite he should have been taken to the floor, cuffed and flown to Paremoremo and the jail turned over by the Army and dogs and God knows what else," says the Corrections Department source. "[They should have asked] if he had one stick how many others did he have and what did he want? But he [Rushton] didn’t do that. I believe what followed was a cover up.

"The two officers that did those little excursions will both testify in court that it actually happened," he says.

Rushton allegedly told the inmate that the stick of dynamite was useless without a detonator cap and left the matter at that. Although they have different timeframes for when the next event occurred, both sources confirm that Parata was later led by another guard back into Rushton’s office whereby he produced the detonating cap. Still, our sources say, the threat was not taken seriously.

The stick of gelignite was eventually officially reported by management, but apparently not until weeks after the alleged incident. At the time, Canterbury Prisons regional manager Paul Monk said the stick had been recovered outside the accommodation section of the prison. This statement directly contradicts the evidence from prison staff to Investigate.

There is no evidence that Monk knew the dynamite had been placed on Rushton’s desk, and it is presumed his statement reflects what Rushton had told him.

Nonetheless, the Corrections Department whistleblowers say that the "discovery" of the dynamite at the back gate of the prison away from all the wings, was "staged" to avoid further embarrassing probes about the prison’s security measures.

Adds one source, the "cover up" was a profound mistake, the consequences of which began to dawn on Rushton when the hostage situation broke a month later. While the castigating media reports about lax security appear well-founded, in light of this new information it is not surprising now that the threats were dealt with seriously when management discovered what they were facing.

"Rushton realised that they didn’t have a gun; that they didn’t have a knife, they were using dynamite. The two incidents were tied together and it was a very cunning move by the inmate, Parata, who had set these things up. He basically set Rushton up."

The site manager then allegedly ran the whole hostage negotiation process throughout the entire event, and although police negotiators turned up, to their ire they were excluded. According to the ex-Corrections Department source, this went totally against established protocol.

"The boss never negotiates. Never, never, never. He used the phone in the security officer’s office, lots of people were in there…"

Rushton had no option though, according to the other source: "If other negotiators had gone in they would have found out why this thing happened, but it was 100 per cent avoidable – absolutely. If Rushton had done what he was supposed to do it would never have happened. It was the most appalling bit of management that ever could have happened. We all know what happened but it’s all been covered up."

That’s why the ringleaders of the hostage drama were able to dictate their terms – they were effectively blackmailing management, our sources believe.

"When Tony Bird was to be sacked for the goings on in the Goon Squad, it involved all sorts of things from squad members allegedly falsifying time sheets and fraudulently ripping the Department off of thousands of dollars, missing dope, confiscated liquor all drunk at parties and all sorts of things. He should have been sacked for failing to pick uop on all this and crack down on it, and quite rightly so as Maureen Love said. But I can only conclude from what’s happened that the Goon Squad men have said to their bosses: ‘if we go, you go’. So Maureen Love, the human resources woman, was the one that got sacked. That’s the way Paparua works.

In line with Love’s calls for an investigation into Monk’s and Rushton’s supervision of and involvement with the ERU, both sources allege that Rushton was one of the drivers behind the Goon Squad and its activities.

"I have to say that he most probably didn’t know certain things were happening from time to time but he’s got to be held responsible for it. He should have known – it was his job," says one informant.

The ex-Corrections Department officer agrees, saying, "He ensured that his boys headed the unit, mostly ex-Rolleston officers. Those officers were promoted accordingly."

Monk and Rushton have so far managed to evade the spotlight on the Goon Squad, which has focussed on Bird, Smith and Kelly. When the Public Prisons Service general manager Phil McCarthy appeared before the law and order select committee last month, he said the three had kept their jobs following an extensive inquiry determined on proven facts and mitigating circumstances.

He went on to state that not all of the allegations were proven and the officers all had previous good records. Love left the Corrections Department last February after her work environment became "untenable" following the release of her findings on the unit. The NZPA quotes McCarthy as saying she found it difficult to accept the decisions made by senior managers after considering extensive rebuttal from the affected trio.

Our sources suggest the situation is more complex than that.

"Every body had shit on each other so there was no way Tony Bird was ever going to be fired because he would have just turned around and blown the gap on everyone. And Smith knew stuff. Smith had it all over Tony Bird and Bird had it all over Rushton."

Although a Corrections Department review, prior to the 1997 hostage incident at Paparua, found that there was no emergency hostage plans at the prison, the incident had little to do with the founding of the Goon Squad. The unit was set up partly to tackle the potential disruption of the Y2K bug. However, the link, say our sources, is that the figureheads involved in both incidents have kept the activities secret for the sole purpose of bureaucratic self-preservation.

The reason Investigate’s informants give for breaking their silence is that they too want to see a full-scale inquiry and some measure of accountability restored. And Monk isn’t spared from their suspicion either.

"He should have known what was going on as well, in my view. They’re all mixed up in it. He’s basically played the same tune as Rushton ever since. There’s been one cover-up after another. For example you haven’t seen Monk jump up and down over the reinstatement of these three officers and the demise of Maureen Love. He’s been quite happy to see her go."

That’s why they say if the truth about the 1997 hostage incident comes out the house of cards will come tumbling down – there will be no more secrets to hide behind. Only then will we unravel the mystery surrounding the Goon Squad, the three figureheads’ reinstatement, and the demise of the human resources manager who discovered part of what they were up to.

"The three guys who got caught with their hands jammed in the till is small-fry compared with what happened in the east wing when lives were on the line," says one whistleblower. But is the tune true?

Some suggest prison management is more adept at guarding Paparua’s secrets than its inmates and subsequently the castle stays standing. Yet with an inquiry almost certain, only time will tell whether that will remain the case. What ever the outcome though, any investigation cannot come soon enough because, as one Corrections Department insider puts it, the secrecy and scrutiny has taken its toll: "Morale at Christchurch Prison is absolutely rock bottom because of the total inequity in the way people are treated. It’s in financial trouble, it’s bereft of morale…it’s buggered."

Investigate tried to contact Rushton on numerous occasions but our inquiries only resulted in a returned call from the Department of Corrections head office in Wellington, trying to find out what information we had. Investigate advised the Department we would only direct our questions to Rushton in person. At the time of going to press we have still not heard from him.