Murder of prisoner by 'sadistic' inmate to be examined at inquest

Schafer was designated a “prisoner of concern” due to his mental health issues and intellectual impairment, counsel assisting the coroner Nicole Macregeorgos told a pre-inquest conference in Brisbane today.

He was found unresponsive in the prison’s laundry room at 3.09pm on May 6, 2020, having apparently used a prison-issue item to take his own life.

Schafer was unable to be resuscitated and was declared dead at the scene 20 minutes later.

Following a police investigation, prisoner Carl William Sedgwick Bloomfield was arrested and admitted to murdering Schafer.

Bloomfield told police that Schafer had made a joke on May 5, 2020, about a photo of his young family members and believed Schafer to be a paedophile.

Bloomfield said he decided the next day to kill Schafer as he claimed “he was a kid f—– and shouldn’t have said what he said”.

Schafer was lured into the laundry room, which had no CCTV cameras, and Bloomfield murdered him with a ligature he had made and concealed.

Bloomfield, then aged 26, was sentenced to life in prison in June 2021.

Macregeorgos said Bloomfield was serving a nine-year sentence and was required to serve at least 80 per cent of that term before applying for parole as a designated serious violent offender.

“He had been described at sentencing as being capable of sadistic acts,” Macregeorgos said.

Bloomfield was on parole for violent offences when he lured two teenage boys unknown to him to a jetty, robbed them and attempted to cut one of their tongues after severing the ear of the other.

Prosecutors sought an indefinite sentence for Bloomfield following the attack on the boys.

But the judge determined Bloomfield was not a likely serious danger to the community if he received appropriate psychiatric treatment.

Bloomfield was later moved to maximum security detention after he tried to stab another inmate with a handmade weapon.

He was co-operative with his inmate management plans and a forensic psychiatrist recommended that he no longer be subject to a maximum security order.

Queensland Corrective Services returned Bloomfield to the general prison population on December 6, 2019 and he was housed in the same prison unit as Schafer.

Macregeorgos said one of the issues the inquest would examine would be whether the decision to reintegrate Bloomfield into the mainstream prison population was appropriate.

The representatives of corrective services, West Moreton Health and Schafer’s family said they did not need to address the conference.

State Coroner Terry Ryan ordered that a two-day inquest be held on May 27 and 28 in Brisbane.