William John O’Meally

O’Meally was last heard of living in Queensland and may have died there in 1995.

O’Meally went on to become Victoria’s longest serving prisoner. He served 27 years before being released on parole on 5 July 1979. The State Cabinet had accepted a recommendation of the Adult Parole Board. The State Governor, Sir Henry Winneke, ratified the decision. Sir Henry had led the prosecution of O’Meally at the 1952 murder trial.

From February 1966 O’Meally spent four and a half years breaking rocks. He was moved again when he assaulted a warder and broke the warder’s false teeth. He was also placed in solitary confinement for two weeks.

In June 1965 O’Meally’s wife divorced him on the grounds of his imprisonment.

The flogging was delivered on 1 April 1958. Taylor and O’Meally were the last men flogged in Victoria. O’Meally claimed that the flogging opened his rib cage, that he was placed back in his cell with open chest and back wounds, and was not given any medical attention. He said he took three months to recover.

In March 1957 O’Meally again escaped from Pentridge. With an accomplice, John Henry Taylor, who was armed with a .38 automatic handgun, he ran through the main gates of the gaol. Chief Penal officer Robert Davis tried to stop them and was shot in the thigh, breaking his femur. O’Meally then took the firearm and engaged in a gun battle with warders. They were re-captured 13 minutes after escaping.

On 31 October 1957 Mr Justice Hudson told O’Meally and Taylor; “You are both clearly beyond hope of reform. Simply to sentence you to a further term of imprisonment would be to impose a totally inadequate form of punishment, and would provide no real deterrent against further attacks of a like character.”

In 1955 O’Meally escaped from H Division of Pentridge Prison. He was re-captured the same day, in Coburg, not far from the prison.

As a juvenile he received a number of convictions for assault, housebreaking and riotous behaviour. Before 1952 he had 42 convictions including five for assaulting police.

On the night of 30 January 1952 Constable George Howell was working at the Malvern East Police Station. He was unarmed when he left the station on a bicycle to patrol the area around the Crystal Palace Theatre, Caulfield where there had been a number of thefts from cars. Howell was 21 years old and due to be married on 26 February.

Howell chased the man and caught up with him. The man turned and shot George Howell once, in the stomach, at point-blank range. Howell died on 1 February 1952.

O’Meally was charged with the murder. He had been released from prison in May 1951 after serving six months for the assault of another policeman.

They were sentenced to 10 more years in gaol. In O’Meally’s case, this added nothing to his sentence. Both were also sentenced to 12 strokes of the cat o’nine tails to be delivered in one session. This would be the first flogging since 1943. The order to flog O’Meally was appealed to the Supreme Court of Victoria and the High Court of Australia, both of whom upheld the order.

On his own he was soon in trouble. He was sentenced to two days hard labour for riding on a train without a ticket. In June 1936 he was convicted of assaulting a policeman. As a result, he was classified as “uncontrollable” and sent to Gosford Reformatory. He escaped but was lost for a week in the mangroves on the Hawkesbury River.

William John O’Meally (born Joseph Thompson; 25 November 1920 in Young, New South Wales – 1995 in rural Queensland) was an Australian criminal, notorious as the last man to be flogged in Victoria.