Moved around ‘like a paedophile priest’: How rapist Scott Hawken hunted victims

2 days ago 5

It’s a commandment among NSW’s prison guards; don’t dob in a colleague or you’ll be known as a dog. So when one of Sarah’s fellow corrective officers, Scott Hawken, now a convicted rapist, turned up at her house, allegedly put his hands down her pants and sexually assaulted her, she didn’t say anything – at first. She worried her life would be “made hell” at work, and she needed the job. Corrective Services was a “boys club”, she said in an affidavit, and “he was one of the boys”.

This was 2013. Over the next decade, at least eight other guards would allege that Hawken had raped, touched or sexually harassed them – some at work, some when he turned up at their homes, some over social media. Several ended up reporting his behaviour. But the retaliation from the “boys club” was swift; one told this masthead she had hot coffee thrown at her, her car tyres were slashed and prisoners were fed lies – such as that she’d shredded their mail – to turn them against her.

Sexual assault accusations against former prison guard Scott Hawken date back almost 15 years.

As the complaints rolled in, Hawken was moved around prisons “like a paedophile priest” – a phrase used by several people who knew him or were his victims. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, they say little, if anything, was done to protect female staff from Hawken’s sleazy behaviour or the boys club’s retribution. In 2022, he invited himself over to yet another colleague, Clare’s house. She went to the police; last year, a jury found he raped her.

Another of Hawken’s alleged victims, Helen, says women such as Clare may have been spared their ordeal if Corrective Services had acted to protect its staff from a man well known for sexually inappropriate behaviour, and if it had done more to crack down on the protection racket within its ranks. “The culture towards women in Corrective Services NSW,” she told this masthead, “is indescribable.” Says another: “In NSW prisons, blue is more dangerous than green [blue is worn by guards, green by prisoners].”

The allegations come amid concern from SafeWork about the government agency’s handling of sexual harassment and abuse by staff, and as prisoner Keli Lane sues the NSW government for $2 million, claiming it failed to protect her from serious harm at the hands of prison officers, including serial rapist Wayne Astill.

Former prison guard Wayne Astill pictured outside court in August 2022.

The allegations against Hawken – those on paper, at least – date back almost 15 years. Non-publication orders over his name were lifted after an application by the Herald last month. A judge is now deliberating over charges relating to another guard, Tina, who says Hawken turned up to her house one night in 2011 when her children were asleep, and began touching her breasts and the front of her vagina, even though she kept telling him to stop. “I was scared, powerless and had no control over what was happening to me,” she said in an affidavit (the judge is due to hand down his decision on these sexual touching allegations in mid-October).

She didn’t report it because she didn’t want the fallout to affect her employment.

“If I reported it to the police … my life wouldn’t be worth living,” Tina said in a statement the court heard. “You just don’t do that in Corrective Services.”

Eventually, when she heard Hawken was being transferred to the jail at which she worked, she told a senior officer. Tina also spoke to another woman, the affidavit said, who suspected Hawken had raped her while she was in a medicine-affected sleep, and told her about rumours involving yet another colleague.

“I am of the belief that [he] did not commit the assault on me for the purpose of sexual gratification,” Tina says in her affidavit, “but for the power and control it would have given him.” She ended up telling Corrective Services in 2011 that Hawken had come to her house uninvited and acted “extremely inappropriately” in a sexual manner; if he was transferred to her jail, she would no longer be able to work there.

In 2012, Emma alleged to police that Hawken had sexually assaulted her one night after work; that he’d waited for her on a regional road out of the jail in 2012 and flagged her down, saying there was something wrong with his car. She got out to help him, and he asked her to get a torch from the back seat. When she climbed in, she alleged he climbed in after her and sexually assaulted her. The charges were heard by a jury in 2014, and Hawken was found not guilty.

In 2019 alone, there are records of three CSNSW employees complaining about Hawken’s sleazy workplace behaviour. Jane said they were working together at a women’s prison when he asked her how things were going at home. He told her, “all you need to do is jump on his cock”, said her 2022 affidavit, which was not revealed to the jury in Clare’s matter. She was taken aback, “but brushed it off due to the culture at Corrective Services”.

He kept sending sexual messages, such as asking if she was cleaning her house in a French maid’s outfit. Jane spoke to a female colleague, who “disclosed certain things to me about Scott that were similar in nature”, her affidavit said, so she reported him.

Kate, who met him at another prison in 2019, said he’d send her Facebook messages saying, “we should meet up for coffee; this expression is well known within the CSNSW among officers as hooking up”, she said in her affidavit provided to prosecutors, but not seen by the jury. “By hooking up, it meant to have sex.” She felt uncomfortable; she worried when she was home alone. A colleague told her “Scott had a tendency to try to hook up and proposition female correctional officers for sex”. Kate reported it to managers in 2019.

Isolated and bullied

In October that year, he began messaging another woman, Mel, asking if she wanted to have a sexual relationship with him, although he wouldn’t leave his wife. She was uncomfortable and intimidated, her affidavit said. “I became concerned that Scott would not stop until I gave in to his request for sex,” it said. One night, he saw Mel at a prison gate and gave her a “hug” that turned into an attempt to kiss her. Another time, he asked her for a topless photo – “you owe me a picture of your tits” was how he put it.

“I was confused and unsure how to respond as I feared retribution by Scott in the workplace,” Mel said in her affidavit. She figured she’d be passive and it would eventually stop, but she worried there’d be rumours that she was sleeping with him. He did stop. She asked him for help with a job application and he obliged. Then he called her, saying words to the effect of, “seeing as I helped you with that, are you finally going to send me your address so I can come around after work”, Mel’s affidavit said.

After another female guard said he’d done something similar to her, Mel reported her experience. Hawken was cold towards her after that, she said, and “ignored me to the point that I felt not included when I was in the team environment … like I was being isolated and bullied”. Hawken was moved to another jail at the end of that year.

“I have never stopped thinking about what he did to me in a place where I was meant to be safe,” Mel wrote in the affidavit, dated 2022. “I have never received any support services offered by management in the workplace and I have never been advised of any outcome of the officer report I submitted. I feel my name is still attached to Scott and is the topic of gossip and stories.”

Helen was working with Hawken in 2021. She had weight-loss surgery, and took time off to recover. He offered to drop off some painkillers; she gave him her address. He gave her a pill, and then, she claims, he tried to kiss her. She said no, but she says he took her into her room, pulled her onto the bed, took off her clothes and began sexually assaulting her. She says he touched her on two other occasions too; in the CSNSW gym and in the sauna.

Two juries have failed to reach a verdict on the rape charge relating to Helen; the second found him not guilty of sexually touching her.

Another woman, Lisa, worked with him at a minimum security facility. He began messaging her on Facebook. The messages were friendly at first, but escalated. “When are you going to show me around your bedroom and are you in bed naked tonight?” he asked. She didn’t report him because she remembers being told by a senior woman when she began at CSNSW that “you never put a correctional officer on paper because you will be seen to be a dog”, her affidavit said.

On a night shift in early 2022, he messaged her while they were both at work and asked her to come to the accommodation area. When she didn’t come, he messaged her again. “Half an hour oiled up in my G string waiting for u,” her affidavit said. She reported it.

Hawken raped Clare in May 2022. He went to her house uninvited when she was sick and offered to help her into bed and give her some Panadeine Forte. She wasn’t keen on him being there and was ill and drowsy. She had her period. She awoke with him on top of her. He had sexually assaulted and sexually touched her, the jury found.

“I had 10 to 12 showers in the morning,” she told the court. “I kept scrubbing myself, washing myself.” Police charged Hawken with Clare’s rape in June 2022 and he was convicted last year.

This masthead has seen a copy of a letter from Corrective Services suspending Hawken from duty, sent in June 2023 – a year after the charges relating to Clare were laid – and directing him not to talk to the complainants, or take any reprisal action. It noted that the guards’ union, the Public Service Association, had acted for Hawken in relation to previous accusations.

State MP Sue Higginson, justice spokeswoman for The Greens, said the Hawken matter came on top of the Astill inquiry; they both showed how Corrective Services’ systems were broken when it came to the safety of women. “That such criminal, depraved and harmful behaviour against female staff and inmates can take place for so long, without intervention, is unfathomable,” she said. “These male perpetrators are employees of the state, for goodness’ sake.”

She said cultural reform was direly needed. Despite a new commissioner and a boost to some services, “I don’t think anyone can say with any certainty that the culture within Corrective Services NSW has changed or that it is a safe place for women,” Higginson said.

Minister won’t comment

Corrective Services Minister Anoulack Chanthivong refused to comment because there were matters before the courts.

A Corrective Services spokeswoman said it had finalised six Safe Work improvement notices issued in 2023 by rolling out statewide sexual harassment training and improving reporting systems. She said CSNSW was committed to the cultural and operational reform required to provide a safe and respectful workplace.

“We are sending a clear message to all staff that sexual harassment, abuse and assault will not be tolerated,” she said. “We recognise the pain and suffering of victim-survivors and applaud their strength and courage in speaking up.”

CSNSW said it provided services to staff who have been affected by sexual misconduct and harassment and encouraged any staff member aware of misconduct to contact internal professional standards or the police.

The victims and complainants in this story have been given pseudonyms for legal reasons.