A Sydney woman jailed for decapitating her mother has had another year added to her non-parole period after she ripped out the hair of two female guards,causing excruciating pain and leaving bald patches.
Jessica Camilleri pleaded guilty last year to two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and inflicting actual bodily harm while housed inside Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre in 2021.
Rita Camilleri,left,and her daughter Jessica Camilleri.Police Media,Facebook
The 29-year-old has been serving a maximum of 16-and-a-half years with a non-parole period of 12 years for the manslaughter of her mother Rita Camilleri,who she stabbed more than 100 times in the head and neck in St Clair in July 2019. The killing was as “a crime of extraordinary viciousness”.
Camilleri sat in the dock of Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court on Monday wearing prison greens with her brown hair tied up in a bun as Judge Sarah Huggett imposed a 22-month sentence of imprisonment for the assaults,with a non-parole period of 15 months.
The sentence has a three-month overlap with her minimum term for manslaughter,effectively extending her non-parole period by one year. Camilleri will first be eligible for release in July 2032.
The first prison guard was attacked by Jessica Camilleri in August 2021.Supplied
“Her diminished capacity for control when highly stressed and/or to her mind provoked,and her inclination towards explosive outbursts,provides the context to understanding why the offences occurred,” the judge said.
The first assault happened during a search for sharps in August 2021,when Camilleri moved “hastily” towards her cell door,slipped through the opening and was ordered to get back inside.
“As the victim turned her head to the right to address another inmate,the offender reached out and took part of the victim’s hair in her hand and pulled,causing an amount of hair to be pulled from the roots,” the agreed facts state.
Camilleri later told police,“I don’t like[the victim and another guard] so I just wanted to give them a little bit of the taste of their own medicine”.
She said she had pulled “a little bit” of hair out,and asked if it was “just a few strands”.
An amount of hair fell out when the guard took off her scrunchie.
The second incident,in October 2021,occurred when Camilleri was in the prison yard and refused to put her hands through a hatch to be handcuffed.
The second guard’s scalp after the October 2021 assault by Jessica Camilleri.Supplied
As the guard entered the yard,Camilleri “reached out and took a handful of the victim’s hair in her left hand and pulled”.
“The victim screamed something like,‘Ah,she’s got my hair’,” the facts state. “The offender did not let go of the hair until she was restrained.”
When the second guard took out her hair pins,hair fell out. She was left with two bald patches.
Each of the guards,,described the pain as “excruciating” and said they now suffer post-traumatic stress disorder. The judge noted one guard said her hair “has not grown back completely”.
Huggett said it seemed both assaults “occurred spontaneously and relatively quickly,in circumstances[when] the offender was asked to do something she appeared to be resisting”.
She said it was accepted Camilleri “may have perceived she was being tortured[in the unit] and was going to die there”,but it was not suggested she was provoked by either victim.
The court heard Camilleri met the diagnosis for autism spectrum disorder,obsessive compulsive disorder,PTSD and an intellectual disability.
A sample of the hair pulled from the second guard’s head in October 2021.Supplied
Huggett said Camilleri “has been abandoned by her remaining family and has been teased and taunted by other inmates following extensive publicity relating to her mother’s passing”.
“At this stage,she presents as having no supports in the community,given her significant support was her mother,” the judge said.
Camilleri was found not guilty of murdering her mother by reason of mental illness but guilty of manslaughter. She successfully appealed against the sentence imposed of 21 years and seven months with a non-parole period of 16 years and two months,.
Huggett said Camilleri’s complex mental health concerns made findings regarding her prospects of rehabilitation and reoffending “difficult to reliably make”.
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