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Part of the series on Australian criminals

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Martin John Bryant (born 7 May 1967) murdered 35 people and injured 37 others in the Port Arthur massacre, a killing spree in Tasmania in 1996. He is currently serving 35 life sentences in Hobart's Risdon Prison. is the 127th day of the year (128th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... The current version of this article or section is written in an informal style and with a personally invested tone. ... A spree killer is someone who embarks on a murderous rampage. ... Capital Hobart Government Constitutional monarchy Governor William Cox Premier Paul Lennon (ALP) Federal representation  - House seats 5  - Senate seats 12 Gross State Product (2004-05)  - Product ($m)  $16,114 (7th)  - Product per capita  $33,243/person (8th) Population (End of September 2006)  - Population  489,600 (6th)  - Density  7. ... Life imprisonment is a term used for a particular kind of sentence of imprisonment. ... The New Risdon Complex being built in front of the existing facility. ...

Childhood

Martin Bryant is the elder of two children of Maurice and Carleen Bryant. Bryant was regarded as unusual in his childhood and in the early years of his schooling was diagnosed as having an IQ of 66 (which is considered to indicate mental disability) and put into special education classes. He was described by teachers at Marcellin College as unusually detached from reality and as either unemotional or as expressing inappropriate emotions. He was apparently a disruptive and sometimes violent child, and was severely bullied by other children. Bryant was referred for psychiatric treatment several times during his childhood. In 1984 a psychological evaluation by Dr Eric Cunningham Dax described him as mentally retarded and stated that he had a personality disorder. Special education is instruction that is modified or particularized for those students with special needs, such as learning differences, mental health problems, or specific disabilities (physical or developmental). ... Marcellin College, Bulleen is a Marist Catholic secondary boys school situated in Bulleen, Victoria, Australia. ... Psychiatry is a branch of medicine dealing with the prevention, assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of the mind and mental illness. ... Dr Eric Cunningham Dax AO, BSc Lond, HonMD, FRACP, FRANZCP, HonFRCPsych (born 1908) is a British psychiatrist resident in Australia since 1952. ... Mental retardation is a term for a pattern of persistently slow learning of basic motor and language skills (milestones) during childhood, and a significantly below-normal global intellectual capacity as an adult. ... Personality disorders form a class of mental disorders that are characterized by long-lasting rigid patterns of thought and actions. ...

Adulthood

Descriptions of Bryant's behaviour as a young man show that he continued to be disturbed. When his father, who had taken early retirement to care for him, died in an apparent suicide, ambulance officers described Bryant as quite excited by the search and unconcerned about the death.

Bryant was eligible for a disability pension due to his low IQ and lived on a pension for some years. He took on odd jobs as a handyman and gardener. One of these odd jobs led to him meeting Helen Harvey, heiress to a share in the Tattersall's Lottery fortune. Harvey befriended Bryant, inviting him to live with her. She was reported to spend large amounts of money on him. Harvey and Bryant moved together to Copping, where they lived until her death in a traffic accident [1]. Disability pension is a form of pension given to those people who are permanently or temporarily unable to work due to a disability. ... Tattersalls Limited is a Victorian lottery/gaming company. ... Copping may refer to: Alice Copping (born 1906), nutritionist Benet Copping (born 1986), Australian rules footballer Copping, Tasmania Wilf Copping (1909-1980), English footballer Category: ... A car accident in Yate, near Bristol, England, in July 2004. ...

Bryant was named the sole beneficiary of Harvey's will and came into possession of a mansion in Hobart and other assets totalling more than half a million dollars. In 1993 his mother applied for and was granted a guardianship order placing Bryant's assets under the management of trustees. The order was based on evidence of Bryant's diminished intellectual capacity. A beneficiary in the broadest sense is a natural person or other legal entity who receives money or other benefits from a benefactor. ... Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. ...

Bryant travelled extensively both in Australia and internationally during this period, apparently seeking social contact with other travellers, but was frustrated at people's negative reactions to him.

Bryant had few friends. One of his few ex-girlfriends described how she was horrified by Bryant's obsession with the movie trilogy Child's Play. This kind of fear held by friends and girlfriends was reported in a number of psychiatric reports throughout his adulthood. After the offence, their recollections provided some indication of Bryant's mindset at the time of the Port Arthur Massacre. Childs Play is a 1988 horror film, written by Don Mancini and directed by Tom Holland. ...

Port Arthur Massacre and aftermath

Main article: Port Arthur massacre (Australia)

Port Arthur Bay

Bryant has provided conflicting and confused accounts of what led him to kill 35 people at the Port Arthur site on 28 April 1996. It appears his desire for attention (he allegedly told a next door neighbor "I'll do something that will make everyone remember me"), as well as mounting frustration at his social isolation, had made him unbearably angry. The possible trigger for the massacre, according to a psychiatric report cited by News Limited, was being prevented from selling home-made trinkets outside the Broad Arrow Cafe, when he was 9 years old. The current version of this article or section is written in an informal style and with a personally invested tone. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1022x532, 172 KB) [edit] Summary Main buildings of Port Arthur, from the bay Copied from de:Bild:Port Arthur Seeseite. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1022x532, 172 KB) [edit] Summary Main buildings of Port Arthur, from the bay Copied from de:Bild:Port Arthur Seeseite. ... Inside the separate prison, Port Arthur, Tasmania Port Arthur is a town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, in Tasmania, Australia. ... is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... News Limited was the principal holding for the business interests of Rupert Murdoch until the formation of News Corporation in 1979. ...

His first victims, David and Sally Martin, who owned a guest house in the area, had apparently angered him by buying a guest house he wanted to buy. He shot them in the guest house before traveling to the Port Arthur ruins and opening fire on visitors. After he killed most of his victims at the site itself and the remainder during his escape, he returned to the guest house where police, unaware that the Martins were already dead, assumed that he had them as hostages and besieged the guest house. One potential victim was spared because when Bryant pointed the gun at him, their eyes met and Bryant immediately recognised him as someone he'd been acquainted with before and seemingly decided to let him live before moving on to continue the killings. Police often train to recover hostages taken by force, as in this exercise For the 2005 film, see Hostage (film). ... A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by force or attrition, often accompanied by an assault. ...

After 18 hours, Bryant set fire to the guest house and attempted to escape in the confusion. He suffered burns to one side of his body, was captured and taken to Royal Hobart Hospital where he was treated for the burns and kept under heavy guard.

As a response to the spree killing, the Howard government banned semi-automatic center-fire rifles, high-capacity repeating shotguns and high-capacity rifle magazines. In addition to this, heavy limitations were also put into place on low-capacity repeating shotguns and rim-fire semi-automatic rifles. The Tasmanian state government attempted to ignore this directive but was threatened with a number of penalties from the federal government. Though this resulted in stirring controversy, most Government opposition to the new laws was silenced by media opinion and mounting public opinion in the wake of the shootings (see Gun politics in Australia for more information on the 1996 legislation). A spree killer is someone who embarks on a murderous rampage. ... John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939), Australian politician, is the Prime Minister of Australia. ... In Australia, conflict over gun politics is related to cultural tensions. ...

Trial and imprisonment

Despite his mental dysfunction, Bryant was judged as fit to stand trial and a trial was scheduled to begin 7 November 1996, but Bryant, persuaded by his court-appointed lawyer, pleaded guilty to murder. is the 311th day of the year (312th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ...

Two weeks later, Hobart Supreme Court Judge William Cox gave Bryant 35 life sentences and recommended that he should remain in prison until he dies. Governor of Tasmania William John Ellis Cox, AC, RFD, ED (born April 1, 1936 in Hobart, Tasmania) has been Governor of Tasmania since 15 December 2004, prior to which he was the states Chief Justice. ...

He has attempted suicide 6 times while being imprisoned. For the first eight months of his imprisonment, he was held in a purpose-built special suicide prevention cell, in almost complete solitary confinement. He remained in protective custody for his own safety, until he recently moved detention centres, a decade after his conviction. Recent reports from visitors have described Bryant as an 'overweight, shambolic wreck'. Rather than surrender to US soldiers, the Mayor (Bürgermeister) of Leipzig Germany, committed suicide along with his wife and daughter on April 20, 1945. ... Solitary confinement, colloquially referred to as the hole (or in British English the block), is a punishment in which a prisoner is denied contact with any other persons, excluding guards, chaplains and doctors. ...

On Monday November 13, 2006, Bryant was moved into Hobart's Wilfred Lopes Centre, a secure mental health unit run by the Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services. The 35-bed unit for inmates with serious mental illness is staffed inside with doctors, nurses and other support workers. Inmates are not locked down and can come and go from their cells. Exterior security at the facility is provided by a three-wall perimeter patrolled by private contract guards. [2].

Media coverage

Newspaper coverage immediately after the massacre raised serious questions about journalistic practices. Photographs of Martin Bryant had been digitally manipulated with the effect of making Bryant appear deranged. There were also questions as to how the photographs had been obtained. The Tasmanian Director of Public Prosecutors warned the media that the reporting compromised a fair trial and writs were issued against the Hobart Mercury (which used Bryant’s picture under the headline “This is the man”), The Australian, The Age and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation over their coverage. The Australian Press Council chairman, David Flint, argued that because Australian newspapers regularly ignored contempt-of-court provisions, this showed that the law, not the newspapers, needed change. Flint suggested that such a change in the law would not necessarily lead to trial by media. [3] The Director of Public Prosecutions is the officer charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world. ... The Mercury is a daily newspaper, published in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. ... The Australian (informally referred to as The Oz) is a national daily broadsheet newspaper published by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC is Australias national non-profit public broadcaster. ... The Australian Press Council is the self-regulatory body of the Australian print media. ... Professor David Flint AM is a prominent Australian legal academic, best known for his controversial tenure as head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority and as one of Australias most prominent and enthusiastic monarchists, in opposition to Australian republicanism. ...

References

• Patrick Bellamy, The Port Arthur Massacre: A Killer Among Us, Court TV's Crime Library, [4]

• Youtube Link to the news story as it happened,[5]

• "Managing Martin: the Jailing of Martin Bryant", Radio National, March 16, 1997. 
• Mike Bingham, Suddenly One Sunday (ISBN 0-7322-6899-0)
• Joe Vialls, Deadly Deception at Port Arthur