The eerie shell of Waikeria Prison's top jail has been unveiled to the media in a first look since the fiery riots that sparked mass evacuations in December 2020.
Local kaumatua blessed the facility near Te Awamutu on Friday, during a final farewell ahead of next week’s demolition.
The 111-year-old jail burned almost to the ground during the six-day standoff between prison bosses and Waikeria inmates who claimed conditions were unsanitary and inhumane.
"People feel so deeply about the impact of the riot but today has been such an important point where everyone involved can feel closure, say goodbye, and move on" said Corrections Department Chief Executive Jeremy Lightfoot.
Fires erupted in exercise yards, weapons were fashioned out of broken metal.
Even today ghostly remnants remain of the corrugated iron the seventeen inmates allegedly used, and the tents they sheltered under up on the roof.
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis praised guards and Advance Control and Restraint (ACR) teams from around New Zealand who were brought in to quell the violence and move over 200 inmates to the safety of other jails.
“You are heroes, without the Corrections officers here there would have been fatalities”
At the time family members of the men on the roof spoke to Newshub, describing many of them as gang affiliates of the Comancheros and the Mongols, some were 501 deportees.
All seventeen charged in relation to the riot have pleaded not guilty, and will face a trial by jury February 2023.
The top jail was always going to be replaced- a new 500-bed facility complete with a 100-bed mental health unit- is due to open down the hill in 2024.
"They will probably be the best mental health beds in the southern hemisphere, it’s a pity people have to go to prison to receive that sort of care" Kelvin Davis said.
Many of the inmates displaced by the riot to other prisons, will be able to return to the new Waikeria facility if they’re still in custody and need to be closer to whanau.
A Corrections Spokesperson said the losses incurred during the violence amount to $43 million dollars.
Drones have picked up images of only a handful of salvageable carvings, other treasures will never see the light of day.
"It will all be grass, we will be burying that significant taonga on the footplate of the old building and there will likely be a plaque to mark it" said Terry Buffery, Corrections Central Region Commissioner.
A new chapter for an old girl, written before its time.
