Archibald Beattie McCafferty was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder by the Supreme Court of New South Wales on April 26, 1974. ABC News has reported that the gang he led killed three people in 1973, and that the death of his young son had started voices in his head telling him to "kill seven." The Scotsman later described his convictions as the murder of three people. While he was serving his sentence he was convicted of the manslaughter of a fellow prisoner, and 14 years were added to his term in 1981.
The Scotsman reported that he served 25 years in prison. In the 1990s he fought the federal immigration department and the state prison system in the Federal Court of Australia over how a deportation order affected his chances of parole, and he won. He was then returned to Scotland, where he lived in Edinburgh under a new name, James Lok.
Press coverage gave him two labels. ABC News reported that he was branded "Australia's Charles Manson" because he had led a group of young killers who were using drugs. The Scotsman, writing about him decades later in Edinburgh, called him by the nickname Archie "Mad Dog" McCafferty.
McCafferty was born on December 15, 1949, according to records published by ABC News. The Scotsman reported that he emigrated to Australia with his family as a child. The reports do not say where he was born, when exactly the family arrived, or where in New South Wales they settled.
As a teenager he was sent twice to the Institution for Boys at Tamworth, in northern New South Wales. ABC News, which obtained the list of the home's former inmates through a freedom of information request to the state government, recorded his stays there as April 17 to September 8, 1966, and September 9, 1967, to March 27, 1968.
The Tamworth home was a punishment institution. It opened in 1947 in a former colonial jail, as a place for boys aged 15 to 18 who had run away from other boys' homes. ABC News reported in 2011 that former inmates described a regime of silence and isolation: boys were not allowed to speak to or look at one another, and they slept alone in brick cells. Former inmates also described beatings, cuts to food and long periods of solitary confinement, and several men who later served long sentences blamed their treatment there for what they became. The home was later renamed Endeavour House and closed in 1989 after suicides among its inmates; the buildings became an adult prison.
ABC News identified McCafferty as one of a group of men who had passed through the home as teenagers and later became known for violent crime. Its investigative unit linked the institution to more than 35 violent deaths involving former inmates, 15 of which led to convictions for murder or manslaughter. Most of those men were sent there between 1961 and 1972, the years former inmates described as the harshest. The reporting presented these as links drawn from the inmate lists and from the men's own accounts, not as proof that the home caused the later crimes. A forensic psychologist told ABC News that punishment without psychological treatment can raise the risk of violence in young men who are already at high risk.
The killings took place in 1973. ABC News reported that the death of McCafferty's young son set off the voices in his head that told him to "kill seven," and that he led a gang of what it called drug-fuelled killers, who killed three people that year. The Scotsman reported the result in the courts as the murder of three people.
The reports do not give the names, ages or backgrounds of the three people who died, the dates or towns where they were killed, or the causes of death. They also do not name the other members of the group or record what became of them in the courts.
The date of McCafferty's arrest was not reported. When the Supreme Court of New South Wales later fixed a minimum term for him, it ordered that the term be counted from August 30, 1973.
On April 26, 1974, the Supreme Court of New South Wales sentenced McCafferty to life imprisonment for murder. The Federal Court of Australia, reviewing his case in 1995, recorded that the court had imposed life sentences on that date.
The reports do not describe the course of the trial, the witnesses, or any defense raised on his behalf, and no appeal against the convictions was reported.
McCafferty was convicted of the manslaughter of a fellow prisoner while he was serving his life sentences. ABC News reported that 14 years were added to his sentence in 1981 for that killing. The name of the prisoner who died, the prison where it happened, and the date of the death were not reported.
On April 10, 1991, the federal Minister for Immigration ordered that he be deported.
Later that year his sentence was changed. On October 15, 1991, the Supreme Court of New South Wales set a minimum term, counted from August 30, 1973, and he became eligible to be considered for parole on August 29, 1993. A few days before that date, on August 20, 1993, immigration officials served him with a written direction that he be held in custody.
The prison system had begun to prepare him for release. Under the state's Prisons Act he was given the most generous security classification, C3, and allowed out on day leave for training or study. Then, on June 1, 1994, an officer of the federal immigration department wrote to Long Bay Correctional Centre to say that the department intended to deport him when he was released. On June 29, 1994, he was reclassified to C1, and from then on he was refused all leave.
The Serious Offenders Review Council wrote to him in August 1994 to say that the reclassification followed the immigration department's letter, and that the letter had substantially changed his position. The Offenders Review Board refused him parole on several occasions, in part because his ability to live in the community had not been tested. The review council, for its part, had said it would prefer him to take day leave to show that he could live within the law.
The cause of the deadlock was the immigration department's reading of the Migration Act. Officials took the view that if a prisoner under a deportation order was let out of jail even for one day, they would be obliged to arrest and deport him. In October 1995 the state prison department told McCafferty's solicitor that a deportation order was not in itself a reason to refuse leave, but that the immigration department's stance was an overriding factor.
The judgment also noted that while he had been on day leave, McCafferty breached prison rules by giving an unauthorized interview to the press. The court said that matter was not before it.
McCafferty brought proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, the New South Wales Commissioner of Corrective Services, and the members of the Offenders Review Board. He was represented by counsel briefed through the Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales. Justice Davies heard the case in Sydney on December 7, 1995, and gave judgment on December 21, 1995.
The court found in his favor. Justice Davies held that a prisoner's day release on unescorted leave under the state Prisons Act was not the moment of release that triggered the federal power to take him into immigration custody. That point, the judge said, is ordinarily release on parole or at the end of a sentence. He also held that the law's direction that a deportee be deported "accordingly" did not mean at once: officers had discretion over when deportation would happen. The judgment noted that Commonwealth policy had long been not to enforce deportation until a prisoner's release.
The court set aside the 1993 direction to hold him in custody, which the minister's own counsel accepted was defective in form, and sent the question back to the immigration department. It also set aside his reclassification to C1 and sent that back to the Commissioner of Corrective Services, who had conceded the point. The minister was ordered to pay his legal costs.
The Scotsman reported that McCafferty was deported from Australia to Scotland after serving 25 years in prison for the murder of three people, and that he was returned to Scotland in 1998. He lived in Edinburgh under the name James Lok.
He came before the courts again in Edinburgh. At Edinburgh Sheriff Court, aged 58 and still using the name Lok, he pleaded guilty to the reset of a stolen Volvo car. The car had been held over several days in October of the previous year. The court heard that since his return to Scotland his only other conviction was for drink driving, that he was in a long-term relationship and in full-time work, and that reports assessed him as at lower risk of reoffending than before. His solicitor told the court he was disappointed in himself and in the stupidity of the offense. Sheriff Charles Stoddart sentenced him to 200 hours of community service, reduced from 240 hours because of his early guilty plea, and warned that breaching the order could lead to custody.
The year he arrived back in Scotland was reported by The Scotsman as 1998; the Federal Court record shows that the deportation order itself dated from April 1991.
The Tamworth connection in the ABC News reporting concerns the Institution for Boys he attended as a teenager in the 1960s, not an adult prison. The reports do not say in which prison the fellow prisoner died.
The phrase "kill seven" describes the voices ABC News reported he heard after his son's death. It is not a finding of any court.
December 15, 1949: Archibald Beattie McCafferty is born (ABC News); he later emigrates to Australia with his family as a child (The Scotsman).
April 17 to September 8, 1966: first stay at the Institution for Boys, Tamworth, New South Wales.
September 9, 1967, to March 27, 1968: second stay at the Tamworth institution.
1973: a gang he leads kills three people in New South Wales (ABC News).
August 30, 1973: the date from which his minimum term is later counted.
April 26, 1974: the Supreme Court of New South Wales sentences him to life imprisonment for murder.
1981: 14 years are added to his sentence for the manslaughter of a fellow prisoner (ABC News).
1989: the Tamworth institution, by then called Endeavour House, closes.
April 10, 1991: the Minister for Immigration orders his deportation.
October 15, 1991: the Supreme Court sets a minimum term counted from August 30, 1973.
August 20, 1993: immigration officials serve a direction to hold him in custody.
August 29, 1993: he becomes eligible to be considered for parole.
June 1, 1994: the immigration department writes that it intends to deport him on release.
June 29, 1994: he is reclassified from C3 to C1 and refused all leave.
December 7, 1995: the Federal Court of Australia hears his case in Sydney.
December 21, 1995: Justice Davies sets aside the custody direction and the reclassification.
1998: returned to Scotland (The Scotsman); he lives in Edinburgh as James Lok.
Later: at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, aged 58, he is given 200 hours of community service for the reset of a stolen car.