The ceremony took place at the Geoffrey Pearce Correctional Centre, named after an Officer stabbed by an inmate armed with a needle filled with blood infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Mr Pearce died in 1997, seven years after being stabbed.

“Mr Pearce’s tragic case highlights the dangers our members in corrections face when keeping the community safe,” said PSA CPSU NSW Assistant General Secretary Troy Wright, who attended the event. “The list of Officers killed in NSW since the 1800s makes for sobering reading.”

Chair of the POVB, Darren King, said cases like that of Mr Pearce make the case for the union’s “continued vigilance on matters of safety for all our members employed in the state’s prisons”.