Cellmates yet to be interviewed in prison killing

Shane Su­perville

Po­lice say in­mates who shared a cell with mur­der ac­cused Christo­pher Ban­field, who was beat­en to death at the Arou­ca Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, have not yet been in­ter­viewed as in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the in­ci­dent con­tin­ue.

Ban­field, 46, re­port­ed­ly got in­to an ar­gu­ment with a cell­mate on Mon­day night. A fight al­leged­ly broke out dur­ing which he was se­vere­ly beat­en.

His body was found on the floor of the cell at 5.30 am on Tues­day. In­ves­ti­ga­tors re­port­ed that he had swelling to his face and head, and blood was ooz­ing from his mouth.

Po­lice said that while a sus­pect had been iden­ti­fied, in­mates housed in that sec­tion of the prison were clas­si­fied as men­tal health pa­tients and would re­quire psy­cho­log­i­cal as­sess­ments be­fore in­ves­ti­ga­tors could in­ter­view them.

“They all need to un­der­go some as­sess­ment to de­ter­mine whether they have the men­tal for­ti­tude and ca­pac­i­ty to sit through an in­ter­view with in­ves­ti­ga­tors,” a po­lice source said.

“We haven’t re­ceived any re­sponse from the prison so far on this, but the mat­ter is ac­tive­ly un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Ban­field, of Flana­gin Town, was charged with the mur­der of his 75-year-old fa­ther, Pe­ter Ban­field, in June 2025.

Fol­low­ing his first court ap­pear­ance, he was or­dered to un­der­go a psy­chi­atric as­sess­ment at the St Ann’s Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal.

Po­lice from the Re­gion II Homi­cide Bu­reau are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.