The debut of the latest series of reality-based Australian crime series Underbelly on TV3 could not have been more topical if it tried.
As public relations staff were busy packing DVDs in little white paper sleeves to send to reviewers across New Zealand, the "star" of series one, notorious Australian underworld identity Carl Williams, was being dispatched from this life by fellow inmates inside Her Majesty's Barwon Prison, near Melbourne.
One of his attackers apparently beat him to death with the metal stem of an exercise bike, in the maximum-security Acacia unit, where, one would imagine, making a rudimentary prison knife out of a whittled down plastic toothbrush would be difficult.
Williams, apparently, was kept in the highest-security prison unit Victoria has to protect the public from him, and to shield him from his enemies.
The multimillion-dollar unit is surrounded by 4m-high concrete walls, electric fences, sound, motion and infrared technology in a jail within a jail, equipped with an intercom with a button for emergencies.
Emergencies, in fact, like somebody beating you to death with the metal stem of an exercise bike.
Could it be that despite the coverage of the rampant crime in Underbelly, and its prequel, A Tale of Two Cities, nothing has changed, and heavy pieces of steel are a dime a dozen in the highest-security prison in Australia? Clearly, yes.
Lawyers acting for Williams have called for an independent investigation similar to a Royal Commission of Inquiry to determine the extent of police corruption and whether it played a role in their client's fatal bashing.
The Office of Police Integrity has decided to intervene to ensure any allegations of police corruption are properly investigated.
And so it goes.
Underbelly: The Golden Mile (from May 5, 8.30pm) is a prequel to series one, and a sequel to series two, a confusing matter.
It begins with the early career of John Ibrahim, a Kings Cross "nightclub entrepreneur", and the breathtakingly violent and corrupt Kings Cross police, whose exploits entertained Sydney during the quite unbelievable 1995 Wood Royal Commission into police corruption, something also covered in the show.
Our criminal characters are introduced on The Golden Mile as gentlemen with reputations for reckless violence, useful for their jobs as standover men.
Police are introduced as thoroughly corrupt gentlemen with their own interest in reckless violence, and an interest in raising extra money for patio repairs.
It is all based on truth, it is all shocking and, while the names and locations may have changed since the 1988-99 period The Golden Mile covers, in 2010, apparently, it is still going on.
Don't miss it.
