EXCLUSIVE
SOUTHBANK, VIC. — In an editorial in yesterday’s (Monday, May 25) Herald Sun, the editor, Sam Weir, discusses discounted prison sentences for prisoners serving time during the Victorian COVID-19 emergency. As the editor of this masthead, Ashley Geelan, was serving jail during this time, he has dissected and torn apart Sam Weir’s editorial.
Weir’s editorial, titled “End jail discounts“, starts by stating that: “The fact that some criminals were still receiving jail time discounts even in recent past months as compensation for Covid inconvenience again shows just how broken the justice system is.“
This is factually incorrect. These inmates have been granted Emergency Management Days (EMDs) discounts for serving time in prison when prisons were locked down 24/7 during COVID-19.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, all new inmates were locked into an isolated cell for 28 days without exercise, sunlight, or the chance to visit the prison library. Most were just handed some children’s colouring books and a pack of pencils through the ‘slot’ (a small opening in a prison cell’s doors, used to deliver meals, much like a British letterbox).
Weir makes no mention, nor does the previous Herald Sun article to which Weir is commenting, ever mention that this was a breach of the United Nations International Charter of Human Rights, which states that all inmates must be given access to one hour of exercise and sunlight every day. Corrections Victoria breached this charter. The Herald Sun, nor Weir – its editor – ever mention this inconvenient fact.
“The Herald Sun reported on the weekend that criminals jailed in this state were still having time wiped off their prison sentences due to the pandemic at the end of last year, despite the state emergency being declared well over three years ago.“
Again, the editor of the Herald Sun, Sam Weir, is lying to the public. The inmates to which Weir refers are having time wiped off their sentences now, because they are still in jail, for when they were locked in the cells for at least 28 days during the COVID-19 ‘state of emergency’.
These inmates currently receiving these prison sentence discounts are receiving these sentence discounts now for when they were locked up during the COVID-19 emergency. Another ‘inconvenient truth’ that the editor of the Herald Sun forgets to mention.
“Fresh data, released under Freedom of Information laws. shows almost 5000 days were wiped off jail terms between July 2024 and December 2025 due to ‘COVID-19 disruptions‘.”
Again, the Herald Sun editor, Sam Weir, fails to point out that these are long-term inmates who have recently had EMDs granted (days wiped off sentence) by Corrections Victoria for disruptions during COVID-19 lockdowns. The Herald Sun leaves out this inconvenient truth.
“This is despite the pandemic declaration being removed in October 2022.”
Yet again, Herald Sun editor Sam Weir leaves out the inconvenient truth that these inmates are receiving sentence discounts after the pandemic declaration was removed. They are receiving sentence discounts from earlier times, during the pandemic, but are only now, because they are still in prison, receiving those EMDs, for when they were locked down during COVID-19. Weir missed this little factoid, too.
“Law-abiding citizens received no advantage from COVID – and criminals should certainly not get a softer sentence due to some slight restrictions in jail movements,” Weir’s editorial concludes.
If law-abiding citizens received no advantage, then what would one call ‘Work from Home’, the doubling of pensions, unemployment benefits, employers granting time off and keeping their employees? Therefore, law-abiding citizens did receive advantages, but that’s an inconvenient truth for the Herald Sun’s editor, Sam Weir.
They were not ‘slight restrictions in jail movements’, they were at least for 28 days, locked in a cell, with no exercise, no sunlight, in a direct breach of the United Nations’ International Charter of Human Rights, of which Australia is a signatory. Again, Weir makes no mention of this inconvenient truth.
In summary, the Herald Sun editor, Sam Weir, claims that inmates are still receiving sentence discounts via EMDs today, when the pandemic emergency declaration ended in October 2022. Weir fails (as did the article on which he is basing his editorial) to ever mention the inconvenient truth that these inmates are just now receiving EMD sentence discounts for what happened during COVID-19 prison lockdowns.
One must ask oneself, if it can so easily be proven that the editor (who is the ‘big boss’) that every journalist at the Herald Sun who works for him is prepared to blatantly lie, then one must automatically assume that every journalist working ‘under’ or for him at the Herald Sun is also lying unless proven otherwise.
Is it really true, or did you read it in the Herald Sun?
The Herald Sun always gets “tough on crime” around election time. It’s time to get tough on the Herald Sun’s easily provable utterances of daily bullshit and outright fabrications.
The editor of the Herald Sun, Sam Weir, nor the proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, responded to several requests for comment.
 Herald Sun, the editor, Sam Weir, discusses discounted prison sentences for prisoners serving time during the Victorian COVID-19 emergency. As the editor of this masthead, Ashley Geelan, was serving jail during this time, he has dissected and torn apart Sam Weir's editorial.){kind=link}