Ashleys want 'vessel of death' off road

Liam Ashley was murdered in a prison van taking him to Mt Eden jail last month.

Liam Ashley's family call it a "vessel of death", and want the prison truck in which he died put off the road for good.

But Chubb is set to ignore their wish, claiming it is short of vehicles to do the job.

The Isuzu truck has been held by police since the 17-year-old was murdered, allegedly by a fellow prisoner, while being taken to Mt Eden Prison on August 24.

The Ashley family have already turned down an invitation to a tapu-lifting ceremony for the truck and have instructed a lawyer to ask Chubb to take it off the road permanently when the company gets it back.

"We want Chubb to stop using this death machine," Liam's father Ian told the Weekend Herald. "It is a direct insult to my family and my dead son that they want to use this vessel of death because they are short of vehicles out there to do this job."

He also said Chubb had not contacted the family since Liam's death, which he took as a further insult.

The Weekend Herald has learned that the two guards in the front of the truck could have seen into the compartment where Liam was being held with two other prisoners when the attack occurred. There was a window behind them in the cab which looked directly into another window in the compartment where Liam was being held no more than 2.5m away.

Mr Ashley, who has sat in both the driver's seat and the compartment where his son died, had asked police about what guards might have seen through the window and was told it had "possibly fogged up" during the journey.

There was a hatch in the compartment's roof, which Mr Ashley said police had told him had been tampered with as if in an escape attempt.

Even if the guards had seen or heard something during the journey they might not have been able to act because Chubb's protocol forbids vehicles carrying prisoners from stopping anywhere other than at police stations or prisons.

"I don't care about protocol," Mr Ashley said. "They might have seen something, they might have heard something. If you see or hear a kid getting beaten or strangled in the back of a prison truck then you use your brains and you ignore protocol and you stop the truck."

The compartment where Liam, the alleged killer and another man were being held could be opened to the side and separately from the back of the truck, which held another 11 prisoners in two more compartments.

Mr Ashley, a car dealer and importer for 26 years, said he could not believe that the truck did not have seatbelts, a panic button or surveillance cameras. "They are ferrying these people around like cattle for the sake of saving a few bucks," he said.

Mr Ashley said his son would have had a cramped ride, with the window for light and one small vent for air.

It is understood police have done a full reconstruction of the fatal journey.

Since Liam's death the Government has intervened to make sure prisoners aged under 18 are always kept separate from adults while being transported. The previous protocol had been to do so "where practicable".

The Weekend Herald put a series of questions to Chubb's Australia-based communications manager and was sent a statement saying the company had contacted the family on the day after the death. It said Chubb would talk to the Ashleys "about how Liam's memory could be honoured" once its internal inquiry was finished.