On December 21, 2023, in the exercise yard of Goulburn Supermax jail, a violent confrontation erupted between Ricky William McNamara, 32, and Bassam Hamzy, the notorious founder of the Brothers 4 Life gang. Both inmates were handcuffed and had their cells searched before being taken to the otherwise empty yard.
As he was being uncuffed, McNamara unexpectedly produced a shiv from his pocket and attacked Hamzy, targeting his upper body and head while Hamzy, still restrained, attempted to defend himself. The altercation lasted one minute and forty seconds, during which Hamzy sustained a facial injury before corrective officers intervened by deploying gas into the yard.
Following the incident, McNamara expressed remorse for his actions in a letter read in court, citing overwhelming feelings of paranoia and a mentality shaped by past trauma. He acknowledged his defensive behaviour, stating, “That belief triggered a reaction in me where I acted first to avoid being harmed.” It was revealed that he suffers from complex PTSD, substance use disorder, and an antisocial personality disorder, which contributed to his state of mind during the attack.
During sentencing for the assault, Judge David Barrow noted that the evidence did not indicate a rational motive for McNamara’s actions. The judge considered the brief duration of the fight and the minor injuries sustained, leading to a ruling that McNamara would serve an additional 12 months in prison, which would run concurrently with his existing sentence. At the end of his non-parole period in August 2046, he will be 53 years old.
McNamara’s violent history continued to play a role in his sentencing; in 2023, he received an additional five years for a prior attempt to kill an alleged child abuser with a makeshift knife. Meanwhile, Hamzy, who has been incarcerated since 1998 for a shooting that occurred in Sydney, has been subjected to numerous attacks himself while in prison, including a notable incident in which he was assaulted by a rival gang member in 2019 and later shivved by another inmate in 2024. Hamzy has spent most of his adult life behind bars and established the Brothers 4 Life gang, which has been heavily involved in Sydney’s gang conflicts.