Seven months after being charged for the murder of his niece, Mengmei ‘Michelle’ Leng, Derek Barrett is said to be finding prison “very unpleasant”.
Barrett, 28, was charged with murder after the body of his 25-year-old university student niece was found with more than 30 stab wounds floating in the Snapper Point blowhole on the New South Wales Central Coast on April 24.
Barrett is now being held in Silverwater prison’s remand centre in western Sydney while he awaits trial. He has 28 charges against him, including five counts of committing an act of indecency, 17 counts of filming a person’s private parts without consent, two counts of installing a device to film, two counts of filming a person in a private act without consent and one count of detaining for advantage.
“It’s a terrible place to be incarcerated and I can only hope he will be moved in the near future,” Barrett’s lawyer, William Whitby told news.com.au.