THE designer suits, luxury apartments and beautiful, adoring women are just a memory now for Simon Gittany, the one-time corporate high flyer who is now just another inmate in the squalid yards of Parklea prison.
The loss of his court appeal on Friday against conviction for murdering then-girlfriend Lisa Harnum means Gittany has no hope of return to his former life.
For at least the next 15 years, until December 2031 when Gittany will be 57 years old, the flashy Sydney shoe importer is one more murderer in prison greens.
His life is gone, more recent girlfriend Rachelle Louise is reportedly no longer romantically involved, and all he has to look forward to are visits from his sisters and his ageing parents.
At Parklea Prison in Sydney’s west his family can crowd into the visits room for their precious moments alongside the families of bikies, child molesters, drug dealers — and killers, just like Gittany.
Then for Gittany, there is the inevitable post visits strip search and return to his four by three metre cell which, with the booming prison population, he may be sharing with another inmate.
THE FALL FROM GRACE
In throwing Ms Harnum, a 30-year-old dancer, from their 15th floor Hyde Park balcony in a rage after she threatened to leave him in July 2011, Gittany threw away his own life.
For a man from a modest immigrant background who had run into trouble with the police, Gittany’s life had been looking up.
In his early 20s, Gittany had served time in periodic detention for stolen goods and malicious wounding, and received a similarly light sentence for drug charges in 2001.
A decade later he was engaged to Harnum, a Canadian, and importing shoes through his business ShoeCandy from the US.
But Gittany was a controller, and his desire to prescribe every part of Ms Harnum’s life had driven her to want to end their romance.
Psychologists call it the “danger time”, when women in relationships with obsessive, controlling men are at the greatest risk, and Lisa Harnum ticked every box.
As Gittany’s murder trial heard, Gittany told his fiancee what to wear, who to see and where to go.
He told the former ballerina not to gaze in the direction of other men, not to see her friends when she was overseas, to refrain from wearing high heels, revealing clothing, or wearing her hair out and not to confess her sins to a priest. He also monitored her text messages through a computer program.
And so when he discovered she planned to return home to Canada, Gittany grabbed her and, in an action caught on CCTV, held his hand over her mouth.
Then he threw her to her death on the pavement below, and was charged with murder.
Gittany’s attitude during his judge only trial in late 2013 made it apparent that he believed he would get off the charge.
Arriving at court in his smart suit, his usual eyebrow stud and silver cross earring removed for the judge, Gittany was often on the arm of his new girlfriend Rachelle Louise.
Louise was a petite and pretty brunette who staunchly supported his innocence.
Online, anyone could read about Gittany’s innocence on a website freesimon.info which insisted he had been “wrongfully accused and wrongfully convicted” and quoted Martin Luther King.
Some of the data in the website’s “evidence overlooked” section formed part of Gittany’s appeal, which was dismissed on Friday by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.
Sentenced to a minimum of 18 years, Gitrtany has served almost one sixth of that sentence.
The hot-tempered Gittany served the initial part of his sentence on suicide watch in Silverwater Remand Centre, but was later transferred to his jail of sentence, Parklea.
Life in Parklea maximum for Gittany can be both dreary and dangerous, with up to 17 hours in his cell and the remainder in the yard with the some of Parklea’s 800 other inmates.
Gittany wears dark green track pants and matching T-shirt or sweatshirt, a pair of white Dunlop volley sandshoes, and, for visits, a white jumpsuit backzipped to allow as little “contraband” exchange as possible.
Each afternoon he is given a meal, of nutritious but bland chicken, beef or pasta, plus the next day’s breakfast bag of cereal and coffee, 300ml of milk and at least three slices of white bread.
Each morning he is let out of his cell around 8am for exercise, but as a long-term inmate can have the opportunity to work in the prison’s wood or metal work rooms for around $60 a week.
Wherever he goes in the prison, Gittany will be under video camera surveillance.
At any time in the pod where he is living, his cell may be opened in the middle of the night, when he will be ordered to stand outside it while prison officers and dogs search for drugs, mobile phones, or even just SIM cards.
Each day, every day, Gittany be will given sandwiches at lunchtime and locked back in his cell while he eats them.
Sandwich selections include chicken, lettuce and mayonnaise, falafel and salad, roast beef and mustard, turkey, lettuce and cranberry and ham and salad.
The prison menu has remain largely unchanged for years. Measured for its precisely nutritious value, but largely tasteless food, it may remain the same for Gittany’s next 15 years of monotonous routine in Parklea.
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