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Even though he knew it was coming, the harsh reality of being arrested would have hit Ben Roberts-Smith hardest when he stepped out of a white Hyundai van and walked handcuffed into Silverwater Correctional Complex.
Inside, the man who has met the late Queen and been lionised by political leaders and corporate titans entered a world stripped of rank and reputation. After being checked in at a purple reception desk next to a row of steel-bar cells, the disgraced soldier was led through a scanner – used in place of standard strip searches – to check for any hidden banned objects or substances, before being put into a small changing room.
Ben Roberts-Smith being led into Silverwater on Tuesday night.Nine News
He was told to hand over his jeans and blue polo shirt, and change into bottle-green prison clothing and velcro sneakers made by fellow inmates. Any items that could be used for self-harm, including shoelaces, drawstrings, ties and belts, were removed and placed in a property tub.
Roberts-Smith was given a copy of the Male Inmate Handbook – the bible of what he can and can’t do inside – and assigned a six-digit Master Index Number, which he will hold for life.
This was all just the start of a strict screening process designed to prepare new inmates for a very different existence. The Inspector of Custodial Services has previously described the admittance process as a “stressful and volatile period”, which is also labour-intensive for stretched staff.
A prison officer talks to an inmate at Silverwater during the screening process.Steven Siewert
The Herald and The Age have confirmed Roberts-Smith has been designated a high-profile protection inmate, meaning he does not need to share a standard cell with another person for now. That is one small mercy: standard cells in Silverwater are small, sparse and have a shared open toilet. But Roberts-Smith has still been assigned to a standard wing with other prisoners, the majority of whom are on remand after being denied bail over alleged domestic violence offences, drug charges, gangland attacks, robberies and other violent crimes. He will spend time out of his cell in communal recreational areas with these men, their every move monitored by a network of cameras and other surveillance equipment.
The cells inmates like Ben Roberts-Smith are placed in when they arrive at Silverwater.Steven Siewert
Roberts-Smith is likely to spend many nights behind bars as lawyers and prosecutors thrash out his case over coming months and years. Time will not make his stay in Silverwater – one of Sydney’s busiest and most volatile prisons – any more bearable.
The 47-year-old arrived there at 6pm on Tuesday after his arrest that morning at Sydney Airport. The former Special Air Service Regiment corporal turned Seven media executive had flown in with his girlfriend and daughters from Brisbane only to be confronted on the plane by several police officers and investigators.
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He was immediately arrested and later charged with five counts of war crime – murder after a joint investigation between the Office of the Special Investigator and the AFP. The offence carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
The Silverwater team, led by no-nonsense governor, Patrick Aboud, had been alerted to prepare for a high-profile arrival. Aboud, a veteran of Sydney’s prison system, is no stranger to prominent visitors: he has overseen the imprisonment of Roger Rogerson, Abe Saffron and Neddy Smith, Harriet Wran, the daughter of former NSW premier Neville Wran, and more recently Daniel Billings, whose frenzied knife attack on Forbes childcare worker Molly Ticehurst shocked the nation.
Roberts-Smith, though, is in a category of his own. War crime charges are rare in Australia, and the only other person charged to date – Oliver Schulz – does not have the profile Roberts-Smith has, nor the support from billionaires like Gina Rinehart and media mogul Kerry Stokes. The stakes around the Roberts-Smith case – including how he is treated behind bars while the legal system runs its course – could not be higher.
Some of the premade, frozen food which is heated and served to inmates.Steven Siewert
Within the Silverwater complex, the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre is responsible for a range of inmates, usually those entering custody on remand, or recently sentenced inmates awaiting transfer to another prison. During a recent tour, the Herald reported that of 1370 prisoners in Silverwater, nearly 500 were in for domestic violence charges. Prisoners are assigned a range of categories, including maximum, medium and minimum security, and those known as category ‘E’ – inmates who have escaped and been recaptured, or attempted to escape.
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Roberts-Smith’s life will be governed by the various minimum standards applied to all prisons by Corrective Services NSW. He is entitled to four short- or long-sleeve shirts, two fleecy tracksuit pants, two pairs of shorts, four singlets, and seven pairs of underpants and socks.
He will be allowed at least two hours of open-air exercise in the prison’s basic gyms each day, although he will probably be locked in his cell for at least 16 hours a day, like other prisoners. Breakfast will be six slices of bread, cereal and coffee or tea packets to make in the cell. Lunch will be premade and packed, and dinner – also premade by prisoners – is served early. If – and that’s a big if – Roberts-Smith is eventually convicted, he could spend the rest of his life like this.
The prison-made shoes supplied to all inmates.Steven Siewert 
Exercise equipment in a wing where a helicopter once landed in an infamous 1999 jail break.Steven Siewert
Unconvicted inmates like Roberts-Smith are allowed three free local calls a week for personal reasons, but all calls are recorded and may be monitored. Calls to his legal representatives can’t be monitored or recorded. If he wants more personal calls a week, he can have as many as he likes for up to six minutes each, but they will be via a user-pays pin system.
When Roberts-Smith makes a call, the person on the other end will hear a recorded message which says: “This is a call from an inmate at Silverwater Correctional Complex. Your call may be monitored. If you do not wish to accept this call you may hang up now.”
Roberts-Smith still retains some prominent defenders, and his family has stuck by him. Few will hang up if he calls, but his Silverwater existence is a far cry from what they’re used to. Prior to his arrest, the former soldier was believed to have spent time staying at the Emporium Hotel on Brisbane’s South Bank, a four-star venue with views over the Brisbane River from its suites and rooftop pool, which recently counted Hollywood actor Kevin Costner as a guest. The contrast between then and now could not be sharper.
Roberts-Smith will remain behind bars until at least April 17, when he appears before the Downing Centre Local Court for a bail hearing.
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Bevan Shields is a senior writer, and former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners