Media Factcheck #1*

29 March 2010

Last night there was an item on Channel 7 news in Brisbane about the Boggo Road prison, during which a small businessman named Cameron "Jack" Sim claimed to have operated tours at Boggo Road for 20 years. This is incorrect, as Mr Sim's 'Ghost Tours' was established in 1998 and only ran tours for seven years, until 2005.

The Boggo Road site was not opened to the public until 1992, after the neighbouring No.1 Division had been closed down. The overwhelming majority (90+%) of tours since then were actually run by museum volunteers, who also generated most of the revenue for the site and were responsible for the success of the site.

We have advised Channel 7 that if they do similar segments in future, they may consider using a real historian or someone with actual experience of life in the prison.

* 'Media Factchecks' will run whenever inaccurate or misleading reports about Boggo Road appear in the media.