The Department of Correctional Services has today officially named the main road leading into the Darwin Correctional Centre at Holtze as ‘Nuku Road’, after long serving correctional officer and Darwin sports identity Paul Nuku.

Commissioner Ken Middlebrook said Paul Nuku was one of the Department’s great characters who devoted his life to the welfare of others, particularly young Territorians who had come into contact with the criminal justice system

“As Superintendent of the Wildman River Wilderness Work Camp from 1986 to 1989, he drew on his younger days as a professional boxer to teach the detainees the discipline of the sport and the physical and emotional benefits that flowed from that.”

Commissioner Middlebrook said that at the time of his passing in January 2014, Paul Nuku was the longest serving Correctional Officer in the Northern Territory having begun his career at the Fannie Bay Gaol in January 1979.

“It is a fitting monument to his memory that this road is named after him.”

Correctional Services Minister John Elferink officially named the road and was joined by Paul Nuku’s wife Kosera, his son Paul Junior and daughters Amelia Seipel and Anita Stokes along with other family members, friends and colleagues.

Media contact: David Harris, 0400 342 389