Paul Hayward was a former professional rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 player and boxer who played for the Newtown Jets

Newtown Jets

The Newtown Jets are an Australian rugby league football club based in Newtown, a suburb of Sydney's inner west. They currently compete in the NSWRL Premier League competition, having left the top grade after the 1983 NSWRFL season...

 between 1973 and 1978. Hayward had been selected to represent Australia as a boxer

Boxing

Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

 at the 1976 Summer Olympics

1976 Summer Olympics

The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...

 in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. Under the Olympic rules of that time, he was disqualified from competing after he turned professional.

He was the brother-in-law of convicted criminal Neddy Smith

Neddy Smith

Arthur Stanley "Neddy" Smith is an Australian criminal who has been convicted of rape, armed robbery and murder.Smith has been serving a life sentence since 1989 and is presently imprisoned in Long Bay Correctional Centre after being moved from Lithgow Correctional Centre in New South Wales,...

, and had two daughters. Smith sent Hayward to Bangkok with Warren Fellows

Warren Fellows

Warren Fellows is a former Australian drug courier who was sentenced to life imprisonment in Thailand in 1978 for his role in a heroin trafficking operation that took place from Perth to Bangkok.-Early life:...

 to arrange a shipment of heroin. On 11 October 1978, Hayward and Fellows were arrested at the Montien Hotel in Bangkok when a suitcase containing heroin was found in his room. He and Fellows were convicted in Thailand, alongside William Sinclair, for attempting to export

Illegal drug trade

The illegal drug trade is a global black market, dedicated to cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of those substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs by drug prohibition laws.A UN report said the...

 8.4 kilograms of heroin to Australia.
Paul Hayward and Warren Fellows both received a 30 year sentence.

Hayward was imprisoned in Lard Yao men's prison in Klong Prem Central Prison before being moved to Bangkwang

Bangkwang

Bang Kwang Central Prison is a men's prison in Nonthaburi Province, Thailand, located at the Chao Phraya River about 7 miles north of Bangkok.-History:...

. After being transferred back to Lard Yao he was released on 7 April 1989, after being granted a royal pardon

Pardon

Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...

.

Hayward became a heroin user during his time in jail and contracted HIV

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

. He died of a heroin overdose in 1992.

Further reading

• Fellows, W., Marx, J., The Damage Done, Pan Macmillan Australia 1997, ISBN 1-84018-275-X