Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Eye Catch Killers. I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure how to introduce today's guest. To say is
Speaker 1: a complex character is an understatement. He describes himself as
Speaker 1: a half caste, left handed, gay Scottish Maori. I'm also
Speaker 1: going to add to that description by saying he was
Speaker 1: also a nice addict. He was a drug dealer and
Speaker 1: a part time standover man. Sadly, he was also sexually
Speaker 1: abused as a young child, but he managed to break
Speaker 1: away from his life of crime. He also acknowledged his
Speaker 1: sexuality and then was betrayed by a man he loved
Speaker 1: that sent him back, spiraling into a life of crime
Speaker 1: with a burning anger and resentment. It was not until
Speaker 1: he started taking ownership in his actions when he was
Speaker 1: able to break away from the world and follow his
Speaker 1: true passion as a stand up comedian. As I said,
Speaker 1: he's a complex character and today is here to share
Speaker 1: his story. Today's guest is Elliott McLaren. Elliott McLaren, welcome
Speaker 1: to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Kelder, Well, I'm excited about it because we had a
Speaker 1: good long chat and I got a sense of where
Speaker 1: you're coming from and different things. I got to say that, yea,
Speaker 1: you've had an interesting life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of.
Speaker 1: Descriptions of we could place on you, but very complex
Speaker 1: highs and lowers and everything in between.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing that interests me was the fact that
Speaker 1: you break away from crime. Here on My Catchkill is
Speaker 1: a lot of people we get and we've had a
Speaker 1: lot of high profile bad guys and girls for that matter.
Speaker 1: It seems to be when they're caught that they get
Speaker 1: that time to reflect. But it seems that you just
Speaker 1: made a decision to turn your life around.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if it was. I think
Speaker 2: it was just because I was unhappy. I always knew
Speaker 2: at the start, when I first started being bad, I
Speaker 2: always knew that was the wrong thing to do, and
Speaker 2: I always hated it. But I always hated my reality anyway.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't until my reality started to change and
Speaker 2: I actually really enjoyed it that I was like, you
Speaker 2: know what, I don't want to lose, especially after coming
Speaker 2: out of the closet and that sort of thing, big
Speaker 2: weight lifted off my shoulders. But I'm lucky enough I'd
Speaker 2: never been convicted, so.
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to ask you that you're even
Speaker 1: the world's best best bad guy, as in clever and
Speaker 1: getting away of it, because you haven't been convicted or caught. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll put a disclaimer any crimes that you discussed today.
Speaker 1: The crimes are the friend of a friend apparently committed.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for saying that, because that's the
Speaker 2: only thing I was really nervous. I don't know if
Speaker 2: you've heard the doom song rep Snitches, but there's all
Speaker 2: that's been ringing in my head the whole time I've
Speaker 2: been coming on with Rep snitches.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, we're not talking about Elliott today. He's here
Speaker 1: representing a friend of a friend of a friend.
Speaker 2: I'm just waiting for an extradition. That's New Zealand.
Speaker 1: You said, what why am I in SPA for the
Speaker 1: New Zealand?
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know if it's I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's the fact that I'm a good criminal. I think
Speaker 2: it's just it's a lot of luck, a lot of luck,
Speaker 2: because it's always that old thing when you're being a criminal,
Speaker 2: no matter what you're doing, whether it's drink driving and
Speaker 2: you're selling drugs, it's not if you get caught, it's win.
Speaker 2: It's always going to happen. It's inevitable.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a there's a saying between cops and crooks
Speaker 1: that and I've heard it's played out in movies. You
Speaker 1: hear it has said a lot. The thing about being
Speaker 1: a crook. You do your crime, you make one mistake,
Speaker 1: you get caught. As cops, we can miss an opportunity,
Speaker 1: but we might get you next time. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: always think, and I ask people, I'm asking you genuinely
Speaker 1: or your friend of a friend that was committing these crimes.
Speaker 1: What does it feel like knowing that at any time
Speaker 1: there can be a knock on the door and your
Speaker 1: life as you know it can be taken away, as in,
Speaker 1: you can be put in the put in custody.
Speaker 2: That's one thing that people don't realize. That's it's hell.
Speaker 2: I hated it. I hated it, especially like when things
Speaker 2: start getting bigger and you've got bigger and bigger piles
Speaker 2: of drugs that you've got to move. You're doing bigger things,
Speaker 2: you feel sicker, you feel really sick. Getting away with
Speaker 2: it you feel great. It's just like great, sort of like,
Speaker 2: oh awesome, I got away with it. Stress release. But
Speaker 2: you don't feel good, you know, like you never feel
Speaker 2: good when I'm getting in a car. I'd get in
Speaker 2: a car and I drive for eight hours or nine hours,
Speaker 2: and I'd have ten ounces of cocaine in the car
Speaker 2: and I'd have, you know, whatever, could be a glock,
Speaker 2: it could be ic, it could be three hours of
Speaker 2: the MDMA, all of this all in one car load,
Speaker 2: and I'm traveling for eight hours. You shit yourself. I
Speaker 2: got pulled overy and got a speeding ticke at once.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't believe the house I was in search
Speaker 2: and that wasn't searched at all. It was just lucky.
Speaker 2: I think it was just lucky. I had a Maldi
Speaker 2: cop but she pulled me over and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: cutisses and she's like, oh, hey, Roy, how's it going.
Speaker 2: She's like going a bit fast here. I said, oh,
Speaker 2: how much? And she goes seventeen k's over the speed limit,
Speaker 2: so it's not like a couple of kilometers. And I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, sorry about that, and she just gave me.
Speaker 2: Secondly we go. I was like, thank god, But.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're living day to day. And when you were
Speaker 1: using drugs too, when you were involved in dealing drugs
Speaker 1: but using drugs, you'd have the high from using drugs
Speaker 1: and then you'd have the paranoid that must kick in.
Speaker 2: It must fish, especially of ice. Yeah, if you're using ice,
Speaker 2: you're paranoid. As it is, you're always paranoid. But I
Speaker 2: used to have these fuck I used to go nuts
Speaker 2: and I would stand in my There was sometimes I'd
Speaker 2: stand in my apartment and I looked through the peephole
Speaker 2: for four hours plus, completely atrified, like your whole body
Speaker 2: atrifies because you've just been and I'd just be looking
Speaker 2: through a peepole like this for about two or three hours,
Speaker 2: just looking at everything that moved.
Speaker 1: When you come away from that, do you look back
Speaker 1: and go, that's weird.
Speaker 2: It's so weird. I think it's hilarious. I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's the comedian to me, but I just think
Speaker 2: it's so cooked. It's so cooked. I say, what are
Speaker 2: you doing? Man? I can't believe what I was up to.
Speaker 2: Some of the things I look back on, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's cooked. Behavior.
Speaker 1: Well, the other thing that came across was the fact that,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you said that that you have some
Speaker 1: let's say, guilt for the crimes that you've committed and
Speaker 1: the damage that you cause. You're not going through life
Speaker 1: going yeah it was great. I got through it. You
Speaker 1: can reflect on it and say, well, there's people that
Speaker 1: you've hurt or people that you've impacted on their lives.
Speaker 1: Still it talk us through those feelings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean that's always in the back of
Speaker 2: my mind. That's kind of what I do. Why I
Speaker 2: do what I do every day? Now, you know, like
Speaker 2: all the things I do that I don't necessarily want
Speaker 2: to do specially. It could be right down to like
Speaker 2: just staying fit and healthy, all of those sort of things.
Speaker 2: I do that so that I stay clean, so that
Speaker 2: I don't hurt people given because I feel, you know,
Speaker 2: like spishally, it's not so much that this obviously the victims,
Speaker 2: I feel horrible, but it's really my family. I've lost
Speaker 2: relationships over I lost a relationship over it, hurt a
Speaker 2: lot of friends, and I affected people's lives, you know,
Speaker 2: like some people were never going to be the same again.
Speaker 2: So I always think about that, and I just now
Speaker 2: I suppose I live. You live this life of like
Speaker 2: sort of obligation, if you know what I mean, not
Speaker 2: like in a religious way, but like obligation the sense
Speaker 2: where it's like I'm obligated to do I've done really
Speaker 2: bad things. I've got to make sure that I stay
Speaker 2: I stay good because otherwise and it's all for nothing.
Speaker 1: Well you must, you must have to hang on to that,
Speaker 1: because I know, yeah, we're speaking to other people that
Speaker 1: had addictions or lifestyles and all that. Quite often you're
Speaker 1: one fil you're away or one set back away from
Speaker 1: falling back into the old habits, So you've got to
Speaker 1: consciously make sure you don't. Is that what you're saying here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, yeah, you never. You're never far away
Speaker 2: from relapse. It's only a couple of steps away. Like
Speaker 2: I just had a bad armond croissant and I feel
Speaker 2: like relapsing. So morning, I just.
Speaker 1: Check with the producer or allowed to record a relapse
Speaker 1: life that might take it to a new ground. You're
Speaker 1: looking fit, like I must admit I saw you as
Speaker 1: a walking into the studio. I think you look looking fit.
Speaker 1: What are you doing to stay fit?
Speaker 2: Just I swim? I swim heap seeh and I got
Speaker 2: really into swimming only last year. Recently it was I
Speaker 2: took my dad. My dad's got really bad dementia, and
Speaker 2: he came over with my mum. Last year, I took
Speaker 2: them to Icebergs. Wasted money if you're ever going to go.
Speaker 2: But I went to Icebergs. They wanted to Gard's a
Speaker 2: touristy thing, and so me and dad went swimming. And
Speaker 2: this guy is like he can't read a book, smoked
Speaker 2: me in the pool. I couldn't believe it. He's sixty
Speaker 2: seven and he whipped me in the pool.
Speaker 1: He's made.
Speaker 2: The skills are just yeah, yeah, he could just keep going.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if it's because he doesn't remember
Speaker 2: that he was tired from the last lap and he
Speaker 2: just does another one like a golf Maybe he's just
Speaker 2: forgotten he's done a lap and he goes, oh, I
Speaker 2: haven't even done a lap yet. Yeah, he smoked me.
Speaker 2: So I got into it last year. I think the
Speaker 2: first time I tried it, I did two hundred meters
Speaker 2: and I just died on a pack of dat smoker.
Speaker 2: And then after about a month I was doing like
Speaker 2: seventeen minute kilometers.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, that's kicking, kicking a long yeah, in the pools.
Speaker 2: In the pools, yeah, I do just because you've got laps.
Speaker 2: You got it like a measure distance. You can tumble
Speaker 2: and go back and you know how many times you've
Speaker 2: done it, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just a lapse and you're not scared of sharks.
Speaker 2: A little element of the guys have all of that.
Speaker 1: I look at those people, whether it's down at Bondi
Speaker 1: or any of the boachers, and they go out and
Speaker 1: swim on dusk and get out there and swim headland
Speaker 1: to headland. And the only thing I'd be hearing is
Speaker 1: the theme music from George.
Speaker 2: When I first came here, I lived in Manly and
Speaker 2: they do Shally Beach and back every morning and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what are you just doing? It's I am yeah.
Speaker 1: Each that are only fact gives them the kick that
Speaker 1: they need. So this is me being perceptive. But by
Speaker 1: your accent, you didn't grow up here?
Speaker 2: No, by my accent. If if you're wondering on one
Speaker 2: of the bouncers here, yeah, I've only been here for
Speaker 2: about two years.
Speaker 1: You have made a reference to the fact there is
Speaker 1: now that I reflect there is a lot of Kiwi bounces. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He's actually done it on stage a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2: I got up and says, hell, everybody, I can't double
Speaker 2: weeks in on one of the bouncers, and everybody just
Speaker 2: lost it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, definitely. So where'd you grow up? In?
Speaker 1: A place called Pickton? Not our Pickton, not.
Speaker 2: Your Pickton similar, but our Pickton's at the top of
Speaker 2: the South Island in the Marlborough Sounds. If you people
Speaker 2: might have heard the Molber because it's called all the
Speaker 2: savon Blanc and stuff like that. But we're in the
Speaker 2: Marlborough Sounds, which is like it's a big sort of
Speaker 2: mouth that is at the top of the South Island
Speaker 2: but really beautiful. But similar to picked In in the sense
Speaker 2: where it's a rural town, a lot of drug use,
Speaker 2: sort of crying, a lot of yeah, a lot of
Speaker 2: bad example.
Speaker 1: Because it is that rural town and people are getting
Speaker 1: a bit bored and different things.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, opportunities are low, and it's not like
Speaker 2: just opportunities. Isn't making money and stuff like that. They're
Speaker 2: already always lower than the city, but it's opportunities of expression.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Okay, So your childhood, how would you describe it? Brothers, sisters? Oh,
Speaker 1: you've got a twin.
Speaker 2: Have you got a twin? Yeah, I got a twin.
Speaker 1: I got older or younger.
Speaker 2: He's older way fifteen minutes yeah, fifteen minutes older than me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I got a twin. I got two older sisters.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I had a mixed up bringing. I
Speaker 2: suppose everything about me is max with like ying and
Speaker 2: Yang do everything.
Speaker 1: But you try and work out how I was going
Speaker 1: to introduce you.
Speaker 2: How do you think I feel I'm trying to get
Speaker 2: on stage and you're trying to do ten minutes of jokes,
Speaker 2: and you go, how do I nail everything about me?
Speaker 2: But yeah, I look, I had a really good one
Speaker 2: and I had a really bad one at the same time.
Speaker 2: You know. So, like I grew up in rural New Zealand,
Speaker 2: it's stunning, beautiful place to grow up. Lots of really
Speaker 2: cool adventures you can go on. You go fishing and hunting.
Speaker 2: You could walk from my school from my high school
Speaker 2: to my house and you could catch your first you
Speaker 2: could get some muscles off the rocks, and you can
Speaker 2: pull a passion through it off the vine and you
Speaker 2: can eat all of that on the way. It's pretty cool,
Speaker 2: pretty cool. But then at the same time, obviously like
Speaker 2: getting section abuse, that's that sucked, and I didn't really
Speaker 2: realize how much that affected my life. It's a shame
Speaker 2: that it happened, but it's a shame that happened so
Speaker 2: early on as my first two years at primary school.
Speaker 2: So and it went from the age of probably about
Speaker 2: five to seven, about two years that I didn't realize
Speaker 2: how much that affected my life and my behavior until
Speaker 2: probably about twenty years later, when I was about twenty five,
Speaker 2: and when I started going to Traumac Countling, I was
Speaker 2: like Oh my god, all the things that I've done,
Speaker 2: you can sort of you can see a correlation and
Speaker 2: pattern and behavior and stuff like that. But yes, it
Speaker 2: was a mixed I mean a two oldest, two older siblings,
Speaker 2: a twin brother. He's my best mate growing up. Absolutely
Speaker 2: loved him the bits love my two older sisters. But
Speaker 2: I always fought. I fought with everybody. A real scrapper,
Speaker 2: and I think it was because of that. My mum said,
Speaker 2: I went to school when I was five. I was
Speaker 2: a really sweet kid, real happy.
Speaker 1: Let's just unpack that, because, yeah, it takes courage to
Speaker 1: talk about I've got an understanding of how much and
Speaker 1: you touched on it, how much that can impact on
Speaker 1: the pathway of your life. So you're only five years old?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Five. I think it might have still been four
Speaker 2: when it first started, just because I was born a
Speaker 2: little bit. I was born in March. I would have
Speaker 2: started primary school at four years old.
Speaker 1: Right, So did you tell anyone or did you have
Speaker 1: an understanding of what was going on?
Speaker 2: Nah? I had no. Look, I didn't tell anybody, not
Speaker 2: until years later. But I didn't have an understanding of
Speaker 2: what was going on at all. And this is probably
Speaker 2: the hardest thing for I think a survivor to admit, well,
Speaker 2: some of them anyway, some of them is completely the
Speaker 2: opposite relationship and it's all forced. But like for me,
Speaker 2: it was a lot of grooming and it felt like
Speaker 2: a good time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the insidious nature of the crime, isn't it,
Speaker 1: Because it is that grooming and it's confusing a kid.
Speaker 1: The kid is looking whatever adult tells you is the
Speaker 1: right thing to do it at that age, and so
Speaker 1: you're feeling good about it, and then I would imagine
Speaker 1: you look back in years down the track or just confusion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It's really confusing at the start. You
Speaker 2: think it's just games. You're just playing games, you're just
Speaker 2: being silly. Especially when you're four or five years old.
Speaker 2: You've got no idea what's going on. You don't even
Speaker 2: know what sex is, so you don't know what you're
Speaker 2: doing is a sexual act. Don't even know what a
Speaker 2: sexual act is. You don't even know how to spell
Speaker 2: the way to act you're four years old. So yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's really confusing. And then you build a relationship
Speaker 2: with him and it sort of becomes like obligatory to
Speaker 2: show up and to be a part of it, and
Speaker 2: then I remember when it all got broken up, I
Speaker 2: sort of just stuffed it away into the back of
Speaker 2: my mind for years. And it wasn't until I started
Speaker 2: puberty and I started looking at porn and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: and then that's when it all sort of came flooding back.
Speaker 1: You realized what was going on?
Speaker 2: What was going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how how frequent was it?
Speaker 2: It was at least once or twice a week?
Speaker 1: And what just taking an opportunity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, normally it would be it would be a set
Speaker 2: up time. It would be like meet me here at
Speaker 2: this time. Because it was such a small school and
Speaker 2: it was there was no concrete in the school. It
Speaker 2: was all just paddocks. It was surrounded by farms. Were
Speaker 2: just meeting the toilets and and you know, there was
Speaker 2: no one else around. So he'd be like, meet me
Speaker 2: in the toilets today at this time.
Speaker 1: And did like anyone noticed anything about you?
Speaker 2: Like, I kept my mouth shut because so terrified.
Speaker 1: And what had the perpetrator put that into your head
Speaker 1: that this is our little secret? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you get caught, you've done something wrong,
Speaker 2: you're in trouble, you know. So I felt if not
Speaker 2: equally responsible, more responsible because I'm like, I'm doing this,
Speaker 2: you know, like so they make you feel responsible for
Speaker 2: the whole thing, and there was something going wrong. I
Speaker 2: went to schools like a happy little kid, really happy
Speaker 2: little kid, and then came home literally almost an overnight
Speaker 2: shift of just a real angry, violent kid.
Speaker 1: Well the confusion, like your senses will be telling you
Speaker 1: something that's not quite right here, but then when you
Speaker 1: look at it, well, I'm to blame because I'm complicit
Speaker 1: in it. And that's how they manipulate, manipulate children. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: but it plays a price. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: when you discovered your sexuality and came out, do you
Speaker 1: think this played the part being a victim? Or did
Speaker 1: that just confuse your sexuality?
Speaker 2: God, I'd love to answ. I'd love the answer to
Speaker 2: that question. You know how many years I spent there
Speaker 2: thinking like, I'm not gay, I just got molested and
Speaker 2: and and when I first when I was a teenager,
Speaker 2: I used to have I used to sleep with heaps
Speaker 2: of like heaps a woman, but quite a few women.
Speaker 2: I see with quite a few women. Trying to make
Speaker 2: myself straight. If I just do this enough times, it'll
Speaker 2: break through the wall and then I'll just go back
Speaker 2: to normal, you know what I mean, I've just got
Speaker 2: a muscle through this and I'll be straight. And I'd
Speaker 2: love to know the answer to that. But I remember
Speaker 2: talking to a therapist about it and she goes, you know,
Speaker 2: how many boys are molested? I think one in five
Speaker 2: the New Zealand and molested every year. Shocking statistics. And
Speaker 2: it's probably not not any bitty here either. It's getting worse.
Speaker 2: And how many of those guys end up being straight,
Speaker 2: having wives and having kids, so it obviously didn't affect
Speaker 2: their sexuality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I know. Well I spoke to Russell Manson
Speaker 1: we're talking about, who sadly asked away. He was a
Speaker 1: victim of sexual childhood abuse and he carried with him
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of guilt in the he said,
Speaker 1: some of the by the very nature of the act,
Speaker 1: it was pleasurable. Yeah, because you have a reaction because
Speaker 1: it felt he felt something and he was thinking, does
Speaker 1: that mean I'm homosexual? So he went through with some
Speaker 1: confused thoughts about his sexuality because he had been the victim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do, you really do like you?
Speaker 2: That was probably the biggest thing I had with me
Speaker 2: was yeah, don't be wrong. That caused a lot of
Speaker 2: damage to the sexual abuse, but growing up in a
Speaker 2: really homophobic environment that stacked at double It was twofold
Speaker 2: because not only have I done this, but also it's
Speaker 2: wrong because it was a guy. So now I feel
Speaker 2: even worse about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I can see how it's all packing down
Speaker 1: on you. And so have you had any contact with him?
Speaker 1: So he's still alive or no?
Speaker 2: And it was an interesting It was an interesting scenario
Speaker 2: where the original perpetrator was an older boy at my school.
Speaker 2: And then obviously I found out later on, after he'd
Speaker 2: sort of groomed me and gotten me roped into this situation,
Speaker 2: that it was all been conducted by an adult, so
Speaker 2: he was almost recruiting people for the unbeknownst to him,
Speaker 2: he didn't know what he was doing either. But the
Speaker 2: guy who he's gone, he's dead, he's died. And then
Speaker 2: I've never spoken to that other kid about it before.
Speaker 2: I've wanted to fuck. There were someons in my lives
Speaker 2: I wanted I wanted to kill this can I can imagine,
Speaker 2: wanted to murder him. And then it wasn't soil. I
Speaker 2: got the adulthood and I realized that, fuck, he was
Speaker 2: only a couple of years older than me.
Speaker 1: He was probably a victim and manipulated.
Speaker 2: To absolutely Yeah, yeah he was. Yeah, without its doubt,
Speaker 2: you know, because he used to think of all the
Speaker 2: stuff they could do.
Speaker 1: It discussed me like the perpetrators, and that's why, you know,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of understanding for people that commit
Speaker 1: crimes and that, but the impact that childhood's sexual abuse
Speaker 1: has on the victims' lives throughout their life is just unbelievable.
Speaker 2: It's unreal, and.
Speaker 1: And it's done for their own the perpetrators, for their
Speaker 1: own sexual gratification. Yeah, Like, it's just unforgivable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's unforgivable. I think the thing I found the
Speaker 2: most shocking with all of it is it's there's just
Speaker 2: it's the same way they like, the same way you
Speaker 2: and I would talk about somebody that we find attractive,
Speaker 2: whether it be a lady for you or a feller
Speaker 2: for me. It's the same there. But it's about a
Speaker 2: ten year old, yeah, you know, a five year old.
Speaker 1: It's and there is no excuse for it, because there's
Speaker 1: no mitigating circumstances that they're just they're just for their
Speaker 1: own personal pleasure, destroying people's lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know why it happens for me.
Speaker 2: I sit back and I go, you know, you look
Speaker 2: at all the you look at the world, and you
Speaker 2: go like, why is this a regular occurrence in our
Speaker 2: in our world? And it doesn't matter what country you
Speaker 2: go to, what society and what religion is in that country,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. It exists, exists everywhere. Yeah, it's rife.
Speaker 2: It's getting worse. So it's getting so much worse. It's
Speaker 2: out of control. Especially another can you look at statistics
Speaker 2: in America and stuff like that, and the amount of
Speaker 2: child trafficking is going on. And that's in a first
Speaker 2: world country. You go to somebody like Bolivia, or you
Speaker 2: go to some we're like Afghanistan or Pakistan or something
Speaker 2: like that. It's a Russia. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, it's something that we've all got to
Speaker 1: speak up about. And I think they get away of
Speaker 1: it a lot. And I know this doing Predatory series,
Speaker 1: but also in the Cops, they get away with it
Speaker 1: a lot because people don't want to talk about it
Speaker 1: because it's too confronting. In a country a country town
Speaker 1: if you did go and blow it all up. I
Speaker 1: don't know the perpetrator, but he's probably respected or known
Speaker 1: in the country town. Everyone puts a lid on it
Speaker 1: because it's too confronting, and I think that's what we're
Speaker 1: The step we've got to all take is Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to have to talk about it, and it's going
Speaker 1: to be an uncomfortable conversation, but let's get out there
Speaker 1: and talk about it. And if it destroys lives, as
Speaker 1: in the perpetrator and his family gets pulled apart, well
Speaker 1: we've got to start somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the amount of the amount of
Speaker 2: victim blaming in the amount of I think just denial
Speaker 2: in the sense where the amount of kids. So I know,
Speaker 2: well people I know who've gone to the appearance. Only
Speaker 2: people've gone to the like you know, my stepdad's blesting me,
Speaker 2: And I go to the mom and be like, you know,
Speaker 2: your boyfriend's blesting me, and she'd be like, no, he's not,
Speaker 2: or don't say that about him.
Speaker 1: Happens so much, happens so much, and it's disgraceful. I
Speaker 1: think there's got to be and I'm not one to
Speaker 1: let's fix a problem by increasing legislation or bringing in
Speaker 1: new laws. But I think there's got to be something
Speaker 1: a very specific offense where it's brought to someone's attention
Speaker 1: about child sexual abuse and that person doesn't act on
Speaker 1: it because they're complicit. They're complicit in the offense if
Speaker 1: they know it's happening, whether it's your partner that's sexually
Speaker 1: solving the kid or whatever. If you know about it,
Speaker 1: you've got some complicity in the in the offense, and
Speaker 1: there should be specific charges for it.
Speaker 2: I think so too. I don't know how to combat
Speaker 2: that that issue in society. I don't think anybody really
Speaker 2: knows how to combat that issue in society because they're
Speaker 2: so vast, and it's like where do you start. Some
Speaker 2: people just go just fucking shoot them all. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: it's like there's not going to stop the problem. All
Speaker 2: that's going to push it underground even more.
Speaker 1: So we've got to make it harder for them to
Speaker 1: commit the offenses. I think, make it make it harder.
Speaker 1: So that's when and whenever it blows up, you look
Speaker 1: at the person and go, oh, yeah, I thought he
Speaker 1: was a bit strange. He seemed to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time with kids or was the sand Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that type of thing. Invariably, it's your instinct that's
Speaker 1: telling you something's wrong, and we've got to start acting
Speaker 1: on those instincts. Not not take law into your own hands,
Speaker 1: but if you've got concerns about something, raise it and
Speaker 1: encourage kids to talk about it, because let's you your example,
Speaker 1: if the parents, if it's just again, fool proof in
Speaker 1: the world, so these type of things can't happen if
Speaker 1: they spoke to you. Now, if anyone's touching you and
Speaker 1: you feel uncomfortable about it, you can come and tell
Speaker 1: us there's no shame in it. Blah blah blah. As
Speaker 1: a kid, maybe just maybe you might have come forward, Yeah,
Speaker 1: told your parents.
Speaker 2: You know, and if that works for one kid, then
Speaker 2: it's worth doing. Yeah. You know, whatever it works, well,
Speaker 2: you've got to spridge in it wide. When you're sort
Speaker 2: of trying to trying to deal with this issue, you
Speaker 2: can't just trying to find one solution, you know, use
Speaker 2: every tool in your toolbox, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I always felt like I was going to be like
Speaker 2: I was going to bring shame to to myself and
Speaker 2: to my mum. And I thought that I was going
Speaker 2: to get in trouble, and I don't think I also
Speaker 2: thought that, like, I just didn't want to bring that
Speaker 2: whole miss and to my lives because I knew it
Speaker 2: would break my mother's heart and I knew it would
Speaker 2: make my dad go nuts, and I didn't want to
Speaker 2: create that environment. So you just sort of bottle it up.
Speaker 2: You just become a lightning rod really where you just
Speaker 2: absorb it.
Speaker 1: And well, the amount of people that are in prison
Speaker 1: that have been victims of child sexual abuse is just frightening.
Speaker 1: And I always thought when sex offenders, child sex offenders
Speaker 1: went into prison, yeah, they'll call rock spiders and hated
Speaker 1: and got that if the other prisoners could. It was
Speaker 1: pointed out to me by people who spent a lot
Speaker 1: of the time in there. You know why we hate
Speaker 1: them so much, not just the nature of their act,
Speaker 1: because so many of us in here have been victims,
Speaker 1: victims and that sort of very telling, isn't it. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: it stopped. How did it stop? First of all?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, we moved house, we moved school and everything
Speaker 2: like that, but the damage was done. By the time
Speaker 2: I'd move to that next school, I was even I
Speaker 2: was just an angry kid.
Speaker 1: So you were this kid that no one could control
Speaker 1: and lashing out.
Speaker 2: I'd lash out and I hate being that. I hate
Speaker 2: to think about it because it's so embarrassing now and
Speaker 2: I think about it, But fun I used to do
Speaker 2: we old should I'd throw access at my siblings. I'd
Speaker 2: fucking chase them. I'm all a sixty years old and
Speaker 2: I'm chasing my older sister of a knife, fucking stabbing
Speaker 2: holes in the door like the seed of Chucky. It was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was grim.
Speaker 1: The way you're holding the knife. I was getting scared there.
Speaker 1: I just moved.
Speaker 2: I've been aching for t shit.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, I asked this well, and you probably can't
Speaker 1: answer it, but it's just thinking out aloud. If if
Speaker 1: that was addressed and recognize what happened to you at
Speaker 1: that age, and it was unpacked by professionals that know
Speaker 1: how to dissect what you've been through and all the
Speaker 1: emotions and the anger that you're holding on, do you
Speaker 1: think it could have made a difference through the whole
Speaker 1: pathway of your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. I don't think I would have done drugs
Speaker 2: so eagerly, if you know what I mean. I would
Speaker 2: have made a huge impact in my life. For I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have gone to escape reality through drug and alcohol,
Speaker 2: drugs and alcohol at eleven or twelve years old and
Speaker 2: then found such a solace in that escape from reality,
Speaker 2: and then because of that solace and that freedom of angst,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have then developed such a strong connection to
Speaker 2: doing it. That was how my addiction formed. That was
Speaker 2: my escape. So yeah, I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have.
Speaker 2: And then going down that path, you know, starting to
Speaker 2: take drugs, that's where all the rest of it led.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think you told me you were about
Speaker 1: twelve when you start dabbling in alcohol and drugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk us through that. How did that play out?
Speaker 2: Well? I tried alcohol before, but my parents don't drink.
Speaker 2: My parents actually very strict, God bless him. My dad
Speaker 2: was as a great guy. I love my dad the bits,
Speaker 2: but he was really absent and real angry when we
Speaker 2: were kids. And then my mom, she's the best. She's
Speaker 2: such an amazing woman, real harsh but very fair. And
Speaker 2: they don't drink, smoke, swear or gamble, and they don't
Speaker 2: even let your swear in their house. My mom hates it.
Speaker 2: Real strict school teacher. So I went. I remember hanging
Speaker 2: out at the skate park when I was about eleven
Speaker 2: or twelve and few my mates and stuff. They were
Speaker 2: giving me heaps of shit because we didn't smoked weed yet.
Speaker 2: We were twelve years old. Now, I can't believe you're
Speaker 2: twelve and you haven't got the stone yet. What's wrong
Speaker 2: with you? You're a loser. So that was like in
Speaker 2: my head, I'm like, I've got to do this. They
Speaker 2: can't be a loser. And we were hanging out, was
Speaker 2: a few of my mates. We set up a little
Speaker 2: tent in the backyard, and we went around to another boys,
Speaker 2: Nanda's house. She had the best liquor cabinet ever. Real
Speaker 2: good she was. I think she had liver cancer, it
Speaker 2: was so good. We mixed all the little drops of
Speaker 2: alcohol together because she had such a big looking cap,
Speaker 2: and we just pulled you make your own, make your
Speaker 2: own little clocktown. We just filled up a big bottle
Speaker 2: of a turn radioactive green. It was this weird green color.
Speaker 2: I think it must have been from the chartreuse or something
Speaker 2: putting in there. And we all went back to this
Speaker 2: little tent and we're having swigs and we ended up
Speaker 2: getting pursed and I fell over and we will play
Speaker 2: fighting or something like that, and I fell over. And
Speaker 2: I remember fell over in the house and I looked
Speaker 2: under cabinet or a bed. I looked under a bed
Speaker 2: and I saw this little tobaccos and I thought, cool,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be I'm going to be the slickest
Speaker 2: guy out. I'm gonna have a cigarette and a drink.
Speaker 2: I'm going to look so cool. And opened the tobacco
Speaker 2: tin up and it's fucking packed of weed, absolutely filled
Speaker 2: of weed. And I was like, oh my god, this
Speaker 2: is this is perfect. This is the I actually thought
Speaker 2: in my head. The universe has provided at last. Yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you God. This is exactly what I
Speaker 2: needed in my life. This is what was stopping me
Speaker 2: from being cool. But I was at twelve, so I
Speaker 2: had no idea how to smoke weed. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what to do, how to roll a joint. Called this
Speaker 2: rough and tumble boy. He was from up North, he'd
Speaker 2: moved down there. It was real good mates of mine.
Speaker 2: Great dude, absolutely loved him. He's get in so much trouble.
Speaker 2: Pulled him up and I was like, oh, bro, do
Speaker 2: you had to roll a joint, and he goes, yeah, bro, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I come around and he say. He gets on his
Speaker 2: little pushbike and he bikes over to the house and
Speaker 2: we roll a joint. And then he's either had spots
Speaker 2: and I was like, no, never, and so he got
Speaker 2: too hot. He got two button knives, stuck them in
Speaker 2: the old coil element he used to get, stucked them
Speaker 2: in the old coy element on the stovetop. Hit them
Speaker 2: really hot, press a little bit of weed in between
Speaker 2: the two of them. It's like got Jamaican jeffil Priez.
Speaker 2: He pressed it and you're breathing all the smoke.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, we're not advising this to listeners, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I get what gets you.
Speaker 2: It's like New Zealand's national way of smoking weed. If
Speaker 2: you google spots, it'll pop up in Wikipedia. It'll go
Speaker 2: commonly found in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: Right, so the Wikipedia, well there you go. I knew
Speaker 1: they were recognized for a lot of things.
Speaker 2: But lamb Rugby spots pavlover to take that bullshit.
Speaker 1: You can't steal the pavlov.
Speaker 2: Leamington's crowded housela crowded house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, far Lap, maybe maybe, maybe okay, only a little island.
Speaker 1: But hey, what's with the Scottish background as well? Who
Speaker 1: mother father side? What?
Speaker 2: There's both, yes, so both my dad. My dad's a
Speaker 2: first generation immigrant. His parents are Cockneys. All their bloodline
Speaker 2: came from to Scotland, but they were his parents are Cockneys.
Speaker 2: They fell from Wisdam and they sailed over. I think
Speaker 2: my grandfather was in the Merchant Navy. I don't know
Speaker 2: a lot about my dad's family. He's got about twelve siblings.
Speaker 2: He doesn't talk about them all. You are really traumatic childhood,
Speaker 2: so he doesn't say much. I meet his mum with it,
Speaker 2: but I never met his dad. So he's got Scottish.
Speaker 2: But then my mum, her mum's Maldy and Scottish.
Speaker 1: So just to explain that you've now lived in Australia
Speaker 1: for a bit and you understand our relationship with our
Speaker 1: first Nations people, and then what happens over in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: There's a different way, isn't it That they look at
Speaker 1: the Maori culture and the population I have got. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to describe it, and I've been over
Speaker 1: there quite a few times and looking at it, but
Speaker 1: there's a reck there's the Maori speaking TV. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of respect given to it, even your football teams
Speaker 1: with the Harker and everything else. That starts off. What's
Speaker 1: difference do you see between the way the relationship we
Speaker 1: have in Australia with our First Nations people in the
Speaker 1: relationship in New Zealand with the Maori people.
Speaker 2: It's world's apart. And I always felt bad when they
Speaker 2: first got here because we wins a lot in New
Speaker 2: Zealand there, and to be fair, we've got every right
Speaker 2: to for a lot of it. But the big difference
Speaker 2: because I used to win me like, you know, we
Speaker 2: don't have enough rights, and then I get here and
Speaker 2: they don't have any They don't have anything. They've got nothing,
Speaker 2: and it's you know, I did a joke on stage,
Speaker 2: I go, you know therese there were six hundred Indigenous
Speaker 2: languages in Australia. They've got ever six hundred ways to
Speaker 2: say sorry, and the white people don't have won, you know.
Speaker 2: But it's a different it's such a different environment there
Speaker 2: because of the way it started. You know, first and
Speaker 2: foremost New Zealand Maldi's are the only indigenous people in
Speaker 2: the world. And it never be conquered, so we never
Speaker 2: got conquered. They never stole like they stole our land
Speaker 2: years later. But we signed a treaty Scientificity or White Tonguy,
Speaker 2: which is the Treaty of White Tonguey, and one of
Speaker 2: my ancestors signed that I've got them here on my arm,
Speaker 2: my great great great great grandfather. He's Scientificity or White
Speaker 2: Tonguy and the Declaration of New Zealand. So because of
Speaker 2: that treaty, we shared sovereignty of the land, so we
Speaker 2: split everything. It didn't work out in that way. We
Speaker 2: didn't have a written language, and they stuffed us on
Speaker 2: the paperwork. They did two different documents, one in Maldi
Speaker 2: and one in English, and then lost the Maldi one
Speaker 2: and kept the English one. And then yet we found
Speaker 2: the Malti one years later and found out that they
Speaker 2: had changed a bunch of stuff and they had lied
Speaker 2: and they jipped us on the paperwork. But that's why
Speaker 2: that that's why we have such a good relationship, because
Speaker 2: we've actually got a binding contract saying no, no, we've
Speaker 2: got that, this is our and we every year we've
Speaker 2: got White Tonguey Day where we go to the White
Speaker 2: Tonguy tribunal and we go, hey, look they're trying to
Speaker 2: encroach on our side or whatever whatever.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I look, I found it fascinating. I was
Speaker 1: over in New Zealand. We've person I have seen an
Speaker 1: Indigenous lady that was doing a keynote at the Big
Speaker 1: Maori Conference and talking about the way that First Nations
Speaker 1: people are treated over here, and sitting in the audience
Speaker 1: with all this Maori audience. They were outraged when this
Speaker 1: person pointed out that our First Nations people were treated
Speaker 1: as flora and fauna up.
Speaker 2: Until nineteen six.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, eighty six or.
Speaker 2: Eighty nine, something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a little bit, a little bit earlier. But
Speaker 1: when that was said, I'm sitting there with the Maori
Speaker 1: population and they were outraged. And then they said and
Speaker 1: what do you do? And I said, I'm a policeman
Speaker 1: and they were.
Speaker 2: Still are outraged.
Speaker 1: But I went out with a group of Maori's that
Speaker 1: night and we're talking about what was going on. It
Speaker 1: was around the time when there was a bait on
Speaker 1: whether we say sorry, whether the government says sorry for
Speaker 1: the way First Nations people were treated. And they said,
Speaker 1: see that's the difference with you guys. If they came
Speaker 1: up to us and said sorry, we'd say, well, we'll
Speaker 1: consider whether we're going to forgive you. But that's the
Speaker 1: power that they had. So the relationship is even though
Speaker 1: we're so close together. But you've explained it in part
Speaker 1: because they never were defeated by.
Speaker 2: They never were conquered. The way that the English managed
Speaker 2: to do it. The way that the Crown managed to
Speaker 2: do it was they just slowly started taking more and
Speaker 2: more and more and just stealing land off people, and
Speaker 2: they started all these these funny acts where they were
Speaker 2: they were allowed to take the land because it benefited
Speaker 2: the greater population of New Zealand, but then they would
Speaker 2: lease the land back to white people, but they put
Speaker 2: them on twenty five year rotating leases that were never
Speaker 2: that could were always renewed. So you'd had families that
Speaker 2: were on stolen land and they were leasing it off
Speaker 2: the crown for hundreds of years and it's all stolen land.
Speaker 2: So like little things like that. But they only really
Speaker 2: started to I think a lot of the damage was
Speaker 2: done was the last century. It wasn't the one before that.
Speaker 2: It was a pretty good neck, but then last century
Speaker 2: that's when they spanned all ted ol Maldian schools. You
Speaker 2: weren't allowed to speak the native language. And school you
Speaker 2: weren't allowed to and you know, Malory's couldn't get jobs,
Speaker 2: you couldn't get rental. Even today, they still struggle to
Speaker 2: get rentals if you've got a Malory last name. And
Speaker 2: that's why a lot of almost all my cousins don't
Speaker 2: have Maldy names, because our grandmother said, don't get one.
Speaker 1: Because you get discriminated against.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get discriminated against. Yeah. It was really bad.
Speaker 2: And she when she first went to school, she grew
Speaker 2: up on a park which is like tribal lands, and
Speaker 2: when she went to school, she couldn't speak English because
Speaker 2: nobody really spoke English at home. And so when she
Speaker 2: got the school, they used to give you the cane
Speaker 2: if you spoke Maldy. So they just cane this poor
Speaker 2: girl until she learned English. They just hit you every
Speaker 2: time you opened your mouth. You learnt real quick. But
Speaker 2: it was horrible, and there was all these sort of
Speaker 2: all these stories of well lot like you know, people
Speaker 2: getting their jaws broken, kids being bashed, getting put in
Speaker 2: the hospital for speaking Maldy. And then a huge amount
Speaker 2: of boys they all got taken out around the forties
Speaker 2: and fifties. They all got taken away from their families
Speaker 2: from like as young as eight or nine years old
Speaker 2: and put in boys homes, which is kind of like
Speaker 2: you were guys, similar to what you guys had here
Speaker 2: the rabbit proofense sort of situation. So and solar generation. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so there's a bit of that going on in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: See a lot of Pacific Islanders and Mildi's were taking off
Speaker 2: their families and I mean that's the whole reason why
Speaker 2: the Black Powers in New Zealand. You know, the Black
Speaker 2: Power in New Zealand is the second biggest gang in
Speaker 2: New Zealand. It's huge. Oh yeah, it's a massive gang.
Speaker 2: It's a massive organization in New Zealand now. But that
Speaker 2: all started in a new town in Wellington, because they
Speaker 2: would go where's the police are going around and harassing
Speaker 2: all the all the Indigenous people that would walk around
Speaker 2: and be the witnesses and that your cameras and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, and they'd make sure that the police brutality
Speaker 2: wasn't happening because they could witness it. So they started
Speaker 2: as a movement as an organization and then developed into
Speaker 2: it into a Deadly Gang.
Speaker 1: So you're talking about the Black Power Gang.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, they've got a heavy, heavy reputation, very heavy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But look, I suppose my observation of it is that
Speaker 1: New Zealand and you've just corrected me on quite a
Speaker 1: few things because I didn't realize that all the shit
Speaker 1: had gone down on New Guys as well from Maori
Speaker 1: point of view. But my sense of it, they were
Speaker 1: more culturally aware and accepting of the Mari culture in
Speaker 1: New Zealand than what I see with Australia and now
Speaker 1: Indigenous South First Nations hugely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a massive contrast. How different you get
Speaker 2: on a train in Auckland. You're going to hear the
Speaker 2: next stop in Maldi and then in English, so there's
Speaker 2: a huge difference, you know. And they have like we've
Speaker 2: got two or three radio stations. They've got at least
Speaker 2: two TV channels, so it's you know, we've got our
Speaker 2: own political party, so things are that. And it's designated
Speaker 2: indigenous seats in New Zealand. So like when you go
Speaker 2: to your electorate, I'm I'm Teitye Tokoto now, but that's
Speaker 2: instead of voting for like a member of parliament, in
Speaker 2: Erskineville or what. I vote for an Indigenous member of
Speaker 2: Parliament for my area, so they'd be like Auckland, there'll
Speaker 2: be Northland, could be Wellington. So yeah, so instead of
Speaker 2: me voting for the labor MP who's for Uskuneville or whatever,
Speaker 2: you'll vote for the indigenous MP who's for that whole area. Okay,
Speaker 2: And it's always at least x amount of seats, I
Speaker 2: think seven or ten seats dedicated to indigenous people. So
Speaker 2: no matter who gets into politics, he's.
Speaker 1: Always at least you've got you've got a voice set. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: well progress further than we have here. Yeah, okay, we
Speaker 1: talk about discrimination. You're left handed, how it's affected your life.
Speaker 2: It's been it's you know, that's been my spiral into drugs.
Speaker 2: That was the reason why, you know, somebody should have
Speaker 2: stopped it. It was witchcraft. And then now I've gone
Speaker 2: down the devil's path because I never used my right hand.
Speaker 2: And they were right all those years ago, they were
Speaker 2: right about saying that it's.
Speaker 1: An embarrassment the burden you've had to carry your whole life.
Speaker 2: My whole life. Yeah, it's with some being gay where
Speaker 2: I come from left handed, I love throwing that one,
Speaker 2: especially in that joke, because yeah, I love diversity and
Speaker 2: I love being proud of her am, but also like
Speaker 2: you can start throwing all sorts of random shit in there.
Speaker 2: So it's just to sort of make that whole thing.
Speaker 2: Cell they say that I'm.
Speaker 1: Not well, it shows how discrimination, how ridiculous it is
Speaker 1: where we don't like you you use your left hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, but the discrimination. I struggled with it a
Speaker 2: lot when I was younger, and that was another thing
Speaker 2: that made me a really angry kid. I always wanted
Speaker 2: to be Maldy, and I love being Mardy, and I
Speaker 2: am Mildy. Don't get me wrong. I am I am Maldy,
Speaker 2: and I love it. I love the culture, I love
Speaker 2: all about it. But I'm not brown. I look like
Speaker 2: I'm fucking Connor McGregor, and I'm trying to tell me
Speaker 2: one indigenous. And I've got a brown twin brother. That
Speaker 2: was the worst part, you know. I'd grow up with
Speaker 2: this fellow next to me all the time, and he
Speaker 2: was brown all year round. I can get brown in
Speaker 2: the summer, but it's just a really good tan.
Speaker 1: But You've brought up an interesting point there, and I've
Speaker 1: heard people say that before First Nations, people light skin
Speaker 1: and they're in the same family, same parents, and it's
Speaker 1: just how you come out. I can understand what you're saying. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Mary brother, I'm with you, and they're looking at
Speaker 1: you going, no, you look like Conor McGregor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're a white fellow. Yeah, and then like you're
Speaker 2: too brown for the white fellaws. And then you're too
Speaker 2: white for the brown fellaws. So what do you do?
Speaker 2: You don't fit in anyway. You're raised in an indigenous
Speaker 2: community or heavily indigenous community the couple Harker. As a kid,
Speaker 2: I embraced it all and I would have gone a
Speaker 2: lot further with that, but I had my own cousins
Speaker 2: calling me a white fellow, Like, we're cousin, what are
Speaker 2: you talking about?
Speaker 1: So you were going to add a little bit more
Speaker 1: to complicate your life and decide you were going to
Speaker 1: be gay as well?
Speaker 2: Yay as well. Yeah, that's a lifestyle choice. I want
Speaker 2: everybody to know that.
Speaker 1: How long did you suppress that for? When did you
Speaker 1: realize that your interest is in the boys not the girls?
Speaker 1: And what was it like growing up in that environment?
Speaker 1: Because the environment you described sounds like a tough environment
Speaker 1: that's not for the faint hearted. I don't expect that
Speaker 1: it would be something that was embraced.
Speaker 2: No, no way, no way. It was hell. It sucked.
Speaker 2: I think I would have noticed probably around teen, or
Speaker 2: you know, around the same age that boys noticed girls.
Speaker 2: I noticed Legalis and Lord of the Rings, and I
Speaker 2: fell in love. I was like, who's this beautiful, tall,
Speaker 2: skinny park yard white fella. He's so gorgeous. It was
Speaker 2: longlone here. Loved them the bits and then and then
Speaker 2: after that I sort of noticed, but there was just
Speaker 2: sort of an urge. It wasn't any like sort of
Speaker 2: formed thought of I'm attracted to you and I'm attracted
Speaker 2: to me, and it was just kind of like, Wow,
Speaker 2: that guy's fucking beautiful.
Speaker 1: And so that that's from the sort of age of teen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're starting to starting to say that. Were you trying
Speaker 1: to suppress that? Were you, like you're probably you're only
Speaker 1: getting to the stage where you're starting to realize, you know,
Speaker 1: which which path that your life's going to take. Did
Speaker 1: you try to suppress that to please your mates, to
Speaker 1: please your family?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh yeah, of course, yeah, without a doubt. And
Speaker 2: I don't want to bring any shame to anybody. That's
Speaker 2: such a shameful thing. I didn't want to bring shame
Speaker 2: to my family and shame to myself and shamed and
Speaker 2: my friends.
Speaker 1: And isn't it sad we sit here talking about bringing
Speaker 1: shame because of because of your sexuality.
Speaker 2: Sexuality, and then all the shameful acts identity years later
Speaker 2: because of all that. It's it's the irony is it's
Speaker 2: almost like a Greek epic.
Speaker 1: So when did it come out? When did it or
Speaker 1: when did you come out? Not all? I was about
Speaker 1: twenty one, Oh right, you fought against it thres.
Speaker 2: Go for years. For almost all my teenage years, I
Speaker 2: was sleeping with girls, and then later on I was
Speaker 2: about sixteen or seventeen, that's when I started falling around
Speaker 2: of guys. I knew I was gay, probably by the
Speaker 2: age of about fourteen, but tried to suppress it a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: tried to, like a high level lot. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: sleeping with girls, I'm trying to have it. I think
Speaker 2: I tried to have a girlfriend at one point, all
Speaker 2: the way up until about eighteen or nineteen.
Speaker 1: Big big secret to suppress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really tough, real tough. But then when you've
Speaker 2: got you know, you've got two different elements going on
Speaker 2: there where I remember there was a fellow he's in
Speaker 2: his forties, he's come out of the closet. Good on him,
Speaker 2: Like wow, it's so brave, it's so brave. His fellow's
Speaker 2: brother and his cousins they bashed him with the storm
Speaker 2: drain great and cracked a scallope and put him in
Speaker 2: a coma for six months. He's got permanent brain damage.
Speaker 1: Now seriously, because and this is someone within your community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what that would have played on your mind?
Speaker 2: Definitely, Yeah, definitely. And it wasn't just the fact that
Speaker 2: if you come out you're going to get bashed. It's
Speaker 2: not necessar alreally the scariest part, especially if you've had
Speaker 2: a couple of hidings, you're like, okay, yep, it's more
Speaker 2: the fact that you're what you're done is is a
Speaker 2: deaf sentence. Being gay is a death sentence because because
Speaker 2: it's so wrong, that's really what that sees. It doesn't
Speaker 2: really mean. It's not like a fear of getting a hiding.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's the shame and the guilt of like,
Speaker 2: oh god, I'm so wrong, that it's worth killing for.
Speaker 2: And nobody batter than Eylid.
Speaker 1: How old were you when that happens.
Speaker 2: So I would have been eleven or something.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're old enough to sort of comprehend it.
Speaker 1: Jesez that morning sign for that.
Speaker 2: And you hear all sorts of comments too, growing up
Speaker 2: and environments like that, you know, you hear comments like
Speaker 2: they have a dead son and then a gay one.
Speaker 2: You know, gay people deserve to get aids and die
Speaker 2: and all all these sort of comments, and they're disgusting.
Speaker 2: They make me sick, and yeah, it was the worst
Speaker 2: thing you could be where it come.
Speaker 1: From when those type of comments, And I can just imagine,
Speaker 1: and they're the type of comments that you're here. I
Speaker 1: think we're becoming more informed now, but back then, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not ancient history, recent times. But did you to
Speaker 1: mask what you were hiding? Did you join in on
Speaker 1: those comments? Of course you were bluddy gay's.
Speaker 2: A gay homophobe? Yeah, I was a gay home of
Speaker 2: gay homophobe.
Speaker 1: And did you ever compensate you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I was At one stage in my life. I was
Speaker 2: probably one of the worst people at school. But I
Speaker 2: think that just that came from my own hatred of
Speaker 2: of being gay. I felt like I was cursed. I
Speaker 2: felt like that this man had molested me, had made
Speaker 2: me like some sort of sick, deviant pervert, and for
Speaker 2: now I, from now on, I was cursed. It was
Speaker 2: like some sort of fable or some sort of like epic.
Speaker 2: It was like it was like the tale of my life.
Speaker 2: I've been cursed. This as like this burden. I've been cursed.
Speaker 2: If I used to curse the gods, I used to
Speaker 2: curse creation because I was like, how dare you do
Speaker 2: this to me?
Speaker 1: You' And that's that hate that you've got them just loathing,
Speaker 1: self loathing.
Speaker 2: South loathing. I absolutely hated myself. I had no self esteem,
Speaker 2: no self worth, and and I was really angry at
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: So did that all that that culmination, have been sexually abused,
Speaker 1: suppressing your sexuality and all this sayinger building up and
Speaker 1: your drugs you're finding an escape from it. And then
Speaker 1: the life of crime is the world's best criminal that's
Speaker 1: never been caught or your friend of a.
Speaker 2: I never had the world's best detective Batman, I'm looking
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: Like you didn't come across my patch. The type of
Speaker 1: crimes that you're doing, like through the teenagers. What sort
Speaker 1: of crimes are we talking about?
Speaker 2: Dumb shirt country bunkin sort of crimes. It was anything
Speaker 2: I think. I think I would have been ten when
Speaker 2: I burgled the house, living in the fist on a
Speaker 2: bogled house when I was ten. And you don't realize
Speaker 2: it now til you get older, but you're like put
Speaker 2: you in through the manhole and you're the one. You're
Speaker 2: going through the little window to get in there. Because
Speaker 2: if you get caught when you're ten, like you're getting
Speaker 2: taken home to your parents. That's all that's happening. And
Speaker 2: never already been caught. I don't know how many times
Speaker 2: they can't get caught again. So they sent me in there.
Speaker 2: Funny story though, like you know, I went in there
Speaker 2: and I had no comment except of the value of anything.
Speaker 2: So like I went into this house and I'm ten
Speaker 2: years old, and I mean another guy going in there.
Speaker 2: I mean another kid who going to this into this house.
Speaker 2: I remember sneaking around and we thought it was empty,
Speaker 2: and then what this is a just as cushion to
Speaker 2: the wind. But like the guy whose house we were robbing,
Speaker 2: he was in my class, he's actually a made of mine.
Speaker 2: And he bragged about he was going away all weekend.
Speaker 2: I'm going to wait for the weekend. I'm going to
Speaker 2: kay Koda or something like that, and I was like,
Speaker 2: fuck you, you get to get away for the weekend.
Speaker 2: We sort of talked about it and I mentioned it
Speaker 2: to my said, oh, he's going await for the weekend
Speaker 2: or a lucky fellow and they're like what, Like yeah,
Speaker 2: they're like all week in. I was that year and
Speaker 2: they're like, sweet, sweet, this house is going to be empty.
Speaker 2: Empty house. Yeah, empty house, straight away. Empty house. That
Speaker 2: Friday night we were around there. I thought maybe it
Speaker 2: was a Saturday afternoon, and I thought the house was empty,
Speaker 2: and then I realized it was somebody sleeping in one
Speaker 2: of the rooms. There's nothing scarier than thinking there's an
Speaker 2: empty house and you're mid burgle and you're sneaking through
Speaker 2: the house a cat. You think you're an ocean's twelve,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden you can hear snoring
Speaker 2: in the next room. You're like, oh God, what do
Speaker 2: I do? I just went white. But when I came out,
Speaker 2: it's the funniest part of those stories. When I came
Speaker 2: out they were like, what did you steal? What did
Speaker 2: you steal? What did you steal? I'm a ten year old.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, I got the best haul ever.
Speaker 2: And I opened up this little bag and I've got
Speaker 2: a fucking super soaker at a w W figurine.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you've come out with a Teddy
Speaker 1: Bear or something. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I still I stole toys. Yeah, I still kids shit.
Speaker 2: I got a fucking really big super socer, I got
Speaker 2: some wrestling figurines. I still he I stole kid shit
Speaker 2: because like what I wanted, Like, I don't know what
Speaker 2: the I think the only things I stole that went
Speaker 2: kids toys were worthless things because I'd only really seen
Speaker 2: theft and cartoons. So I stole a literal candlestick as well.
Speaker 1: Did you did you have a comprehension that that time
Speaker 1: what you're doing was bad or will you be surrounded
Speaker 1: by all the kids that are.
Speaker 2: I knew it was bad. I got a strict mum.
Speaker 2: I knew it was bad. I knew I was stealing.
Speaker 2: I knew stealing was wrong. Yeah, yeah, so I knew
Speaker 2: I was stealing. I knew stealing was wrong. It was
Speaker 2: at a little bit more fun. In your kid brain,
Speaker 2: you can sort of like you're in a house and
Speaker 2: it's empty, feel like you've got free rein. It's almost
Speaker 2: like a mad dash shopping spas exciting.
Speaker 1: It's exciting as a kid that age, breaking into breaking
Speaker 1: into a house. I get that, Okay, So where did
Speaker 1: it progress?
Speaker 2: I think after that it was like a lot of
Speaker 2: the stuff we would do was just be dumb. It
Speaker 2: was just dumb stuff. It was. It was never like
Speaker 2: apart from fighting and the rest of it, there was
Speaker 2: and burglary, there was nothing else that was really that crazy.
Speaker 2: It was just silly stuff. Up until about fourteen, we
Speaker 2: would play this game. You have to about fourteen or fifteen,
Speaker 2: we would play this game where we would stand on
Speaker 2: the edge of the state highway and as the freight
Speaker 2: trucks went through our town, we'd pick little group grape
Speaker 2: fruit off these trees and we'd throw them at the
Speaker 2: windshields of the truck. They're trying try and crack the
Speaker 2: windshields so the truck driver would pull over and chase us.
Speaker 2: I fucking loved it. It was the best thing ever.
Speaker 2: And they'd always call the cops. I'd radio the cops.
Speaker 2: The cops had come down and chase you too, and
Speaker 2: you'd had this cat and mouse game of all these kids.
Speaker 2: Here's probably about ten of us throwing throwing lemons and
Speaker 2: grapefruits at trucks, and then the cops would come out
Speaker 2: and we'd all run from it and try and hide
Speaker 2: in the bushes.
Speaker 1: And you have no comprehension at that age of the consequences.
Speaker 1: I went through a stage at yeah, early teenage years
Speaker 1: that the success of a day was how many people
Speaker 1: chase you. Yeah, like, it's what sort of stupid stuff?
Speaker 1: Then you do no understanding of the consequences and you
Speaker 1: do stupid stuff, and it's a great day if you've
Speaker 1: been chased from pillar of the post.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you've got away with it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And I used to love, I used to love the
Speaker 2: whole thing of the cops are coming. Then you jump
Speaker 2: a fence, and you jump a fence, and you jump
Speaker 2: a fence, and you know, you'd see where you ended up.
Speaker 2: You had no idea where you're going. You're just jumping fences.
Speaker 2: You don't know if you're going to make it. And
Speaker 2: there be times when I could feel the footsteps of
Speaker 2: the of the cops. They're so close you could feel
Speaker 2: the thud of the boots behind you when you were
Speaker 2: running and you're just trying to get to that fence
Speaker 2: so you could jump it. Yeah, absolutely loved it. But
Speaker 2: then looking back as an adult, you're like, I just
Speaker 2: threw it. I just cracked the windshield of a freight truck,
Speaker 2: you know, like a road train.
Speaker 1: Could have brought death on Yeah.
Speaker 2: Easily, Yeah, easily. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you have anyone that could see you were off track?
Speaker 1: What was your twin brother like?
Speaker 2: Wasn't Probably as reckless as me. I don't think he
Speaker 2: never fought as much as me. I thought way more
Speaker 2: than he did. Normally he'd be lippy and I'd get
Speaker 2: in the fight because of it.
Speaker 1: He'd start it, you'd finish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a couple of times he started he started
Speaker 2: this fight. One there was one fight at school. He
Speaker 2: started with this other Malti kid and had a wicked
Speaker 2: temper when since he was little, he had such a
Speaker 2: bad temper anyone my brother was riling up. He used
Speaker 2: to love riling people up. He thought it was the best.
Speaker 2: And then I wouldn't normally have to step and fucking
Speaker 2: rolled this little kid up. He's had a year younger
Speaker 2: than us, and this kid spits it and he goes
Speaker 2: nuts and he goes to he couldn't get my brother,
Speaker 2: and so he goes to choke one of my mates,
Speaker 2: and I was like, fucking get off of man, and
Speaker 2: pulled him off hi, and he goes to choke me.
Speaker 2: So I grabbed this poor kid and I pulled his
Speaker 2: head down. I just copped him with a knee right
Speaker 2: and I was probably about fourteen. I need him in
Speaker 2: the face as hard as I could, burst all his
Speaker 2: lips open, knocked his front teeth out, broke his fucking nose.
Speaker 2: And that was the first time I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: I can really hurt somebody. Yeah I can. I can
Speaker 2: really hit something. But yeah, that's because my brother was
Speaker 2: just being lippy in this poor.
Speaker 1: Kid, you're backing him up. So all right, let's take
Speaker 1: you to the seventeen and eighteen. Where was your life
Speaker 1: heading and what were you doing at that point in time.
Speaker 2: I was pretty I was pretty lost because by about fourteen,
Speaker 2: I'd started doing acid, I'd started doing pills. I'd started
Speaker 2: doing this, and here was a feller in the community.
Speaker 2: He was selling pills that were like he's selling the
Speaker 2: mass for ten dollars each. We'd sell them for thirty.
Speaker 2: We had this big lolli jar of pills. Had no
Speaker 2: idea what was in the pills. We thought they were
Speaker 2: party pills because back in the day in New Zealand
Speaker 2: they used to be able to get legal highs, which
Speaker 2: are like weaker and fetter means. There was a compound
Speaker 2: going around called bzy peete and BZP was about forty
Speaker 2: times this potent and myth and feed mean. And there's
Speaker 2: this weird steampunk chemist and he started making these compounds
Speaker 2: and selling them legally on the open market and thinking
Speaker 2: it was going to it was gonna reduce like drug harm,
Speaker 2: and it didn't because like even though it's like say,
Speaker 2: it's twenty times he's potent in men.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't on the on the restricted, No.
Speaker 2: He was people were selling it out of shops. He
Speaker 2: had party pill shops, had parti shops, and people were
Speaker 2: selling legal highs out of it. He's thinking it's going
Speaker 2: to reduce drug harm. But if it's twenty times he's
Speaker 2: potent in myth, people just take twenty of them, do men? Right?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: So they were just overdosing on dance floors. Our people
Speaker 2: were dehydrating, they were collapsing and getting paranoid and schizophrenic
Speaker 2: sort of symptoms and people just going off the deep end.
Speaker 2: So he stopped doing it, and he was like, this
Speaker 2: isn't increasing, this isn't reducing drug harm. I'm going to
Speaker 2: stop it. This isn't not the r right. He was
Speaker 2: actually legit, legit guy. Yes, it wasn't a drug dealer.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a drug pusha. He wanted to try and
Speaker 2: create an environment where we could people could take drugs,
Speaker 2: enjoy it and safely. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lovely thing.
Speaker 2: But humans always going to take it to the nth degree.
Speaker 2: And this failure he brought instead of everybody was getting
Speaker 2: rid of the stock as it was getting made illegal,
Speaker 2: Like it's going to be made illegal, I'm not making anymore.
Speaker 2: He contacts the go and goes, I'll buy everything you've
Speaker 2: got form the cheap and which is a stupid thing
Speaker 2: to do if you think about it. But what this
Speaker 2: guy did, he just used it to cut his myth,
Speaker 2: because it's just a derivative a myth, So he just
Speaker 2: used it as a cutting agent because he brought it
Speaker 2: really cheap, so he buys all of this as a
Speaker 2: cutting agent. He starts pressing all these pills pure myth.
Speaker 2: And then one of these beezy b pills and we
Speaker 2: were taking them. I had no idea what was so
Speaker 2: you thought it was a BPZ. I thought it was
Speaker 2: party pill. Yeah, I thought it was a party pill.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a big kids for taking. I
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, this is what people say. They buy
Speaker 2: it from the shop. I didn't know it was an actual,
Speaker 2: like a really addictive drug.
Speaker 1: So when did you know that you were addicted?
Speaker 2: Probably about a year later. I remember about a year later,
Speaker 2: we're taking them every weekend. I remember about a year later,
Speaker 2: we were going to a party and I'm fifteen at
Speaker 2: this point, and all I had was a bottle of
Speaker 2: whiskey and weed, and I was like, this is a
Speaker 2: shit night, and sort of started throwing a bit of
Speaker 2: a tansy and everyone's like what's wrong. I was like,
Speaker 2: this is gonna be shit. I don't even need drugs.
Speaker 2: And that was really really dawned on me. And somebody
Speaker 2: said to me there like fuck man, Like, yeah, you've
Speaker 2: got a bottle of whiskey and a bag of weed
Speaker 2: and you're winging like it's not good enough for you,
Speaker 2: and like you're fifteen, like and I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: that's it didn't stop me. That's when I really sort
Speaker 2: of started to notice and my tolerance was so high.
Speaker 2: I'd gone from taking one or two of these pills
Speaker 2: and being like completely out of my mind. Now I'm
Speaker 2: taking ten of them a night.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, So how did your fund your your drugs?
Speaker 2: Well, if you've been selling drugs, then I always worked.
Speaker 2: I've always worked. I have always worked. There's been times
Speaker 2: in my life where I've been especially when I've been
Speaker 2: in recovery, and I've been a bit down and out,
Speaker 2: i haven't had a job, but I've pretty much always
Speaker 2: waked my whole life since the age of twelve. So
Speaker 2: I would work, and I'm in my first job. I
Speaker 2: used to make twenty three dollars a week. That was
Speaker 2: when I was twelve, and that would get me enough
Speaker 2: money for a bottle of vodka and a packet of cigarettes.
Speaker 2: And that was me every weekend from the age of twelve.
Speaker 1: When I say, I'm surprised that you weren't pulled up
Speaker 1: with all this, like you didn't get in trouble with
Speaker 1: the cops, like you never you never went to court.
Speaker 2: No, never went to court, never went to court. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's because and like I did it,
Speaker 2: I've done a lot worse. I've done some really serious crimes.
Speaker 1: Can I help you here? Say your friend of a
Speaker 1: friend did a lot worse?
Speaker 2: A lot is thinking that. I mean, I've already been
Speaker 2: kicked out home by sixteen, so I had nowhere to live.
Speaker 2: I was homeless. I fucked up so many times. My
Speaker 2: mom's a good lady, but she's really strict. And she
Speaker 2: just said, look, if you're doing drugs, you gotta leave.
Speaker 2: You want to act like an adult. You can't do
Speaker 2: drugs in my house. You want to act like an adult,
Speaker 2: then you can live like one. And she just packed
Speaker 2: my bag. She never swore at me ever, tough love.
Speaker 2: She never swore at me. And so I was sixteen
Speaker 2: and she packed my bag and she just threw it
Speaker 2: out of the fence and said fuck off. And that's
Speaker 2: when I was I was like, oh, well, I stuff
Speaker 2: up here.
Speaker 1: You you're, yeah, an intelligent blake. You've got the emotional intelligence.
Speaker 1: You look at life, you stand up comedy, and you
Speaker 1: understand things at that point in time with your mum sixteen,
Speaker 1: throwing your bag over the fence and telling you the
Speaker 1: fuck off. Did you reflect on what the vibe become?
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, a lot. I think that that was one
Speaker 2: thing that really created a spiral in my life was
Speaker 2: I was always very aware of what was going on.
Speaker 2: I'm very aware of my behavior, but I couldn't stop.
Speaker 2: So then you feel really bad because you're like, I know,
Speaker 2: bitter of but I'm not because if you know body,
Speaker 2: you should do better. But knowing that you're doing something wrong,
Speaker 2: but you can't stop yourself.
Speaker 1: Because you need that fix, And does that play into
Speaker 1: that self wathing? Well, yeah, I'm a shithead. I'm going
Speaker 1: to be more of a shithead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a piece of shit. Yeah, And that's what
Speaker 2: you just keep telling yourself. I'm a piece of shit
Speaker 2: because you're behaving like a piece of shit. You know
Speaker 2: you are? You are?
Speaker 1: You know It's so destructive, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is there anything that do you think at that age
Speaker 1: and we're talking the sixteen seventy when you kicked out
Speaker 1: at home, anything that anyone could have done the grab
Speaker 1: hold of you and go what what are you doing?
Speaker 1: But make you look at yourself in the mirror.
Speaker 2: Probably not. Maybe my twin brother. I remember my twin
Speaker 2: brother had. It didn't last, but I remember he had
Speaker 2: a word to me when about sixteen, and he goes
Speaker 2: or fifteen, and he goes, if you don't rain it in,
Speaker 2: Mom's going to kick you out, you're gonna have nowhere
Speaker 2: to go. You're gonna be a bum, going to be homeless,
Speaker 2: like and he had, and I rained it in for
Speaker 2: a couple of months. It didn't last long, but I
Speaker 2: just remember that did have an effect on me, was
Speaker 2: my brother saying something to me. And it still does
Speaker 2: to this day. If my brother tells me, like what
Speaker 2: you're doing is bad, I'll normally listen pretty quickly, just
Speaker 2: because I don't want to let him down. I love
Speaker 2: him so much. Yeah, nothing really, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: looking back, I think what would have made a massive
Speaker 2: difference to my life was coming out of the closet earlier.
Speaker 1: Okay, through that period teenage years, early twenty was just chaos, drugs, just.
Speaker 2: Drugs, alcohol fighting. I'd moved to christ move the shit,
Speaker 2: started working in the meat industry and there was there
Speaker 2: was this place that I worked at this and this
Speaker 2: is where I really got introduced to like proper crims.
Speaker 2: There was a prison shift seven to three thirty from
Speaker 2: they coming on the bus from Papodo Maximum Security. They
Speaker 2: come in and these are the guys in the last
Speaker 2: six months of these sentence doing reintegration to society. So
Speaker 2: they come in. They'd work at the at this portrio
Speaker 2: was at maybe about ten of them, and then they'd
Speaker 2: leave at three things and go back to prison at night,
Speaker 2: and all the money get saved into a bank account
Speaker 2: and they got released and have it great, great initiative,
Speaker 2: really good initiative. But the problem with it is there
Speaker 2: was so much drug smuggling going involved. There was so
Speaker 2: much crime going involved because I had all these people
Speaker 2: leaving the prison coming coming out, and we were just
Speaker 2: putting drugs in their locker. They were taking it back
Speaker 2: with them. There was all sorts of Remember there was
Speaker 2: this poor little Indian guy, this Fiji and Indian fellow.
Speaker 2: He was there, he was in the he was in
Speaker 2: the skuy and he got released and kept his job
Speaker 2: there and he'd all this protection money from prison and
Speaker 2: he didn't want to smuggle drugs. He said, no, I
Speaker 2: want to want to be good. I don't want to
Speaker 2: make a mistake. You know, I don't want to go
Speaker 2: back to prison, and they're like two fucking bad. Gel
Speaker 2: saw this money and he's like no, no, no, please,
Speaker 2: can we work it out? So anyway I saw in
Speaker 2: the paper was his mum's house had been firebond and
Speaker 2: he disappeared.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, so heavy dudes, heavy dude, Yeah, playing for Keep.
Speaker 2: Yeah Yeah, but like I probably arguably probably the most
Speaker 2: it'd been my in my opinion, probably the scariest gang
Speaker 2: in New Zealand, probably the most powerful, the most well connected. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I would say it was these guys running the Crew,
Speaker 2: big motorcycle club in New Zealand. A lot of money,
Speaker 2: a lot of connections, a lot of overseas connections. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that was when I sort of got introduced to that
Speaker 2: when I was.
Speaker 1: So, is that a life that you were attracted to us?
Speaker 2: Yeah, from a young age. I was really attracted to
Speaker 2: the gang life from a really young age, just from
Speaker 2: even when being a kid. I remember a gang called
Speaker 2: the Tribesmen. They're do an annual run national run every
Speaker 2: year that always stopped at his house. And I'm seeing
Speaker 2: the patches as a kid, and yeah I do Jacob
Speaker 2: ad on stage two. Actually I go I don't know
Speaker 2: if I just saw a lot of bikers and cops
Speaker 2: and thought it was the villa people, but I always
Speaker 2: wanted to join a gang.
Speaker 1: As your confusion with your sexual.
Speaker 2: Sexuality, I'm like, this is a lot of guys and
Speaker 2: either that's kind of like my weekend at can sellers.
Speaker 1: Now, Okay, so it wasn't about riding the bikes.
Speaker 2: You had other thoughts. Maybe, I'm like, maybe I was
Speaker 2: just confused. Maybe I didn't want to join the gang life.
Speaker 2: I just like the art, the color coordinated outfits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well, look we're gonna we're going to take
Speaker 1: a break now. And you just I was hoping i'd
Speaker 1: get you out of this dark patch at this point
Speaker 1: in time, but you're still in the drugs. You've got
Speaker 1: fantasies about joining the gangs and everything else. You did
Speaker 1: turn your life around, but we'll talk about that. But then,
Speaker 1: just when you thought you had your life heading in
Speaker 1: the right direction, something happened and you spiral out of
Speaker 1: control again. Yeah, worse, worse than ever, took it to
Speaker 1: a new new limit. So I told you this guy's
Speaker 1: life was complex and complicated, and we'll find out more
Speaker 1: about his life when we get back to our part two.
Speaker 1: Thanks no worries, Cheers the NAT