Speaker 1: Abbot soon split these four fellow jail breakers who were
Speaker 1: quickly caught through their own stupidity, one in a Footscray
Speaker 1: pub after starting a drunken brawl because a fellow drinker
Speaker 1: refused to believe he was an escapade. That feat started
Speaker 1: the Abbot legend, part of which was the assertion that
Speaker 1: he deliberately taunted police by sending postcards to them while
Speaker 1: on the run. I'm Andrew Rule. This is Life and Crimes.
Speaker 1: We're going to revisit the story of that bloke called
Speaker 1: Brendan James Abbott, alias the Postcard Bandit. The story of
Speaker 1: the Postcard Bandit is back in the zeitgeist because in
Speaker 1: recent weeks we've had a book republished and an updated book,
Speaker 1: new title, new look, new pictures, new chapters. It's been
Speaker 1: republished by major publisher Alan and Dumman, and not one,
Speaker 1: but two works of film. One is a drama series
Speaker 1: that's being screened on a streamer. It's called Run, and
Speaker 1: the other one is a most excellent two part docco
Speaker 1: called The post Guard Bandit made by Warner Brothers. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of raps, particularly on the docco. So
Speaker 1: clearly it's time to take another look at the life
Speaker 1: and crimes of Brendan Abbott, in case people forget who
Speaker 1: he was or a younger generation didn't know about him
Speaker 1: at all. Abbott was intelligent, resourceful, self reliant. He had
Speaker 1: technical flair sharpened by observation and a hunger to learn.
Speaker 1: The kid from broad Meadows could have mastered any legitimate
Speaker 1: trade and built up a business that would have made
Speaker 1: him a wealthy man. But he didn't like Russell Cox
Speaker 1: and Ray Chuck and Billy the Texan Longley and all
Speaker 1: the rest of the Gunman in a line, all the
Speaker 1: way back to the Bushranger days of Ben Hall and
Speaker 1: Ned Kelly. Young Brendan Abbot took the wrong turn. Abbot
Speaker 1: turned sixty four this May. He's sitting in a high
Speaker 1: security prison cell in Casurina Prison in Western Australia. If
Speaker 1: and when he leaves prison in twenty twenty eight, after
Speaker 1: serving a longer sentence than many murderers do, he'll hit
Speaker 1: retirement age with no more than a notoriety that comes
Speaker 1: with being one of the most prolific robbers and ingenious
Speaker 1: escape artists in Australian crime history. That is, of course,
Speaker 1: unless he has something stashed away which personally I doubt
Speaker 1: because they never seem to. But if there's one crook
Speaker 1: who just might have worked out a way to game
Speaker 1: the system, it might be Brendan Abbot. In Australia, only
Speaker 1: the enigmatic and deadly Rustle Cox alias Maddog Cox matches
Speaker 1: or overshadows Abbot's deeds as a jail breaker and elusive fugitive,
Speaker 1: but it's unlikely that even Cox the Fox, rob more
Speaker 1: banks of more cash than Abbot did. Abbott was the
Speaker 1: one who became the shape shifting interstate raidar cattually but
Speaker 1: inaccurately dubbed the postcard Bandit. Abbott is something like the
Speaker 1: legendary American bank robber and escaper Slick Willie Sutton, who
Speaker 1: entered folklore a bit like the nineteen thirties fugitive John
Speaker 1: Dillinger as the ultimate repeat offender. Assway kept robbing banks,
Speaker 1: Sutton allegedly retorted, because that's where the money is. It's
Speaker 1: a killer line that has entered the language, although Sutton
Speaker 1: insisted later that a New York crime reporter made it up,
Speaker 1: which is entirely possible. Abbot pulled dozens of robberies, but
Speaker 1: the same as with Slick Willie and John Dillinger and others.
Speaker 1: His exploits were polished in the retelling. Still, Abbot was
Speaker 1: credited with the biggest robberies in each of three states
Speaker 1: during the one thousand, nine hundred and forty eight days
Speaker 1: that he was on the run, a period of five
Speaker 1: years and four months, only slightly less time than World
Speaker 1: War II took, and a time in which maybe forty
Speaker 1: strikingly similar bank robberies went unsolved from Perth to Queensland.
Speaker 1: Those five years outside the law don't include the six
Speaker 1: months that the young Abbot had spent on the loose
Speaker 1: after slipping out of a suburban police interview room in
Speaker 1: Perth in December nineteen eighty six. Those five years outside
Speaker 1: the lord also don't include the six months that the
Speaker 1: older Abbot spent on the run after staging a prison
Speaker 1: break in Queensland in nineteen ninety seven that made him
Speaker 1: public enemy number one for police, prison bosses and politicians
Speaker 1: in the Sunshine State. It was a case of here
Speaker 1: one day, gone the next. The fact that he left
Speaker 1: a prison transfer form filled in in his empty cell
Speaker 1: the night that he went through the window didn't make
Speaker 1: him popular with the authorities. Abbot's escape crew, there were
Speaker 1: four others with him, used smuggle diamond wire to cut
Speaker 1: bas through at the Sir David Longland Correctional Center outside
Speaker 1: Brisbane before a conspirator outside, a very young ex prisoner
Speaker 1: called Brendan Barreshon, threw bol cutters over the perimeter fence
Speaker 1: and shot up the armored perimeter guard vehicle with an
Speaker 1: assault rifle that rather helped the escaper's cause. Abbot soon
Speaker 1: split these four fellow jail breakers, who were quickly caught
Speaker 1: through their own stupidity. One can you believe this? In
Speaker 1: a Footscray pub after starting a drunken brawl because a
Speaker 1: fellow drinker refused to believe he was an escapee. The
Speaker 1: resulting headline suggested that it was the gang with one brain.
Speaker 1: The only brain was Abbot, and he'd split from the
Speaker 1: bunch almost as soon as they got out of prison
Speaker 1: in Queensland. But Abbot meanwhile did stick loyally to the
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Brendan Bereschon, the young guy who'd thrown
Speaker 1: in the bolt cutters and produced i think two or
Speaker 1: three guns and shot up the armored forbill drive that
Speaker 1: was patrolling the perimeter. Because without that they could never
Speaker 1: have got out, and Abbot did the right thing and
Speaker 1: sort of stuck with this rather loose kid. You can
Speaker 1: imagine he was rather less that he would do such
Speaker 1: a thing. He's out of jail, he's free. He could
Speaker 1: just get a job or go surfing or something. But no,
Speaker 1: he has to get guns and break five dangerous men
Speaker 1: out of jail. It would seem to be a fairly
Speaker 1: rash thing to do, so Abbot sticks with him. But
Speaker 1: it turns out that Abbot's concept of honor among thieves
Speaker 1: was probably a mistake. Abbott might have stayed in Smoke
Speaker 1: on the loose indefinitely. He could even have used one
Speaker 1: of his many forged identities to escape overseas, because he'd
Speaker 1: done that before. He'd gone for holidays overseas with fake
Speaker 1: passports and stuff. He was very good. But the reckless
Speaker 1: and feckless Brendan Barreshon started a shootout with unsuspecting police
Speaker 1: at box Hill while trying to score heroine. That is
Speaker 1: box Hill in Melbourne. Now the fugitive pair at this
Speaker 1: stage had set up safe house in Fitzroy. They managed
Speaker 1: to rent a property in Fitzroy for six months or something.
Speaker 1: It was in not a suburban street with nosy neighbors.
Speaker 1: It was sort of in a busy place, in a
Speaker 1: bit of light industrial. So it was the perfect spot
Speaker 1: for them to be because escapers like Abbott know that
Speaker 1: the worst place to try and live is in a
Speaker 1: quiet suburban street, because the neighbors are always nosy and
Speaker 1: they always wonder what you're up to, and watch what
Speaker 1: you're driving, and watch when you come home and all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. It was far better to rent
Speaker 1: a place in the inner burbs next door to a
Speaker 1: laundromat or whatever it might be. But Berechon developed a
Speaker 1: taste for heroin. He went out to box Hill foolishly
Speaker 1: to score heroin from Vietnamese dealers. And while he was
Speaker 1: there with a pistol in his bum bag, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of uniform coppers that were just local coppers
Speaker 1: asked he who he was and all the rest of it,
Speaker 1: as they did with people buying drugs, and he panicked.
Speaker 1: He pulled out his pistol and he shot one of
Speaker 1: the police. The policeman survived, but he shot him in
Speaker 1: the legs. It wasn't good after that. Abbott was suddenly
Speaker 1: on the back foot because Suddenly these wanted men aren't
Speaker 1: just wanted in the abstract. They actually wanted in Melbourne
Speaker 1: for shooting at police. Very bad move, and it was
Speaker 1: only a matter of time before the police would grab
Speaker 1: them both in Darwin. And they did that because they
Speaker 1: were able to follow the clues that the clumsy young
Speaker 1: Bereshon and his new striper girlfriend Michelle left everywhere they went.
Speaker 1: Bereshon not only developed a taste for heroin, but he
Speaker 1: got extremely keen on a strip called Michelle, who he
Speaker 1: thought should travel with them, which was a bit of
Speaker 1: a mixed blessing. It did turn two people into three people,
Speaker 1: which is good, but it did have its downside because
Speaker 1: you know, she would tend to bring up friends or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. So in the end, Brendan Abbott
Speaker 1: was brought undone by others, as he eventually had been
Speaker 1: during his five year bank robbery campaign back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. That was when he nailed the tactic of
Speaker 1: dropping in through the roof to surprise bank staff just
Speaker 1: before opening time, when cash draws were full and customers
Speaker 1: hadn't yet come inside. The first of many times Abbot
Speaker 1: used that technique was in the Belmont branch of the
Speaker 1: Commonwealth Bank in Perth way back in May nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: in his first iteration as an arm robber. That was
Speaker 1: around the time of his twenty fifth birthday. Apart from
Speaker 1: the novel entry via the Ceiling, the robbery stood out
Speaker 1: because one of the bank tellers was the tough West
Speaker 1: Coast Eagles player Carl Langdon. He had the really bottle
Speaker 1: blonde hair and he's very tough guy. And there he
Speaker 1: was in the bank in a shirt that Abbot ridly
Speaker 1: killed rather gently later for being pink. He said, bloody
Speaker 1: Carl Langdon was there in a pink shirt, which he
Speaker 1: found quite amusing. I don't think Carl Langdon found it
Speaker 1: amusing because he ended up with a pistol in his face.
Speaker 1: The Belmont job the Commonwealth Bank in Belmont in Perth
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven. It ran to more than one
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve thousand dollars that Abbot and a co
Speaker 1: offender got away with. It was a state record bank haul.
Speaker 1: Within weeks. This is back in the eighties. He was
Speaker 1: arrested at Perth Airport returning from the north of the state. Oddly,
Speaker 1: Abbot noted later the thirty two thousand dollars cash and
Speaker 1: he'd left in a bag in a vehicle in port
Speaker 1: Headland had shrunk to sixteen thousand dollars by the time
Speaker 1: a prosecutor raised it in the trial that ended up
Speaker 1: convicting him and landing him in the notorious from Mantle
Speaker 1: Prison for his first serious sentence. Remarkably, a detective on
Speaker 1: the case had mentioned it to a port Headland local.
Speaker 1: He said something like, I bet you didn't realize that
Speaker 1: there was thirty two grand in that ute and the
Speaker 1: bull terrier tied up next to it would have lectured
Speaker 1: to death. Wasn't a problem. However, by the time the
Speaker 1: case got the court later it had mysteriously halved. Amazing
Speaker 1: shrinking money Abbot learnt from that job. He learned that
Speaker 1: you couldn't necessarily trust investigators. The getaway driver for that robbery,
Speaker 1: Peter Levenz, informed his way to a nine month minimum
Speaker 1: and Abbot's longtime girl friend, Jackie Laud. This was a
Speaker 1: girl that he'd known since they were teenagers. She also
Speaker 1: cut a sweet deal that left her ex lover Abbot
Speaker 1: facing a twelve year sentence in the stinking stone cells
Speaker 1: of the notorious Fermantle Prison. Was a very bad old place.
Speaker 1: It was very old and was sort of a throwback
Speaker 1: to the convict era. Abbot's answer to that, to a
Speaker 1: twelve year sentence was to get a job in the
Speaker 1: prison taylor's shop, the tailoring shop. He was a quick
Speaker 1: learner and he befriended the nice taylor who was in charge,
Speaker 1: and he worked out that if he got some blue material,
Speaker 1: which he was able to get, he could fabricate blue
Speaker 1: overalls that looked very much like the prison officer's uniforms,
Speaker 1: which was very useful. This was a prop that allowed
Speaker 1: him to lead a late night escape across the prison
Speaker 1: rooftops on November twenty fourth, nineteen eighty nine. That feat
Speaker 1: started the Abbot legend, part of which was the assertion
Speaker 1: that he deliberately taunted police by sending postcards to them
Speaker 1: while on the run. Now, it's a great story, the
Speaker 1: postcard story, and it's given rise to the name of
Speaker 1: our documentary that's out now, and it's rise to the
Speaker 1: title of the reissued book, which originally called The Australian
Speaker 1: Outlaw or Australian Outlaw, now retitled The Postcard Bandit. It's
Speaker 1: become part of the Australian language. But sadly the postcard
Speaker 1: story was a fabrication based on the fact that police
Speaker 1: found a role of film left in a car by
Speaker 1: Abbot and he's fellow Fremantle escaper Aaron Reynolds, And when
Speaker 1: the police developed that role of film they saw a
Speaker 1: frame one frame of Reynolds standing outside a West Australian
Speaker 1: Country police station. So the two scully wags on the run,
Speaker 1: the fugitives. Abbot's got Reynolds to stand outside the I
Speaker 1: think dwelling up. It's a town over there in the
Speaker 1: wet belt, stand there and he took a photo of him.
Speaker 1: They left the role of film in the car and
Speaker 1: the copas got the film later and developed it. So
Speaker 1: that's how it sort of started. There were other holiday
Speaker 1: snaps of the fugitive pair, but they weren't sent to
Speaker 1: the police or sent to anybody. These snaps they took
Speaker 1: when they took a tour bus. The two escapees very wisely,
Speaker 1: because Abbot was smart. They posed as tourists and they
Speaker 1: bought tickets on a tour bus. They didn't go to
Speaker 1: see the penguins at Phillip Island, but they went to
Speaker 1: Oolaroo and all those sort of good things, and they
Speaker 1: peld up with a male Japanese tourist. So you had
Speaker 1: these two Aussies in sunglasses and hats, happy chappies with
Speaker 1: a very friendly Japanese tourist, and they traveled as a threesome.
Speaker 1: And that of course didn't make them look like desperate
Speaker 1: robbers on the run. They just looked like, you know,
Speaker 1: suburban boys having a week off in the bus tour. However,
Speaker 1: when these pictures were eventually found by the police in
Speaker 1: some other raid whenever they were subsequently developed and the
Speaker 1: police leaked them to a magazine later on that cynically
Speaker 1: and dishonestly mischaracterized them as postcards. They never were postcards.
Speaker 1: They were just holiday snaps which weren't even developed by
Speaker 1: the crooks. The police had developed them and they were
Speaker 1: used in that way, And it was really a fabrication
Speaker 1: done with the cooperation of the police to draw attention
Speaker 1: to these guys. Not that really matters, I do so
Speaker 1: as the police armed Roberson fugitives the truth but anyway,
Speaker 1: Abbot's exploits were always going to be aired given his
Speaker 1: sheer audacity, but the credit for telling the true story
Speaker 1: behind the legend belongs to a journalist and author now
Speaker 1: known as Abe Madison. More than twenty years ago, when
Speaker 1: the then young writer or reporter was using his adoptive
Speaker 1: name Derek Pedley, he gained Abbot's trust and built contacts
Speaker 1: among Abbot's family members, friends and former lovers. After his
Speaker 1: first book, No Fixed Address, he wrote a more detailed
Speaker 1: and compelling account of Abbot's life, which was published in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, twenty years ago as Australian Outlaw.
Speaker 1: This was followed by a mini series starring the late
Speaker 1: Tom Long as Abbot. It was not a bad series,
Speaker 1: pretty watchable. Tom Long the nice young actor that really
Speaker 1: was well known through Sea Change and other things and
Speaker 1: the dish. He didn't really look like Abbot as such,
Speaker 1: but he did have a rather friendly face which helped.
Speaker 1: And the music, the signature music in that series was
Speaker 1: the great Australian crawl song don't be so reckless or
Speaker 1: reckless brackets don't be so and the key line in
Speaker 1: that is throw down your guns, don't be so reckless,
Speaker 1: and that would be used over and over in that series.
Speaker 1: That was very effective. Now full disclosure, because we're very
Speaker 1: ethical here at Life and Crimes Ay that is Andrew
Speaker 1: Rule edited and published that two thousand and six version
Speaker 1: of Australian Outlaw, and it's an updated version of that
Speaker 1: book which was relaunched recently in recent weeks by Alan
Speaker 1: and Aman the publishers, under the title the inevitable title
Speaker 1: The Postcard Bandit. Now, this new look book takes in
Speaker 1: later aspects of Abbot's life and crimes and subsequent prison
Speaker 1: sentences and escapes. It coincides with the release of the
Speaker 1: new drama series named Run and a two hour documentary,
Speaker 1: which of course is also called The Postcard Bandit. So
Speaker 1: regardless of that bang of fabrication, it is now part
Speaker 1: of the language. That's it. The book, the updated book
Speaker 1: and the films. The documentary and the drama mark a
Speaker 1: return to the spotlight for the long term prisoner now
Speaker 1: cooling his heels in Cajuna Prison, contemplating and exciting but
Speaker 1: ultimately wasted life. It's been a big year for his
Speaker 1: biographer Pedley alias Madison, who has charted the Abbott story
Speaker 1: so meticulously across more than two decades, in fact, close
Speaker 1: to quarter of a century really. Of course, listeners with
Speaker 1: long memories will recall that we spoke with Abe Madison
Speaker 1: alias Dek Pedley back in twenty twenty three in an
Speaker 1: episode we called the Postcard Bandit and Me And some
Speaker 1: of these stories we've been over before, but some we haven't.
Speaker 1: So there you go now. The journal now known as
Speaker 1: Abe Madison, was born in May nineteen seventy two, exactly
Speaker 1: ten years after Brendan Abbott. There are other similarities apart
Speaker 1: from being born in May. His mother, that is Abe
Speaker 1: Madison's mother, like Abbot's mother, Thelma, had fallen pregnant as
Speaker 1: an unmarried teenager. But whereas Abbot barely sixteen, married Brian
Speaker 1: Abbott and had five children in quick succession, of which
Speaker 1: Brendan was the third. Perth girl Joy Madison had no
Speaker 1: choice but to give up the baby that she called Abraham,
Speaker 1: and that baby was subsequently raised as Derek Pedley by
Speaker 1: a kindly couple who lived in country western Australia. When
Speaker 1: young Derrick as he was called then found out the
Speaker 1: truth about his origins at the age of fifteen, it
Speaker 1: rocked him profoundly. The boy was energetic and creative, and
Speaker 1: he later forged a successful career as a reporter, but
Speaker 1: behind the facat he presented the world, he drank heavily
Speaker 1: and he ate far too much, and he did that
Speaker 1: to ease the sort of psychic pain that he felt.
Speaker 1: It's not uncommon with adopted boys particularly. I think he's
Speaker 1: a tall man, and as a troubled youngster in his twenties,
Speaker 1: he reached weights of up to one hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: kilograms because he used to drink bourbon for breakfast, the
Speaker 1: beer for lunch and so on. He did a lot
Speaker 1: of drinking and he smoked a lot of weed. He
Speaker 1: told me the other day that for years he doesn't
Speaker 1: think he was not stoned at work, and yet he
Speaker 1: managed to function somehow. Ape Madison, the artist formerly known
Speaker 1: as Derek Pedley, would eventually tell his own story in
Speaker 1: his moving memoir Crazy Bastard, but that came much later,
Speaker 1: just a few years ago. His first books were, of course,
Speaker 1: about Brendan Abbott, and the updated version, launched the other day,
Speaker 1: traces the postcard bandit story from Broadmeadows in the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties to Perth Maximum Security Prison in the twenty twenties
Speaker 1: and everything in between. Its part non fiction thriller, part biography,
Speaker 1: and part morality tale. It underlines the fact that jails
Speaker 1: are full of damaged people doomed to be there by
Speaker 1: circumstances of birth and upbringing, but that among them are
Speaker 1: a few who strayed from what otherwise might have been
Speaker 1: successful lives in the legitimate world. Brendan James Abbott was
Speaker 1: an earmark from birth to a life of crime. To
Speaker 1: a large extent, he chose that path instead of using
Speaker 1: the intelligence he was born with to succeed in some
Speaker 1: other way. His early choices landed him in prison. Then
Speaker 1: he doubled down and compounded his mistake by using his
Speaker 1: brain to break out of jail, a move guaranteeing that
Speaker 1: he would inevitably be hunted down when he ran out
Speaker 1: of hiding places. His success as a robber an escaper
Speaker 1: ensured his failure as a man, as a father, as
Speaker 1: a brother, and as a son. In the end, Brendan
Speaker 1: Abbott's life has been wasted, spent sentence to more years
Speaker 1: inside than anyone not actually convicted of murder. For the
Speaker 1: rest of us. Of course, it makes a good tale,
Speaker 1: which is why it's been told before, and he's been
Speaker 1: told again on the page and on the screen. There's
Speaker 1: a PostScript to this story that's just come up. His
Speaker 1: fellow escaper, Brendan Beershon, the man who shot the policeman
Speaker 1: at Boux Hill all those years ago, the man who
Speaker 1: was on the run with Abbott and over the two
Speaker 1: most wanted men in the country for months. Apparently he
Speaker 1: didn't want to attract attention when this book was relaunched
Speaker 1: recently and he kept a low prof But I understand
Speaker 1: that he's involved heavily in running a Melbourne chym nasum,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. So somewhere out there in the Burbs,
Speaker 1: if you're going to a gym, you might see a
Speaker 1: fairly hard looking, lean, fit looking bloke and wonder if
Speaker 1: there's something vaguely familiar about his name. It's Brendan Berrishon,
Speaker 1: jail breaker, robber, gunman and cop shooter. Not a cop killer,
Speaker 1: just a cop shooter and probably a reform character with
Speaker 1: let's hope thanks for listening. Life and Crimes is a
Speaker 1: Sunday Herald Sun production for True Crime Australia. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Johnty Burton. For my columns, features and more, go
Speaker 1: to herold'sun dot com dot Au forward slash Andrew Rule
Speaker 1: one word For advertising inquiries. Go to news podcasts sold
Speaker 1: at news dot com dot au. That is all one
Speaker 1: word news podcasts sold And if you want further information
Speaker 1: about this episode, links are in the description.