Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life, the average person is 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 talked 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 today.
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with Irane muldoon Eran's life was
Speaker 1: pretty normal and so he went on a holiday to
Speaker 1: Cambodia to clear his head following relationship issues. But what
Speaker 1: occurred in the Cambodian bar in July twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: changed his life in ways it's difficult to imagine. Ten
Speaker 1: days after that night, he was detained at non Penn
Speaker 1: Airport on his way home. That was the beginning of
Speaker 1: a nine month nightmare which still haunts him to this day,
Speaker 1: and spoke to me about the brutality of a third
Speaker 1: world prison system lacking humanity and where life is cheap.
Speaker 1: On his first night in prison, he saw a prisoner
Speaker 1: gang raped, and that was just a precursor for what
Speaker 1: was going to happen to him. He knows he was
Speaker 1: lucky to survive. He was beaten countless times, stabbed and
Speaker 1: gang raped on several occasions. This is a truly frightening
Speaker 1: story about what can happen when you get caught up
Speaker 1: in a prison system in a foreign country and you're
Speaker 1: in a Cambodian prison for nine months for a relatively
Speaker 1: minor offense that at its most extreme it was vandalism
Speaker 1: of an ATM machine. You told me, during that nine
Speaker 1: month period, you saw eleven people die in prison. You
Speaker 1: saw rapes, bashings, you were stabbed in an environment like that.
Speaker 1: Did you think you're going to survive?
Speaker 2: No, not at all. No, every day you thought you
Speaker 2: know it could be your day. Yeah, it was pretty horrific.
Speaker 1: So you wake up there and how am I going
Speaker 1: to get through the day?
Speaker 2: And one day felt like a week or a month
Speaker 2: it was so full on.
Speaker 1: Is that something you've ever experienced before? Have you ever
Speaker 1: been in prison or before? So this I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to get a sense of it. Just the average fellow
Speaker 1: that's gone on the holiday in Cambodia. Yeah, ended up
Speaker 1: ended up in prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Basically did it change your view on humanity?
Speaker 2: Yes? And what a great deal I saw things people
Speaker 2: did to other people that were in Uveine, The amount
Speaker 2: of cruelty I saw Barrick. Yeah, words can't really describe
Speaker 2: how how you know totally those people had such disregard
Speaker 2: for people's lives. Yeah, it was very confronting.
Speaker 1: Okay. I don't normally give a content warning on the
Speaker 1: podcast called Eye Catch Killers. I think people are pretty
Speaker 1: well aware of the type of things we're going to discuss.
Speaker 1: But in the conversations I've had with you, and when
Speaker 1: you've told me about your experiences and what I've learnt
Speaker 1: about your experiences, I think it's probably appropriate upfront that
Speaker 1: I give a content warning here that what we're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing is pretty heavy stuff. And what are
Speaker 1: you hoping to achieve by coming on the podcast and
Speaker 1: telling your story.
Speaker 2: I just want people to be aware that you know,
Speaker 2: you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time,
Speaker 2: and it can quickly spiral into something that you just
Speaker 2: can't believe the amount of trauma it's caused me my family. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I want people to be aware they're going to be
Speaker 2: very cautious about going to foreign countries, especially Southeast Asian
Speaker 2: countries in particular Cambodia.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I think when people hear what you've got
Speaker 1: to say in your story, it's it's a wake up
Speaker 1: call for all of us to a degree that we
Speaker 1: take a lot of things for granted in this country.
Speaker 1: We haven't got it perfect with the justice system, but
Speaker 1: there is some justice that prevails. But you in the
Speaker 1: foreign land, foreign rules, and yeah, what's the norm here?
Speaker 1: Doesn't it doesn't apply over there?
Speaker 2: No, I dare say it's a cake walk in comparison,
Speaker 2: to be honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, hearing what you've you've told, I'd have to
Speaker 1: agree with you. Let's find out a little bit about
Speaker 1: Muldoon the person before we take you over to Cambaitia.
Speaker 1: Just describe yourself, how old are you and what was
Speaker 1: your life before this?
Speaker 2: Fifty one? Grew up in beautiful Manly, you know, lived
Speaker 2: my life basically on the beach, surfing and hanging around
Speaker 2: with my friends and having a good good time, you know,
Speaker 2: and having grew up and went to a good school
Speaker 2: and had a good education, worked in hospitality for a
Speaker 2: while and worked in sales and marketing, and you know,
Speaker 2: then decided to want to become a forklift driver.
Speaker 1: We've all got dreams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just you know, there was no stress there.
Speaker 2: It's good times and that's what you're doing. That was
Speaker 2: your occupation. When you say, people understand too. It was
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three that you went on your holiday
Speaker 2: to Cambodia, but you were managing the fork driving or yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was working in a warehouse and you know, truck
Speaker 2: comes in, you loaded up, truck goes out. You know,
Speaker 2: it was pretty easy work and the money was good,
Speaker 2: so it was good. You know, sales and marketing can
Speaker 2: be stressful at times with your targets and things like that.
Speaker 2: So it was just a good career change, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm getting older and you were coming off the
Speaker 1: back of a relationship as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my relationship kind of fell apart, and that's why
Speaker 2: I went overseas just to try and give some space
Speaker 2: between the two of us and maybe reconcile later on
Speaker 2: down the track. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well you told me that you were at that point
Speaker 1: when you went overseas just a clear, clearly air on
Speaker 1: the back of the relationship breaking down, but you had
Speaker 1: hopes that it might rekindle some capacity. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: had had a child with that women, Yeah, I did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, young boy.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're getting a sense of it, and that's
Speaker 1: the way i'd probably describe you living a typical average
Speaker 1: life in Australia. Enjoy yourself. Yeah, had you had you
Speaker 1: been in trouble with the law before, just briefly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what sort of stuff?
Speaker 2: Childhood stuff, childhood stupidity.
Speaker 1: We've all done that, I suppose have had you ever
Speaker 1: done any time in prison or juvenile detention centers or whatever,
Speaker 1: So it all been in custody is something completely foreign
Speaker 1: to Yeah, okay, I just wanted to establish that because
Speaker 1: it's the world that you stepped into. Must have been
Speaker 1: so confronting on that many different levels. So tell us
Speaker 1: about the trip to Cambaity. What was the plan's dreams
Speaker 1: and aspirations flying over the Camba there.
Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't meant to go there I was meant
Speaker 2: to go vit Nam and my partners partner at the time,
Speaker 2: she was in Bali and said she wasn't ready to,
Speaker 2: you know, see me yet. And then you know, I
Speaker 2: always wanted to go and see Ankle White and she's
Speaker 2: said the same thing. When't you going to do that?
Speaker 1: The temples in camp? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, in San rep So I decided that, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd changed my ticket.
Speaker 1: Okay, that was a great decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one of my best.
Speaker 1: So how long was the holiday planned? For?
Speaker 2: Sixteen? Eighteen days? I was therefore I had a thirty
Speaker 2: day visa, but I was only there for eighteen.
Speaker 1: Days, okay, So, and I think it was on the
Speaker 1: from memory tenth of July twenty twenty three, which was
Speaker 1: two days into your trip. Yeah, yep, okay, And tell
Speaker 1: me about what happened on the night the genesis of
Speaker 1: what dictated the rest of your life, or at least
Speaker 1: the next twelve months of your life. You went out
Speaker 1: for a drink.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it wasn't planning on going out for a drink.
Speaker 2: It was just I went into a bar just literally
Speaker 2: one hundred meters down from my hotel. Is this in
Speaker 2: the capital city, Yeah, pen and I went down there
Speaker 2: ordered a beer, and honestly, my first biggest mistake was
Speaker 2: there was a cow bell there, and if you ring
Speaker 2: the cowbell, you buy a beer for everybody in the
Speaker 2: pubs are very cheap, but you know, so I was
Speaker 2: happy to do that, but I think in doing that,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of blokes there that have clocked me
Speaker 2: going rich foreigner. And then I had one Jack Daniels
Speaker 2: and coke. Second mistake was to leave that on the
Speaker 2: table and go to the bathroom. I came back and
Speaker 2: I had a few more SIPs out of that and
Speaker 2: then basically got a really bad migraine headache, which and
Speaker 2: I don't get migraines. I don't think I've ever had
Speaker 2: any or one maybe you know, and then blurred vision.
Speaker 2: I was unsteady on my feet. I went to pay
Speaker 2: for the you know, the bar tab and because it'd
Speaker 2: only just gotten there, I was still trying to negotiate
Speaker 2: what moneys and what and American dollars and things into
Speaker 2: Kmai reel and the owner she said, oh, you don't
Speaker 2: have enough, but there's an ATM just down there, a
Speaker 2: couple of doors down.
Speaker 1: What time of night was that.
Speaker 2: It's a while ago. Now, it's not that late, you know. Again,
Speaker 2: just two drinks and then so I by the time
Speaker 2: I walked down that to that atm, it was like
Speaker 2: I'd been drinking all night. And then two guys followed
Speaker 2: me out of the bar. I walked into the ATM
Speaker 2: and I tried to put my card in about three
Speaker 2: or four times, and by that stage I was so
Speaker 2: incoherent and fell forward and with one hand protected my
Speaker 2: face and the other hand just cracked the glass on
Speaker 2: the ATM. And then walked out of there, and those
Speaker 2: two fellas followed me to my hotel room, which was
Speaker 2: literally another you know, fifty yards down the road or
Speaker 2: fifty meters down the road. I walked in there and
Speaker 2: they stopped, and then I got myself for I don't
Speaker 2: know whether I got myself up to the room or
Speaker 2: someone helped me up to the room, but I woke
Speaker 2: up the next day very groggy, still unsteady on my feet,
Speaker 2: you know, that bit of a brain fog. But I
Speaker 2: still remembered something about the bar and owing money at
Speaker 2: the bar.
Speaker 1: You hadn't paid for the drinks, hadn't paid for the drinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So I actually got money out of the safe,
Speaker 2: walked past where the incident happened, the Smile mart there
Speaker 2: and to the bar and paid the bar lady, and
Speaker 2: then yeah, that was it. Nothing else was said.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the smile mart you're talking about it, it's
Speaker 1: like the convenience stores where they've got the ATM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like you see, I've got some fotos here that
Speaker 1: I think were in the time of Times, the local paper,
Speaker 1: and I'm just looking at it as a podcast, but
Speaker 1: describing it. I can see on one of the shots
Speaker 1: they've got the phatoh of you looking into the ATM machine,
Speaker 1: and then they've got a picture of the damage to
Speaker 1: the glass of the ATM. Yeah, and that's your sort
Speaker 1: of recollection of what happened on the on the night
Speaker 1: from the photose. Yeah, just obviously obviously. Yeah, and okay,
Speaker 1: so what we're talking here is a damaged ATM machine,
Speaker 1: And I just want to understand because yeah, what followed
Speaker 1: on from this, trying to get a sense of the
Speaker 1: actions that we're taking against you. You went back to
Speaker 1: the bar the following day. Yep, you paid the money,
Speaker 1: You've got money from the from the safe at your hotel,
Speaker 1: and then then what did you do?
Speaker 2: I just I spent another couple of days there and
Speaker 2: then we I went up to bat and Bong and
Speaker 2: then from Bat I spent five days in bat and Bong.
Speaker 2: It's about six hours. Oh no, not that long. It's
Speaker 2: about a three hour drive maybe just in a car
Speaker 2: that picked me up from the hotel, and then from
Speaker 2: there I got a boat ride up to soon Reap.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you just continued on your holiday.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, there was no no, nothing said by the
Speaker 2: owner of the bar, nothing said by the people who
Speaker 2: owned the smile mart. There was nothing.
Speaker 1: So did you have any thoughts at what happened that
Speaker 1: the ATM machine was going to come back to buy it?
Speaker 2: No, because I I initially I was just protecting myself
Speaker 2: and then when hand hit, I didn't think anything of
Speaker 2: it because I was that, you know, like like I
Speaker 2: don't know, under duress, I guess.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've carried on your holidays. I think you
Speaker 1: said another ten or thirteen days or something like that.
Speaker 2: Another ten days.
Speaker 1: I think it was already had your flights pre booked, so'
Speaker 1: on the flight that you're intending to your book with
Speaker 1: your holidays. So you didn't change your flights or try
Speaker 1: to flee the.
Speaker 2: Country or no, no, no, not at all. They said
Speaker 2: that though I was trying to flee the country.
Speaker 1: But this was pre booked, yeah flights and the flight
Speaker 1: that you were scheduled to recatch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, back to Australia or back to Thailand first and Australia.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm probably I'm falling in the cop made here
Speaker 1: and I'm just thinking, okay, well, there was no effort
Speaker 1: to flee the crime scene. You're not trying to escape. No, okay.
Speaker 1: You go to the airport at which airport was.
Speaker 2: It, Well they've got a new one now, but it
Speaker 2: was the International Airport.
Speaker 1: At Sanri, Okay. And what happened there.
Speaker 2: I put my luggage on that went onto the plane.
Speaker 2: I walked through to customs and they handed over my
Speaker 2: passport and then the customs agent said, oh, you've got
Speaker 2: a black mark against you your name, a black flag.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what do you mean. He's saying, oh,
Speaker 2: we just have to wait here for a minute. From that,
Speaker 2: I was escorted to the immigration office and they'd taken
Speaker 2: my passport and I was sitting there not knowing what
Speaker 2: was going on, you know, and there was all these
Speaker 2: customs agents and immigration people in the room with me
Speaker 2: and asking me all these questions. And then the only
Speaker 2: time I've ever seen the footage from the Smile Mart
Speaker 2: was one police officer there had it on his phone,
Speaker 2: and then when that was meant to be brought up
Speaker 2: in court, that had disappeared, and that clearly showed the
Speaker 2: two guys on the outside, the two dark figures on
Speaker 2: the outside of the Smile Mart.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're in there, when is that when you
Speaker 1: realize what you were being detained for. Did you realize
Speaker 1: it was to do with the ATM machine?
Speaker 2: They said, yeah, that i'd I damaged the ATM machine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And did you speak the local language? No, not at all,
Speaker 1: So this was communicated to you by someone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were in Pidgin English because I don't I
Speaker 2: don't speak Kamai, you know.
Speaker 1: So when did you When did you realize this was
Speaker 1: something unusual? Did you have concerns you were going to
Speaker 1: miss your flight?
Speaker 2: Well, they said if I missed my flight, they pay
Speaker 2: for another one. But then they told me that there
Speaker 2: was four police officers driving up from a non pen
Speaker 2: that's a six hour drive. And then when they start
Speaker 2: taking photos of me, with a board behind me, with
Speaker 2: all the drug busts and you know, cocaine and ecstasy
Speaker 2: and things like that. I knew from then on in
Speaker 2: it was going to be tough, tough for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't going to be just easy to get
Speaker 1: you out of there.
Speaker 2: No, no, So.
Speaker 1: What happened then? You put in? Were you put in
Speaker 1: the custody or you are allowed to leave the police
Speaker 1: station or no?
Speaker 2: No? So they basically once once I was there, I
Speaker 2: was asking for my passport back. I don't understand what's
Speaker 2: going on. You know, I want to speak to this
Speaker 2: train embassy. They wouldn't let me do that. They'd have
Speaker 2: my phone, they'd taken everything from me. And then they
Speaker 2: you know, they we waited and I just kept on
Speaker 2: asking questions and they just kept on either saying they
Speaker 2: don't understand, or wait for the police officers to come
Speaker 2: from soon, sorry to fromm pen.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're sitting there, Are you in a cell?
Speaker 2: No? No, I'm in the customs and the immigration office there, yeah,
Speaker 2: in the Indie.
Speaker 1: Airport at the airport. Yeah, what happened after that?
Speaker 2: Okay? So then when the policeolice officers come, they handcuffed
Speaker 2: me and saying that this case needs to be you
Speaker 2: need to go back to Pen to do this case. Now.
Speaker 2: I was handcuffed and led through a packed airport with
Speaker 2: families and kids, with guys with machine guns, immigration officers, cups,
Speaker 2: custom agents, you name it, like as if I was
Speaker 2: some kind of drug baron or terrorists. And I could
Speaker 2: see people pointing, going what's going on here, you know?
Speaker 2: And they said to me, don't make a scene. And
Speaker 2: then they put me into the full drive police car
Speaker 2: and drove me back down to Pen to the police station. There.
Speaker 1: Six hour drive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no food, no water and nothing.
Speaker 1: Okay. This was on the twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Third of the same day I was flying out.
Speaker 1: Okay, third of July two thousand and twenty three. You
Speaker 1: get to the police station, what happened.
Speaker 2: I'm just put in a cell straight away. Anytime I
Speaker 2: requested to speak to Mike's partner, Austrain embassy, anybody, we
Speaker 2: don't have internet connection or we don't understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2: It was only the next day, I think, or or
Speaker 2: the day after when then they drug tested me for
Speaker 2: pretty much every drug which was a negative result. And
Speaker 2: I was talking to the police captain there through a translator.
Speaker 2: But he was getting me just like which happened many
Speaker 2: times whilst being incarcerated. Over there forms that were written
Speaker 2: in coom I where I and had to thumb print
Speaker 2: in read ink and sign my name, not knowing what
Speaker 2: I was signing whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Right, you sent me some of those documents and I
Speaker 1: went through them and I see that red thumb print.
Speaker 1: That's what you're talking about. Okay, So you've been detained,
Speaker 1: You've kept at the airport until the police come up
Speaker 1: for me driving all the way up six hours and
Speaker 1: you're driving back six hours, so we're looking at sort
Speaker 1: of twenty four hours you're being in custody. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: right at that point in time, because and I think
Speaker 1: and part of the basis of you coming on the podcast,
Speaker 1: you wanted to warm people of the dangers of certain
Speaker 1: situations you can find yourself in a foreign country. I
Speaker 1: would assume that in Australian citizen the rest, you'd be
Speaker 1: able to make a phone call and you'd be onder
Speaker 1: the embassy straight away, or at least be able to
Speaker 1: make a phone call home. But you weren't provided with that,
Speaker 1: not at all.
Speaker 2: That was the scariest thing that.
Speaker 1: You like you could just disappear one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: That's my point. I was there for three days before
Speaker 2: I got any contact with anyone outside. You know, if
Speaker 2: I'd have died in that cell, I would have been
Speaker 2: just buried somewhere.
Speaker 1: It looks like, and I'm mainly basing this on the
Speaker 1: fact that part of the research I did, I found
Speaker 1: that newspaper article, and that newspaper article was published on
Speaker 1: the twenty four to seven, so that's that's a day after.
Speaker 1: So while you're in there, you haven't made any calls
Speaker 1: to anyone that's in the paper with photos of you,
Speaker 1: and the way they just described that, And I won't
Speaker 1: read the whole article out, but it just finished off
Speaker 1: with the suspect is currently being questioned by competent authorities
Speaker 1: to proceed with the procedure. There might be a little
Speaker 1: bit lost in translation there, but it looks like they're
Speaker 1: skoeting about or promoting the fact that they've arrested you.
Speaker 1: And then photos of the damaged atm the in the paper. Boy,
Speaker 1: not not a good situation. And if I'm sitting here smiling,
Speaker 1: it's just I'm thinking potentially could happen to anyone situation
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: I'm smiling too, but you either laugh with you cry
Speaker 2: and I've done my crying. Yeah, it's it's that's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's such a hard that that that's when you
Speaker 2: know you're in trouble, you know.
Speaker 1: So three days or three days in the police station,
Speaker 1: you haven't spoken to anyone. What was the accommodation like food,
Speaker 1: like cells, like.
Speaker 2: Just a floor with bars around it, with a toilet,
Speaker 2: no food, one bottle of water. I was I was
Speaker 2: using a loaf of bread that they gave me, an
Speaker 2: uncut loaf of bread as my pillow because I was
Speaker 2: laying on like a floor that just rock hard floor.
Speaker 1: And was anyone explaining what was going to happen to you?
Speaker 2: No, No, not at all.
Speaker 1: Not at all, because I can only only imagine that
Speaker 1: the frustration that being caught up in a situation like that,
Speaker 1: and you'd feel I think, so helpless.
Speaker 2: Yeah, powerless as well. Yeah, you just it's one of
Speaker 2: those things. Yeah, you can't fathom, you know, because that
Speaker 2: you know, And I found out later that some of
Speaker 2: them could speak English in the police station, they just
Speaker 2: chose not to, particularly one guy when he he knew
Speaker 2: where I was going, and he told me where I
Speaker 2: was headed. There was a wry smile on his on
Speaker 2: his face.
Speaker 1: When you knew he knew you were going to the prison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So I mean I went to court a
Speaker 2: couple of times prior to going to prison too.
Speaker 1: What what happened in the in the court appearances?
Speaker 2: Okay, so then you'll be taken underground and it'd just
Speaker 2: be sell after sell, And that must have been There
Speaker 2: must have been about fifty sixty seventy people in a cell,
Speaker 2: squashed up against the bars, all trying to get some
Speaker 2: lad to help them out, most of them Cambodians. There
Speaker 2: was a few foreigners, but most of them Cambodians. And
Speaker 2: the heat down there, it was like it was pretty hot,
Speaker 2: you know. And then you go upstairs, speak to the judge,
Speaker 2: no translator, and you go back downstairs, go back into
Speaker 2: the cell, and they pick you up, take you back
Speaker 2: into the police station. That happened a couple of times.
Speaker 2: And then the same guy had the right smile on
Speaker 2: his face, said to me, goes, well, we're not a
Speaker 2: detention center. And then he was the one who drove
Speaker 2: me down to the prison.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how many days after your arrest was this?
Speaker 2: I think it's it's hard to remember, but I think
Speaker 2: it's about three for five days maybe, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And had you had any communication with any representative from
Speaker 1: the Australian Embassy or your family at that time?
Speaker 2: I'd spoken to my ex partner once and then I
Speaker 2: informed her at getting contact with the Australian Embassy as
Speaker 2: soon as possible. And I'm in a pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Spot, okay. And so that was your point of contact
Speaker 1: your your ex partner, Yeah, okay, not not in a
Speaker 1: good situation. And I'm just trying to imagine you'd be
Speaker 1: screaming from the rooftops within your head, but I would
Speaker 1: imagine that's pretty intimidating in an environment.
Speaker 2: Like that that's just a police station.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that was that you start to think
Speaker 2: about the enormity about what's going to happen or what's
Speaker 2: going on. There's a lot of thoughts that go around
Speaker 2: in your in your head that you know, something mentioned
Speaker 2: before about if you've watched these shows on TV, thinking.
Speaker 1: Oh, you would a broad time, you wouldn't want.
Speaker 2: To be you wouldn't be in that, wouldn't want to
Speaker 2: be in that situation. And here I am. It was surreal.
Speaker 1: Food water at the time you're in the police station.
Speaker 2: Just a bottle of water. I had a little bit
Speaker 2: of money. There was one night he hit the bloke
Speaker 2: went out and got me some a duck egg and
Speaker 2: some rice. But I had to buy him. I gave
Speaker 2: him the money and didn't give me anything back.
Speaker 1: That was the currency of the detention. Okay, the prison,
Speaker 1: and I apologize up from what we're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: because I know your experience in prison was I think
Speaker 1: it best described as horrific. You've considered it, and you
Speaker 1: want to talk about what occurred in the prison. So
Speaker 1: describe the prison to me. When you were taken to
Speaker 1: the prison.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you when he dropped me off in a
Speaker 2: in the police car. You walk in, it's like these
Speaker 2: big gates, huge gates. When those gates open, it's like
Speaker 2: you've walked into a medieval town. There's lane ways, there's
Speaker 2: you know, and the smell hits you. That's the first thing.
Speaker 2: And the heat, because as soon as you go in
Speaker 2: with the other prisoners that are going in, they shut
Speaker 2: those big gates and then you come to a set
Speaker 2: of tables. They take everything that they want off you,
Speaker 2: and then they strip you down they chuck this powder
Speaker 2: on you. They give you an orange pair of pants
Speaker 2: and an orange shirt. And I was walking around bare
Speaker 2: feet for about a week and a half. And then
Speaker 2: I remember walking through and I was the only foreigner
Speaker 2: at this time, walking through with all the other Cambodians
Speaker 2: and just you know, there's guys with rickshaws that they'd
Speaker 2: made inside the prison full of rubbish and they're poking,
Speaker 2: poking it with metal spikes to see if there's no
Speaker 2: one in there trying to escape. There's you know, there's
Speaker 2: animals around, and there's things, you know, like rats and things,
Speaker 2: and just people looking at your pointing and they're all smiling,
Speaker 2: you know, and they've got this blank look on their face, Nahna.
Speaker 2: And that was quite daunting. But you got to understand too,
Speaker 2: this prison, the walls are that high that no air
Speaker 2: gets in there. There's there's uh, you know, police officers
Speaker 2: in towers with rifles, you know, and it's like like
Speaker 2: they're in sections blocks and then all these lane ways
Speaker 2: that run through these blocks like a maze. Almost where
Speaker 2: you'd stay, you know, that'd be one block here, so
Speaker 2: a block and B block and so on, but all
Speaker 2: these other lane ways and to get to other areas
Speaker 2: and to the phones, to the one shop that they had,
Speaker 2: or to the park. They had a park there. We
Speaker 2: can go into that a bit later.
Speaker 1: So that first, let's break it down to the first
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. You go in there. You're processed as
Speaker 1: in strip naked.
Speaker 2: It's almost de lausd.
Speaker 1: I guess, you throw the white powder all over you
Speaker 1: and whatever. Then you get dumped in a cell.
Speaker 2: Well, you get dumped into their three cells, and there's
Speaker 2: about fifty people in one cell, and it's probably twice
Speaker 2: the size of this room.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're talking roughly three meters by three meters
Speaker 1: in this room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and a little toilet at the back. And
Speaker 2: that's just they put you in those ones first to
Speaker 2: see if you've got anything like COVID, what have you,
Speaker 2: and then then they'll take you out. I think it
Speaker 2: was I'll shave your head. Then I think it's the
Speaker 2: second day they shaped everyone's head was shaped, Yeah, for
Speaker 2: the head lice and stuff like that. The second night
Speaker 2: I was there because I was so hypersensitive and my
Speaker 2: anxiety levels were jacked through the roof. I couldn't sleep.
Speaker 2: I didn't sleep for days.
Speaker 1: I couldn't need a strange blake if you could just
Speaker 1: lay down the.
Speaker 2: Sleep oh, you know, like I found. I found a
Speaker 2: bit of wall and that was the second night, was
Speaker 2: the first time I seen a young bloke get raped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's yeah, this is just touching on the brutality
Speaker 1: of it. You wrote that in the document you prepared,
Speaker 1: and just so if I referred to the document that
Speaker 1: was part of it. It was almost cathartic for you
Speaker 1: to write down.
Speaker 2: And that's not about me.
Speaker 1: That's about yeah, guy, I saw the first time you
Speaker 1: saw someone raped. I'm talking the document as such, but
Speaker 1: putting down your thoughts about your experiences. But this is
Speaker 1: where you what you've just raised about the first time
Speaker 1: that you experienced someone being raped in prison. I'll just
Speaker 1: just read it out and then get you to reflect
Speaker 1: on it and comment on it after that. On the
Speaker 1: second night was the first time I saw my first rape.
Speaker 1: It was about one in the morning. I heard this
Speaker 1: young boy in the shower with two other bigger Cambadians.
Speaker 1: He was screaming. It's a sound that stays with me
Speaker 1: for days. I didn't want to fall asleep in case
Speaker 1: it was me. Next after they had finished with him,
Speaker 1: he laid in the shower for hours, crying. People would
Speaker 1: use the toilets still pissing and shitting right where he
Speaker 1: was laying. This was the first taste of how inhumane
Speaker 1: life was in prison. Things were a lot worse after this.
Speaker 1: So seeing something like that talk me through the experience.
Speaker 2: Of it's just so confronting. I've never seen anything like that,
Speaker 2: you know. Ah, It's still why it troubles me now
Speaker 2: because as soon as we read that, as soon as
Speaker 2: I start thinking about that, I can see it so
Speaker 2: clearly in my mind. And he was screaming, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's like all the other prisoners just turned the
Speaker 2: blind eye, you know. And then and then you know,
Speaker 2: for him to be laying there, people going to the
Speaker 2: bathroom just while he was still there crying, and and
Speaker 2: the bathroom is filthy. You wouldn't lay down on that floor,
Speaker 2: you know. You try and avoid it as much as
Speaker 2: you can. It's it's it's disgusting, you know. And you know,
Speaker 2: no one seemed to blink an eyelid, just all bad
Speaker 2: an eyelid.
Speaker 1: You know, do guards step in, No, not at all.
Speaker 2: No, they just they're probably drinking somewhere, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's always a captain of each room as well, who
Speaker 2: runs the room. Yeah, and he always turns a blind
Speaker 2: eye usually unless he's unless he's losing money over something,
Speaker 2: because you know he'll he'll sell the cigarettes in there
Speaker 2: and and whatever else he can get his hand. And
Speaker 2: so if you came in with a bottle of water
Speaker 2: and you didn't buy it from him, you'd take it
Speaker 2: from you. So but yeah, that that the second night
Speaker 2: was it was just like I've got myself into.
Speaker 1: Here, and you had no option to raise it or
Speaker 1: call out, or there's no one you could call out.
Speaker 2: That was the toughest thing is to watch something like
Speaker 2: that happen in front of you and not be able
Speaker 2: to do anything because you fear that you were next.
Speaker 2: And and you know, it's concerning to me because I
Speaker 2: would be one of those people.
Speaker 1: That would, you know, like help someone step in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you just can't. And again it still troubles
Speaker 2: me to hear I can still hear those screams.
Speaker 1: I Yeah, I don't think you should be too hard
Speaker 1: on yourself. You found yourself in an impossible situation, and
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone would step in in that. When
Speaker 1: humanity is stripped away, that way, you've got to look
Speaker 1: after yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but you weren't brought up that way. You know,
Speaker 2: you're brought up to look after your fellow man. You're
Speaker 2: a human being, you know. It's I don't know if
Speaker 2: the words deplorable, but it's words can't describe what happened
Speaker 2: in that prison. I just it's tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine. When was the first time you
Speaker 1: got to speak to a representative of a consul, assistant
Speaker 1: or officer or someone from the embassy.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good question. It would have been weeks,
Speaker 2: maybe two weeks, maybe three weeks. I think, like I'm
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent sure on that that's it, because
Speaker 2: I got moved around as well, and it was hard
Speaker 2: to get to see them unless they they like, I
Speaker 2: couldn't call them at that stage. I couldn't ask anyone
Speaker 2: to get them to come. They'd have to make a
Speaker 2: decision to come and see me. They were aware that
Speaker 2: I was in prison because of my ex partner telling
Speaker 2: informing them. But I think it might have been two weeks,
Speaker 2: two to three weeks, I think before I saw a
Speaker 2: person from the embassy.
Speaker 1: Did that seeing someone from the embassy, did you think Okay,
Speaker 1: here is this situation is going to be resolved and
Speaker 1: I'm going to be out of here.
Speaker 2: Was that your initial hopes or yeah, of course you think, okay, well,
Speaker 2: I've done nothing wrong. Surely they can understand that and
Speaker 2: see that, and let's get me out of here. You know,
Speaker 2: I've seen enough already.
Speaker 1: And you would be put in your mind from here
Speaker 1: local laws and all that and justice and fair play
Speaker 1: and thinking how the hell have I ended up in here?
Speaker 2: I would imagine, yeah, yeah, if that had happened in
Speaker 2: your down at your local area, you'd probably just get
Speaker 2: a bill for the Well, I don't know, I've never
Speaker 2: done it.
Speaker 1: The short title of the offense over here would be
Speaker 1: malicious damage to property like vandalism. That's the extent of it.
Speaker 1: And in my police career, I've never seen or it's
Speaker 1: very rare to see anyone held in custody over an offence.
Speaker 2: I was drugged too. It wasn't like I was going
Speaker 2: out to destroy an ATM.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to get a sense, and I think
Speaker 1: everyone would because, as you said, people talk about it
Speaker 1: like it's a movie. It's something like you see on TV.
Speaker 1: You can't imagine that you'd be caught up in that environment.
Speaker 1: But yeah, three weeks. The first three weeks we talked
Speaker 1: about the first twenty four hours. What was your day
Speaker 1: to day? How did you survive?
Speaker 2: I just I don't know. It was first of all,
Speaker 2: there was no room to strut around, no room at
Speaker 2: all in those cells for the first few days. They're
Speaker 2: that packed full of people.
Speaker 1: What are we talking? How many? How many people?
Speaker 2: I think, like I said, about fifty or so people.
Speaker 2: It was a very small room, maybe more because people
Speaker 2: would just keep coming in and it gets so full
Speaker 2: they'd have to move them to the next cell. But
Speaker 2: you're only there and those cells for two or three days,
Speaker 2: and then you get moved to somewhere bigger. I just
Speaker 2: kept my back to the wall and kept my eye
Speaker 2: on everyone. I didn't sleep for those days at all.
Speaker 1: First three days, I think I didn't. I didn't eat.
Speaker 2: Someone gave me a bottle of water and that lasted
Speaker 2: year a few days.
Speaker 1: Too, okay. And it didn't eat is there was no
Speaker 1: opportunity to eat, or you just couldn't stomach the food
Speaker 1: that was being served up.
Speaker 2: They didn't They didn't really serve too much food, just
Speaker 2: some rice and stuff. And I was just at that stage.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was a decision not to eat.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't. And in those cells too, you don't
Speaker 2: get let out. You're in there twenty four hours. There's
Speaker 2: no going out and having to walk around. So you're
Speaker 2: basically sitting up against the wall for twenty four hours
Speaker 2: a day.
Speaker 1: Was there room to lay down sleep, No, not a
Speaker 1: nut cell.
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 1: Not enough room for everyone that lay down.
Speaker 2: No, you're doing well if you've got a water lean
Speaker 2: up against. People areling on top of each other, They've
Speaker 2: got there cuddling each other. You know, there's all sorts
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 1: Okay, three days in there, can it get any worse? Where? Okay?
Speaker 1: Where do they move you too?
Speaker 2: Okay? So that I went into K three. So this
Speaker 2: building is basically it looks like a big chicken coop,
Speaker 2: so K one, K two, K three, K four and
Speaker 2: an aluminium roof, one fan in each, big pots where
Speaker 2: they cook on the floor with the rice and the
Speaker 2: boiling water. And there's four hundred in a cell, four
Speaker 2: hundred in each the heat in there, like.
Speaker 1: What are we talking the size of the self for
Speaker 1: four hundred people to be in there, let's picture an
Speaker 1: Olympic sized swimming pool. Let's say a quarter of an
Speaker 1: Olympic sized swimming pool. Four hundred people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they're renting out the captain in
Speaker 2: there is renting out the wall space. So that was
Speaker 2: forty dollars American a month to lean up against a wall.
Speaker 2: And then you got the only fresh water that they had.
Speaker 2: That was your VIP.
Speaker 1: And did you have money in there? Did you have
Speaker 1: cash in there? Not at that time, no, So you
Speaker 1: had nothing to do but bother with No. That's why
Speaker 1: I wasn't eaten as well, was anyone in there any
Speaker 1: foreigners or anyone that spoke English?
Speaker 2: In my cell K three, there was an Indian guy
Speaker 2: and a Nigerian guy, but they kind of kept themselves.
Speaker 2: The Nigerian guy, admittedly, when I first walked in, he's
Speaker 2: come over here, and I sat with him because there's
Speaker 2: you know, three hundred and ninety odd Cambodians all looking
Speaker 2: at you going through your stuff. I'll take that, I'll
Speaker 2: grab this, you know. And yeah, and the heat, like
Speaker 2: the heat in there was unbearable. It was like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, shaking hands with the devil, like it's what
Speaker 2: eight thirty nine o'clock in the morning, it's pushing forty
Speaker 2: degrees and then humidity is up past ninety percent. You
Speaker 2: when you wake, you're awake. You can't move when you
Speaker 2: sit up, and that's it. You sit and cross legged.
Speaker 2: There's a bloke he cross legged, grind front of a
Speaker 2: cross legged guy here cross legged. When you're sleeping, you're
Speaker 2: sleeping like sardines, like literally sardines. Yeah. And for me,
Speaker 2: unfortunately I got put over where those pots were taken.
Speaker 1: Off the cooking pot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was on that floor there, which was
Speaker 2: even hotter. But you're just sweating profusely the whole time.
Speaker 2: And you know, obviously for me not understanding the language,
Speaker 2: you know, you don't know what they're saying.
Speaker 1: How long did you spend in those selves?
Speaker 2: Three months, maybe a bit more than three months, just
Speaker 2: over just.
Speaker 1: Under Did they let you out at any time?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that you got that was the two hours
Speaker 2: one hour, so you're in twenty one hours. But it
Speaker 2: was like it was you just go downstairs and that
Speaker 2: was it. It was a basketball court, no basketball, but
Speaker 2: just like a tennis court size area for people to
Speaker 2: you know, walk around and.
Speaker 1: Did you just keep to yourself or did you communicate
Speaker 1: with anyone?
Speaker 2: I tried to communicate with the Nigerian guy because he
Speaker 2: could speak a bit of Kamai. So he was the
Speaker 2: one who first got me out the gate to get
Speaker 2: to the phones. First time. He could say enough to
Speaker 2: the guard to get me out to get to speak
Speaker 2: to someone on the phone, you know.
Speaker 1: So okay, Now, when that consular assistant turned up, what
Speaker 1: did they offer you or what did they.
Speaker 2: Well, they just said they were trying to do everything
Speaker 2: they can.
Speaker 1: Did they give you any hope?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did it. First they said, well, you know,
Speaker 2: we're doing everything we can. You know, we haven't really
Speaker 2: done anything wrong. We should be able to get you
Speaker 2: out of here. And looking back in it and our okay,
Speaker 2: all right, And then they would they would leave a
Speaker 2: little hands so open a bit of two paste and
Speaker 2: it looked like it had been taken from a motel room,
Speaker 2: like tiny you know, the tiny ones that you get.
Speaker 1: That was your care package.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, one time I got chocolate and then that
Speaker 2: was stopped.
Speaker 1: Did you did you tell them about your concerns with
Speaker 1: the violence and all that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, of course, and then the conditions and things
Speaker 2: like that. I mentioned that at numerous times to them.
Speaker 1: Your general health in an environment like that, you're describing
Speaker 1: living in an unhygienic sauna with food that, yeah, wouldn't
Speaker 1: be the normal food for your stomach. How are you
Speaker 1: your surviving health wise?
Speaker 2: I just started deteriorating. My skin was getting worse and worse.
Speaker 2: I was losing weight rapidly. You just feel nauseous all
Speaker 2: the time. He's mentally fatigued. Like I said before, a
Speaker 2: day feels like a week or a month in there,
Speaker 2: because you just you're constantly so hyper vigilant. Your anxiety
Speaker 2: is so high, and you're just constantly looking around to
Speaker 2: see what's coming at you. And it's coming at you
Speaker 2: all the time. It's not coming from someone over here.
Speaker 2: It's coming from someone trying to do shifting on you.
Speaker 2: Over here. Someone's trying to steal something, someone's trying to
Speaker 2: get something. And that does you know you're in And
Speaker 2: you start seeing yourself going in a depression because of
Speaker 2: your situation quite early on, you know, or you go
Speaker 2: into yourself and you'd see it with other foreigners as well,
Speaker 2: or you're seen it in Cambodians too, to be fair,
Speaker 2: you just see people get worse and worse, and it
Speaker 2: makes the mill. There were some tough times in K three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that depression and you're giving up, giving up hope.
Speaker 1: Were you at the point where, yeah, not being there
Speaker 1: was a better option?
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah. The only thing that kept me going was
Speaker 2: my son. If it wasn't for him, I dare say, well,
Speaker 2: and my ex partner send him money. If she didn't
Speaker 2: send that money, I wouldn't be talking in our Gary. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's one hundred percent. Yeah. If you don't have money
Speaker 2: in that prison, your dead is dillan jup.
Speaker 1: Yeah. How old was your son at the time?
Speaker 2: Fo?
Speaker 1: So that sort of kept you kept you alive?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, where did your some think you were in the
Speaker 1: twelve months or so you're away?
Speaker 2: He was told, And when I spoke to him, I
Speaker 2: just told him I was. I was stuck in it
Speaker 2: as he put an arrowport, you know, and being four,
Speaker 2: you know, but he was Yeah, he just wondered where
Speaker 2: I was. And when I was coming home, I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm still stuck here, mate, but I'll be home soon.
Speaker 2: So that's basically what I could tell him. And you know,
Speaker 2: I mean I had my fiftieth birthday in there, Christmas
Speaker 2: as well and all that other stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a different type of fiftieth birthday. Yeah, did
Speaker 1: you celebrate?
Speaker 2: No, No, not at all. And the bad thing about
Speaker 2: it was I was on the phone talking to her saying, oh,
Speaker 2: the lawyer's saying I'm going to be out before my
Speaker 2: fiftieth birthday and that didn't happen. And then she's like, oh,
Speaker 2: there was a bit of a stuff up in the paperwork. Look,
Speaker 2: you're going to be getting out at Christmas time. So
Speaker 2: I'm there telling my son and my ex partner, I'll
Speaker 2: behave for Christmas. I can see the sun. You know,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be great. Comes to you know, Christmas time
Speaker 2: doesn't happen. His birthdays on January ten, I was I'll
Speaker 2: be there for his birthday. Doesn't happen. It just isn't.
Speaker 2: Set Back after setback, and that just that just makes
Speaker 2: you feel horrible and you really it really knocks you
Speaker 2: about that kind of stuff. And they do that, they
Speaker 2: grind you down. They grind you down. Like I don't
Speaker 2: know if I mentioned you mentioned to you when we're
Speaker 2: speaking before, but they used to play this music every.
Speaker 1: Morning wake up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was in Kamai and it was some kind
Speaker 2: of brainwashing. Guys were screaming going stop this, stop this,
Speaker 2: stop this, you know, like foreigners, and it would start
Speaker 2: at four in the morning and wouldn't stop till you
Speaker 2: were let out of yourselves. And that was every morning,
Speaker 2: and it was breaking people mentally. I mean, I know
Speaker 2: I've jumped around a little bit there, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: well again going back to K three, they were scary times.
Speaker 1: Did you find was there any time where you felt
Speaker 1: a piece or was it just twenty four to seven.
Speaker 2: No, there was never a peaceful moment. Maybe a couple
Speaker 2: of times in the park with the other foreigners, because
Speaker 2: the foreigners kind of who could get to the park
Speaker 2: kind of stuck together, and a lot of them are
Speaker 2: hard done by and a lot of them are cash cows,
Speaker 2: so they've got no chance of kind of getting out
Speaker 2: because they just keep taking money from them and run
Speaker 2: it like a business.
Speaker 1: Sorry, no, I hear what you're saying. And yeah, it
Speaker 1: might seem bizarre that we're looking at that way or
Speaker 1: discussing it, but the way you explained to me, if
Speaker 1: they're getting money from you, everyone wants a piece of
Speaker 1: the money you've got because you're the rich foreigner. The longer.
Speaker 1: They keep you in there. Everyone everyone benefits.
Speaker 2: And you're spending money at the shops and you're bribing
Speaker 2: every police officer and guard to get through and do
Speaker 2: another section every time.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you said that. It was in what
Speaker 1: you wrote down to get from one yard to another.
Speaker 1: It was basically you had the handover cash.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fifty thousand reel, which is twelve dollars fifty American. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you just put it in his pocket. Some guards sometimes
Speaker 2: they'd take a couple of cigarettes and a bottle of water,
Speaker 2: depending on how their day was going. But a lot
Speaker 2: of them they just hate the money. And if you
Speaker 2: give them twenty thousand reals they get angry at you
Speaker 2: because it wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: You know what was the attitude of the guards?
Speaker 2: Oh brutality again that stone face. Look, I had to
Speaker 2: say this, but evil, a look of evil and cruelty.
Speaker 2: And they have you know, they don't get paid a
Speaker 2: lot of money, but they've got a bit of power,
Speaker 2: so they really flex that. You know that power. And
Speaker 2: you've got to understand too. Some of the senior guys there,
Speaker 2: the top guys, the ex Khmer rouge, and if you
Speaker 2: know anything about them, life means nothing to them.
Speaker 1: Well, I hear what you're saying. I hadn't considered that.
Speaker 1: But the brutality of the takeover and what occurred in
Speaker 1: that country, and you're looking at people that experienced that,
Speaker 1: So there's a level of brutality that we couldn't even comprehend.
Speaker 1: It was almost like a genocide that was going on there.
Speaker 2: Well, there was prisoners in there who were running military
Speaker 2: what would you call the military operations that were Khmer
Speaker 2: Rouge guys running the prison. You know, was mister pla
Speaker 2: ex Khmer Rouge and mate, you didn't even want to
Speaker 2: look at this guy the wrong way, Like when they
Speaker 2: came past those more soenior guys. You had to get
Speaker 2: down on your knees and bow, you know, otherwise I
Speaker 2: couldn't imagine what problems you would have.
Speaker 1: Well, look, we're gonna we'll finish here for part one.
Speaker 1: And trust me when I say this, we've only just
Speaker 1: touched on the surface. But I just and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about you know, we're talking about you've been
Speaker 1: gang raped, We're talking about you've been stabbed, brutalities, watching
Speaker 1: someone being bash to death, all the things that you've
Speaker 1: encountered during your experience. But I just wanted to get
Speaker 1: first up talking to you now, just get a sense
Speaker 1: of who you were, who you were before you went
Speaker 1: in there, and how you survived, because what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here it's just terrific.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I've just I've always been pretty resilient. I mean,
Speaker 2: my childhood wasn't the best. You know, my father wasn't
Speaker 2: a great father. Yeah, so I think from a young
Speaker 2: age I learned to deal with that kind of side
Speaker 2: of things. But I'm not that kind of person, you know,
Speaker 2: So to be thrown into that, I just had to
Speaker 2: keep telling myself, we can get through this, we can
Speaker 2: get through this. It was almost like a mantra. Some
Speaker 2: days I'd be walking up and down the yard just
Speaker 2: to try and keep fit. When I got moved to
Speaker 2: the hospital because it was a bit more room, you
Speaker 2: could go to the park. Just I'm getting out soon,
Speaker 2: I'm getting out soon, I'm going to see my son.
Speaker 2: I just repeat it over and over in my head. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that to kind of block out all the noise
Speaker 2: and stuff for a while, at least for an hour
Speaker 2: or so, you know, And I just keep walking up
Speaker 2: and down, up and down, almost like a cage animal.
Speaker 2: But but I was doing it because I wanted to
Speaker 2: stay relatively healthy. Just yeah, if you're doing something, they
Speaker 2: kind of leave you alone. Sometimes other times they wouldn't.
Speaker 1: But if you just you know, look like you got purpose.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's a you know, a couple of Chinese
Speaker 2: blaces exercising too, and you know a few others as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, like they were kind of a line occasionally.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, well, thanks An, we'll take a break and
Speaker 1: when we come back to part two, we'll delve deeper
Speaker 1: into it and how you actually got out of the
Speaker 1: prison as well, which is even that was complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got a flogging on the way to the airport. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll be back soon.