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 to. 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, staid,
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 I Catch Killers. If I
Speaker 1: said the name Cassie Sainsbury, a lot of people wouldn't
Speaker 1: recognize the name. But if I said cocaine Cassie, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it would resonate with people. Well, the fact is
Speaker 1: that that is the same person. And today we're going
Speaker 1: to be speaking to Cassie Sainsbury and find out a
Speaker 1: little bit about the person she is and talk to
Speaker 1: her about her time, where she spent three years in
Speaker 1: the Colombian prison. She's only twenty two years of age
Speaker 1: at the time, a young lady from South Australia, and
Speaker 1: I can't personally think of a more terrifying place to
Speaker 1: spend a couple of years. We've been trying to get
Speaker 1: Cassie on I Catch Killers for a while and she's
Speaker 1: agreed to come on the podcast. So Cassie Sainsbury, Welcome
Speaker 1: to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Hi, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Well, I've heard so much about you, like I'm sure
Speaker 1: most people in Australia have heard about you and speaking
Speaker 1: to you before the podcast, and when we caught up
Speaker 1: yesterday it became apparent to me that the perception that
Speaker 1: people have of you is not necessarily the type of
Speaker 1: person that you are. And yeah, we've got a long
Speaker 1: time to sit down and have a chat now, and
Speaker 1: I'd really like to find out.
Speaker 2: Who you are so absolutely.
Speaker 1: I have spent last couple of days reading your book
Speaker 1: titled Cocaine Cassie, and I've got to say what you
Speaker 1: experience in the Colombian prison, I've got to say to me,
Speaker 1: it seems like one of the most terrifying places you
Speaker 1: could be did you at any time in the three
Speaker 1: or so years that you spent in the prison think
Speaker 1: you weren't going to make it?
Speaker 2: Hm, There was actually so many occasions when I just
Speaker 2: didn't think I personally had the ability to keep pushing
Speaker 2: through certain obstacles that kept coming up throughout the time
Speaker 2: in prison. But only that, I mean from that moment,
Speaker 2: the moment I walked in that prison, I never thought
Speaker 2: i'd leave it, To be honest, I thought I would
Speaker 2: definitely come out in a body bag, and it was
Speaker 2: a bit of a judgmental thought on my behalf as well. Obviously,
Speaker 2: walking through the prison, I was face with some interesting
Speaker 2: characters and instantly you go, oh, crap, I'm not safe
Speaker 2: here type thing. And it's just through all visual because
Speaker 2: obviously there's some interesting looking people in there. And I
Speaker 2: learned very quickly not to judge a book by its cover,
Speaker 2: but only that it was terribly hard to just keep
Speaker 2: finding a reason to keep pushing and get through it
Speaker 2: all at the end of the day, which was I
Speaker 2: think for me, once I finally found my way through,
Speaker 2: I guess the dark period that most people would actually
Speaker 2: face being in prison. It was this I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to let this prison, this time be the end of me.
Speaker 2: It wasn't going to be it for me because it
Speaker 2: wasn't who I am.
Speaker 1: Will you show to my way of thinking? You showed
Speaker 1: amazing strength to get through it. And my observation is
Speaker 1: you came through it with humanity as well, which is
Speaker 1: not easy in a place like that, like I think
Speaker 1: it was in your book, but some scary looking characters.
Speaker 3: Characters a lady.
Speaker 1: That had her cheeks sliced so she could stick a
Speaker 1: tongue out through the holes in the side of a cheek.
Speaker 3: That would freak me out.
Speaker 2: She was probably one of my first encounters, and she
Speaker 2: absolutely scared the begizis out of me. And you know
Speaker 2: when you see something and you don't want to look,
Speaker 2: but then you're so intrigued that you look. That was
Speaker 2: kind of what happened with her a lot, because it
Speaker 2: was just so full on seeing someone like that with
Speaker 2: so many scars, so many cuts everywhere, and I just
Speaker 2: she was scary.
Speaker 1: She was so scary, and she made herself known to you.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like you just walked past her and let
Speaker 1: bygones be bygones. She came up and got right in
Speaker 1: your face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, straight away. And I still to this day, I
Speaker 2: don't actually really know how I made an enemy of
Speaker 2: her so quickly. But then again, being a foreigner, and
Speaker 2: I think this is something that I did go into
Speaker 2: a little bit in the book, being a foreigner and
Speaker 2: being that it was almost this instant disrespect to them,
Speaker 2: and being obviously what they call a gringer. I come
Speaker 2: from money. I have money. I have it. I was
Speaker 2: probably you know, stashing it everywhere when I walked in prison,
Speaker 2: which is presume what they thought I had done. And
Speaker 2: so it was just this huge intimidation straight away, and
Speaker 2: I don't know what she thought of me, because I I, oh,
Speaker 2: my goodness, I was so close to poop and myself
Speaker 2: because it was just so scary, And I can't even
Speaker 2: sometimes find the words speaking out loud to explain how
Speaker 2: scary it is to walk through a prison in a
Speaker 2: different country, not understanding anything, and then start getting intimidated
Speaker 2: by these people and still having them like right here
Speaker 2: in your face and not understanding anything, and then later
Speaker 2: obviously going through a great ordeal with this lady.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's to put it in context. It was
Speaker 1: the first time you travel overseas.
Speaker 3: I believe.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, you didn't speak Spanish. No, you had blonde
Speaker 1: hair in the South American prison. Yeah, it's not like
Speaker 1: I would imagine being in prison. The way that you
Speaker 1: want to get through it is not stick your head up,
Speaker 1: not be noticed, and just do your time and keep
Speaker 1: out of everyone's way.
Speaker 3: That was an option available to you from day one?
Speaker 3: Was it?
Speaker 2: It wasn't. And it didn't matter how much I tried
Speaker 2: to stay out of people's way, stay hidden in cells,
Speaker 2: it didn't. It just obviously it didn't help as well
Speaker 2: that there was such a public awareness that obviously, you know,
Speaker 2: even over in Colombia, my whole case was still on
Speaker 2: TV over there, So even if I'd gone in and
Speaker 2: no one known who I was or anything, they were
Speaker 2: still seeing it on the TV and going, oh, if
Speaker 2: she's on the TV, she must have money. You know
Speaker 2: what can we get out of her? You know what,
Speaker 2: can we sell stuff? Can we go to the media,
Speaker 2: this and that? And it was just if I was
Speaker 2: getting attached from the outside, I was getting attacked on
Speaker 2: the inside. I was getting I had so many issues
Speaker 2: between obviously my family stuff as well, so there was
Speaker 2: no real time for me to kind of get my
Speaker 2: own head together and actually worked myself through those first
Speaker 2: initial months. It was an absolute nightmare.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people, even the way
Speaker 1: you talk about it there, and this came across not
Speaker 1: just through your book, but in the chat that we
Speaker 1: had the other day, that people had this misconception that, oh,
Speaker 1: you're doing it easy in prison because you smile when
Speaker 1: you talk. I suspect and this might be the old
Speaker 1: copy in me coming. You smile when you get nervous too,
Speaker 1: and I think people sort of misinterpret that that, oh know,
Speaker 1: this was a walk in the park. It was so
Speaker 1: far from a walk in the park. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about it later on in the podcast, but we're
Speaker 1: talking some horrible sexual assaults, some violence, stabbing, all sorts
Speaker 1: of brutality that occurred in there. And I'll save it up,
Speaker 1: but I'm still traumatized by what happened to you in
Speaker 1: the dentist chair. And I don't think anyone will go
Speaker 1: to the dentist after that. But yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: foreign environment for you, and I just I want listeners,
Speaker 1: because we've got time on a podcast like this, I
Speaker 1: want listeners to get a sense of who you were
Speaker 1: growing up. Describe your childhood, those bits that those bits
Speaker 1: that you're comfortable in describing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, that's okay. My childhood was I had it.
Speaker 2: I had a good childhood to a certain degree. I
Speaker 2: had a dad who constantly provided, never went without anything.
Speaker 2: But then I also had my dad. My dad is
Speaker 2: very straight. My dad grew up with he was, you know,
Speaker 2: from boys, and then he had two girls and my sister.
Speaker 2: My sister was my sister, and then there was me
Speaker 2: and he was so he had me in this little bubble.
Speaker 2: I rarely went out, you know after hours. I didn't
Speaker 2: go to parties, I didn't drink, I didn't do any
Speaker 2: of these sorts of things. And I think because there
Speaker 2: was always so many there was so much around revolved
Speaker 2: around my dad, that it was this constant fear of
Speaker 2: letting him down. Because obviously when my mom left me
Speaker 2: with my dad when I was twelve or thirteen, that
Speaker 2: broke my world. Oh I'm going to get a bit michell.
Speaker 2: It absolutely just one day my mum and dad were
Speaker 2: arguing and then she just up and left, and that
Speaker 2: there my world just broke because then I watched the
Speaker 2: strongest man in my life break. It was it was
Speaker 2: scary to see this man just absolutely break through that
Speaker 2: period of time, and I was there with him and
Speaker 2: I and I went through everything with him, and so
Speaker 2: there was always this constant fear of letting him down
Speaker 2: or seeing him, you know, be let down, that I
Speaker 2: wasn't going in the right path, and it ends up
Speaker 2: controlling you a little bit that you live with this
Speaker 2: constant fear of And then obviously my sexuality came into
Speaker 2: it as well because my dad's side of the family
Speaker 2: they're Anglican Christians, and so then I was terrified of
Speaker 2: coming out. I lived in small towns. I got bullied
Speaker 2: because somebody said at a younger age that I was gay.
Speaker 2: So there was just this constant background of being bullied,
Speaker 2: being bullied because I was fat, being bullied because I
Speaker 2: got my hair cut a certain way, being bullied because
Speaker 2: I didn't wear may cut, being bullied because I didn't
Speaker 2: go out partying. It was so having this super low
Speaker 2: self esteem, this fear of failure, being stuck in a
Speaker 2: closet and not wanting to be bullied more because I'd
Speaker 2: already copped so much. It was very very overbearing growing
Speaker 2: up with those situations. Obviously, there are a lot worse
Speaker 2: and worse things people can go through, but to someone
Speaker 2: I think I went through this through the age of thirteen,
Speaker 2: thirteen to seventeen, So it's really those age where you
Speaker 2: start finding a personality, start finding some character, and I
Speaker 2: just that kept falling down further and further because I
Speaker 2: just I didn't like myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for sharing that, because when you look back
Speaker 1: at those crucial years, it does have a dramatic effect
Speaker 1: on the person you turn out to be. And unpacking
Speaker 1: a few of those things like marriage, break up. You
Speaker 1: never know how it's going to impact on the children,
Speaker 1: but you know it's going to impact on the children.
Speaker 1: And I can imagine you carrying the burden of trying
Speaker 1: to protect your father even though he's your father because
Speaker 1: the mother, your mother's left, so all sorts of issues
Speaker 1: issues there. And on this podcast, you're not the first
Speaker 1: person that's come out and said how traumatic their childhood
Speaker 1: was because they were suppressing their sexuality. We've had tough
Speaker 1: guy blokes growing up in country towns where they couldn't
Speaker 1: come out because the last person they saw come out
Speaker 1: as gay was bashed and by the father's friends and
Speaker 1: the stigma, and you look at it you look at
Speaker 1: it now and you think, well, what's the issue. But
Speaker 1: the world was a different place not that long ago,
Speaker 1: and I would imagine a country town in South Australia
Speaker 1: would have a different view than say where we're recording
Speaker 1: in the West Sydney about someone coming out as gay.
Speaker 1: So all those things do impact on you, and you
Speaker 1: know the fact that you share it and even sharing
Speaker 1: it it still brings up those emotions. So we get
Speaker 1: you to seventeen, you're stunted. Stunted in terms of your
Speaker 1: emotional development. I think we're saying that in the kindest way.
Speaker 1: What sort of life were you're looking for as a
Speaker 1: seventeen year old? You were trying to break out and
Speaker 1: find your feet.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there was a lot of paths that
Speaker 2: I wanted to go down, and at one point I
Speaker 2: wanted to be a chef and I really focused on that,
Speaker 2: and then there was this huge breakdown, another family breakdown
Speaker 2: with my mom and my stepdad, which kind of caused
Speaker 2: me to actually head back from the city to your peninsula.
Speaker 2: Whereas I decided that I needed to find a different passion.
Speaker 2: Something that has always been inside of me is I
Speaker 2: want to help people, doesn't matter in what sense, I
Speaker 2: just wanted to help people. So then I started thinking
Speaker 2: about obviously fitness and nutrition and trying to help people
Speaker 2: that have that very similar body this morphia aspect. As
Speaker 2: I said, I grew up being bullied about my parents,
Speaker 2: so it was wanting to, I guess, help people feel
Speaker 2: better about that and finish year twelve, then I started
Speaker 2: studying fitness and nutrition. It's doing really well. I had
Speaker 2: a boyfriend, and you know what, it was hard. It
Speaker 2: was so hard having a boyfriend because there's just no
Speaker 2: sexual attraction when you don't like the opposite sex. So
Speaker 2: being in this relation where someone constantly obviously wants the
Speaker 2: intimacy and you almost feel like you can't you can't connect.
Speaker 2: So the relationship was really touch and go as it
Speaker 2: was and then, but at the same time he was
Speaker 2: still there. It was almost being accustomed to just having
Speaker 2: him there, you know, not being alone, because I had
Speaker 2: this fear of being alone, because being alone means that
Speaker 2: I was left with my own thoughts. I had failed
Speaker 2: at being able to I guess be somebody is company
Speaker 2: type thing. It was heaps of the things that go
Speaker 2: through your head.
Speaker 1: Well, Cassie, what you're saying there. I think it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's what we are as humans. We want that companionship
Speaker 1: and all that. And you found yourself in the situation
Speaker 1: that obviously wasn't ideal if you weren't sexually attracted to
Speaker 1: the person you're going out with. So I would imagine
Speaker 1: you're fighting a lot of demons, personal demons that in
Speaker 1: that situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And and this guy in particular, he was kind
Speaker 2: of he was my boyfriend coming out of school, and
Speaker 2: it was always this if I've got a boyfriend and
Speaker 2: no one will say anything type thing. Ah, little do
Speaker 2: people know that Obviously one of his best friends was gay,
Speaker 2: and I had the biggest crash on her. But it
Speaker 2: was fine.
Speaker 3: But so.
Speaker 2: Anyway, UH finished my PT stuff and then I was
Speaker 2: doing mobile PT and it was doing really well. And
Speaker 2: so then I kind of decided, if I'm gonna if
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna believe in myself. I
Speaker 2: really have to put myself on the line and actually
Speaker 2: put it all out there. So I went and decided
Speaker 2: to open a gym.
Speaker 3: How old were you then?
Speaker 2: I was nineteen?
Speaker 3: Pretty gutsy.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was terribly gutsy. Uh, I use all of
Speaker 2: my savings to buy all the equipment that I could buy,
Speaker 2: got alone to get everything else that I needed, and
Speaker 2: theoretically it was fool proof. So I thought, if I'd
Speaker 2: done so well mobile and had all these clients, well,
Speaker 2: even if I don't get that many memberships, I've still
Speaker 2: got my clients to fall back on. But unfortunately, probably
Speaker 2: about four or five months into it, I started getting
Speaker 2: really depressed, obviously watching this year that I've just invested
Speaker 2: everything that I have in paying off a debt for
Speaker 2: a loan, paying rent, and I realized that I wasn't
Speaker 2: moving forward, but I was actually starting to move backwards,
Speaker 2: and I was terrified, and I went into this really
Speaker 2: dark place again, popping back to obviously being in a relationship,
Speaker 2: but I didn't really want to be in. It was this,
Speaker 2: it was there, and we ended up having We ended
Speaker 2: up breaking up, and again I felt like I had
Speaker 2: failed because I can't even keep I can't even keep
Speaker 2: someone around, and so I actually tried to kill myself.
Speaker 2: I just felt like I didn't want to feel pain anymore,
Speaker 2: so over this constant disappointment within myself, never being able
Speaker 2: to do anything good enough. And when I came to
Speaker 2: I was sitting. I was in the Yorktown Hospital and
Speaker 2: I still remember this so well because the nurse that
Speaker 2: I had, she was almost angry with me that I
Speaker 2: was there, and she was trying to get my ivy
Speaker 2: into my arm, and so she stuck the ivy in,
Speaker 2: and she I have sinking veins when I get nervous
Speaker 2: and whatnot with it. I don't like needles, and so
Speaker 2: she stuck it in missed the vein and while she's
Speaker 2: got the ivy needle in, she's moving around trying to
Speaker 2: get the vein and it was so antagonizing, and she
Speaker 2: kind of looked at me and she goes, well, you're
Speaker 2: you gonna do this again? It's and it stuck to
Speaker 2: me and I was like, this is what you say
Speaker 2: to someone right now, like I'm not in a good place.
Speaker 2: And I was angry. I was so angry that I
Speaker 2: that I was there because I really did not want
Speaker 2: to be there.
Speaker 3: You did more than wake up.
Speaker 2: No, like I was. So I guess by so many
Speaker 2: years of all these feelings that I just felt like
Speaker 2: I couldn't keep doing it, that I didn't have that
Speaker 2: strength to keep pushing through and finding reasons or thinking
Speaker 2: that it was going to get better. So that happened.
Speaker 2: And then when I was actually this was over a
Speaker 2: Father's Day weekend, and obviously I didn't see my dad.
Speaker 2: I was in hospital for four days. Nobody came to
Speaker 2: visit me. Once I was alone because of my veins. They,
Speaker 2: as I said, I don't have good veins to get
Speaker 2: blood out. My nurses started trying to get blood out
Speaker 2: of the veins between my groin, like that was a
Speaker 2: pain that I don't So I was almost being alone,
Speaker 2: being stuck with my own thoughts, not being relatively happy
Speaker 2: that I was still there, and then not that I
Speaker 2: was being tortured, but in my head, it felt like
Speaker 2: I was being tortured. And then when I finally get
Speaker 2: released after being cleared by the psychiatrist, I go back
Speaker 2: to the house and coming back to an empty house
Speaker 2: and not just symbolically an empty house because I didn't
Speaker 2: have a partner anymore, literally an empty house. But then
Speaker 2: there was this quick moment there where I was like,
Speaker 2: sit happens. Everything happens for a reason, and I had
Speaker 2: to keep reminding myself that, you know, maybe this breakup's
Speaker 2: finally what I needed to find this strength to kind
Speaker 2: of go you know what I've hit rock bottom. Can't
Speaker 2: get any worse if I come out now, but I
Speaker 2: still couldn't.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to take you back to a comment
Speaker 1: that you made that and I understand this, and let's
Speaker 1: just clarify it, that said that what you went through,
Speaker 1: other people have gone through a lot worse. There's always
Speaker 1: someone that suffers more than you. But the point I
Speaker 1: want to say to you, because you've been very open,
Speaker 1: open with us talking about deeply personal personal issues, is
Speaker 1: that it's all relative, like of an impact. If the
Speaker 1: worst thing that's happened to you, it is the worst
Speaker 1: thing that's happened to you, if.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: People are you know, there's different levels. We understand that,
Speaker 1: but you know what you're going through.
Speaker 3: It's sad.
Speaker 1: It's sad hearing you tell the story, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of pain there. So I do
Speaker 1: get it. So I'm not sitting here going oh yeah,
Speaker 1: but other people have suffered suffered worse. This is what
Speaker 1: was impacting on you, and at that age to consider
Speaker 1: life might be better if you weren't here, that's quite
Speaker 1: quite hard to deal with. So you are well, you
Speaker 1: feel like you're rock bottom at that point in time,
Speaker 1: but you went further.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, tell us through the next how you got.
Speaker 1: From that situation where your life went. And let me
Speaker 1: say this, everyone, and so many people have sat where
Speaker 1: you're sitting speaking to us on I catchkillers. A lot
Speaker 1: of us make poor life choices. And you're not judged
Speaker 1: by the choices you made in the past. You judge
Speaker 1: by the way you've lived your life in totality, So
Speaker 1: I say that to you, and I want you to
Speaker 1: feel comfortable in talking about where your life took you.
Speaker 2: Okay. So after that part of my life, I decided
Speaker 2: to live because unfortunately over well not unfortunately, but in
Speaker 2: that present moment of my life, there was always I
Speaker 2: was constantly going to be running into people that would
Speaker 2: be like, oh, you guys broke up. Why did you
Speaker 2: break up? Oh you tried to kill yourself. Oh that's
Speaker 2: you know, very dodgy. I decided that I needed to leave.
Speaker 2: I needed to start fresh. So I moved to Adelaide
Speaker 2: and straightway when I got a job at anytime fitness,
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to let that part fall down. And
Speaker 2: in the meantime, obviously switching my life from moving to Adelaide.
Speaker 2: I had to close down the gym, basically went into liquidation,
Speaker 2: then sold the equipment to pay off the loans, sold
Speaker 2: the equipment to pay off the rent contract as well,
Speaker 2: so that when I actually did leave, I wasn't owing
Speaker 2: anything to those things. It was a very quick moving process,
Speaker 2: and I think sometimes that's why people were like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: she just uped and left. But I didn't do it
Speaker 2: in the wrong way, like I wasn't leaving things without
Speaker 2: having a solution to it, because I don't believe in
Speaker 2: that either. So I'd rather have nothing and start with
Speaker 2: nothing again, but have obviously taken responsibility that so I
Speaker 2: get to Adelaide. I'm working at anytime fitness doing okay,
Speaker 2: not great the work. I think back then working in
Speaker 2: a gym, it was very commission based, so it wasn't great.
Speaker 2: You worked a lot of hours and got nothing. Almost
Speaker 2: then obviously I met Scott, and I think when I
Speaker 2: met him, obviously both personal trainers, both kind of same,
Speaker 2: similar life situations, and it was just I almost saw
Speaker 2: him more as a as a friend, like I wanted
Speaker 2: a friend, and obviously we ended up getting together. I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm not gay. Maybe it's just a thing. But
Speaker 2: within like the first two months straight away again couldn't
Speaker 2: handle the relationship. I couldn't handle intimacy. It was all
Speaker 2: it just just yeah, there's no other way I can
Speaker 2: say it, just.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I think that's a very good description. If
Speaker 1: you're not into it, you're not in.
Speaker 2: And so that relationship, there were moments where obviously Scott
Speaker 2: didn't work or he would work in certain jobs where
Speaker 2: pay probably wasn't that great, did a lot of he
Speaker 2: did a lot of festivals, a lot of things, a
Speaker 2: lot of sponding that he didn't need to do. And
Speaker 2: that is when obviously I in this whole time, I
Speaker 2: confided mocha, sorry, Spanish is coming out?
Speaker 3: You speak Spanish?
Speaker 2: I confided a lot in a female friend acquaintance, and
Speaker 2: she we've known each other since studying personal training, but
Speaker 2: I never kind of saw her as more than just
Speaker 2: this acquaintance really until we started seeing each other more.
Speaker 2: We started working around the same gym. We did all
Speaker 2: our practical around the same gym, which was great. I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: I've got a friend. I've got a female friend. And
Speaker 2: I instantly mistook I guess the affection and the time
Speaker 2: that she was giving me as she liked me, and
Speaker 2: it was nice. It was finally nice to see that
Speaker 2: I'd managed to kind of get a woman's attention, because
Speaker 2: I constantly it's so easy to get a man's attention
Speaker 2: when you don't want it, but then when you want
Speaker 2: a woman's attention, you don't get it.
Speaker 1: Well, in the reading of you're discussing that in the
Speaker 1: book to me, i'd describe it. You were flattered by it,
Speaker 1: like to buy the attention, and a little bit excited.
Speaker 2: About absolutely, because it was really the first woman who
Speaker 2: kind of made me feel special. It was okay to be,
Speaker 2: you know, a disaster disguised in a human being and
Speaker 2: still trying to move forward, so confined everything in her
Speaker 2: she was my best friend slash crush. And it started
Speaker 2: happening that she just started making these little hints, subtle hints,
Speaker 2: just little comments that made me go, oh, hang on
Speaker 2: a minute, is that me or did she actually you know,
Speaker 2: hint that you know, maybe she's kind of in the closet,
Speaker 2: or she might be gay, or she might be by
Speaker 2: maybe you know, she likes me. But she never actually said, hey,
Speaker 2: you know what looks I like you. She really kept
Speaker 2: it quite.
Speaker 3: Enough to keep you interested.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of you know, you've got like something just
Speaker 2: right here and you want it, but you never get it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then obviously she knew that I was struggling financially,
Speaker 2: and she kept saying, you know, I work in this club,
Speaker 2: I've run it, we do really well. You should come
Speaker 2: in and help me. I've got some issues. I can't
Speaker 2: trust stuff. And she never actually really kind of said,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a it's a brothel, because she kept saying,
Speaker 2: you know, this club, this gentleman's club. And because I
Speaker 2: was I came from a bubble, I was like, cool,
Speaker 2: you know she's a pete, so it must be something
Speaker 2: to do with that. So when she obviously obviously that,
Speaker 2: you know, she told me she needed me, she needed
Speaker 2: someone she could trust, and I was like, I can
Speaker 2: do this. I can be this person that she needs,
Speaker 2: and so I went. I went to Sydney, and I
Speaker 2: think that is when everything just went from bad to worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he in my sitting as a wise ex cop.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you start to get involved in gentlemen's clubs,
Speaker 1: brothels or whatever, there is there's some good people involved,
Speaker 1: but there's some shady type characters there that and I
Speaker 1: look at you now with all the worldly experience of
Speaker 1: surviving in the foreign prison, and I would imagine back, yeah,
Speaker 1: pre time in Columbia, you would have been pretty naive,
Speaker 1: naive thing coming to the big smake in Sydney and
Speaker 1: hanging around with people like that.
Speaker 3: So I'd see you as what I would term very
Speaker 3: vulnerable in the vulnerable situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that was really what she liked,
Speaker 2: because even later on, you know, we had a conversation.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, why did you study in Adelaide,
Speaker 2: Like what's to do there? And she just said, oh, no,
Speaker 2: you know, I prefer smaller towns. And obviously when she
Speaker 2: said that, I didn't really think much of it. But
Speaker 2: now with everything that I know, I kind of go,
Speaker 2: it's a bit of a phishing expedition, don't you think.
Speaker 1: You're looking back with benefit of hindsight. Yeah, yeah, she's
Speaker 1: found someone and look at this young girl that's pretty
Speaker 1: naive and I can lead her on.
Speaker 3: That type of thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's important what we've talked about there, because
Speaker 1: I certainly got that from the book, and I didn't
Speaker 1: realize your full story because I've been dripped fed like
Speaker 1: everyone else. You see the headlines, you read the article
Speaker 1: in the paper, or see a couple of TV clips,
Speaker 1: but that's giving a sense of what you brought you
Speaker 1: into that world, into that world where. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to go into the full detail and full details
Speaker 1: of your charges. The facts are that it was twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen you were caught leaving Bogatar Airport with five point
Speaker 1: eight kilograms of cocaine in your luggage. I know you've
Speaker 1: been You've been criticized for giving varying aversions of events
Speaker 1: and different things in media interviews and court records and
Speaker 1: different things. I'm saying this, and it's not you pulling
Speaker 1: back because if I wanted to explore that, we could
Speaker 1: explore that back. I've made the decision. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go into those details. I think we can agree
Speaker 1: that you made a mistake and you paid for it
Speaker 1: very very dearly in terms of what happened to you
Speaker 1: in prison. I want to talk about your time in prison,
Speaker 1: and in the discussion I had with you the other
Speaker 1: day and comments i've heard you say that you know
Speaker 1: you did the wrong thing, You've paid the price for it,
Speaker 1: and you're sorry for the people that you hurt and
Speaker 1: you've got your regrets. Is that fair to say a
Speaker 1: summation of I'm just talking about the offense that you
Speaker 1: were convicted of.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I think there's no doubt ever when I've
Speaker 2: accepted responsibility that I did the wrong thing, and I
Speaker 2: think the thing that I really wanted to I guess
Speaker 2: put out there. I guess the real situation behind everything
Speaker 2: that kind of got me there, because, as you said,
Speaker 2: so many different things came out. Obviously you know there
Speaker 2: was a version. There was a version where my family
Speaker 2: spoke out, where Scott spoke out, where my lovely sixty
Speaker 2: minutes interview, and so it was all stopped, chucked mixed together,
Speaker 2: and so really, by the time I had an actual
Speaker 2: chance to sit down and say, well, actually let's start
Speaker 2: right at the beginning and go through it, it didn't matter anymore.
Speaker 2: The important thing in all of that is that I've
Speaker 2: never not tried to take responsibility that I did the
Speaker 2: wrong thing, Because essentially, if I'm telling you the backstory,
Speaker 2: I could turn to go, no, it was it wasn't me.
Speaker 2: But I think it's more so it's it's a cautious,
Speaker 2: cautious tail of really, how you can get there and
Speaker 2: what can happen.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if any good comes from this outside
Speaker 1: of that you've turned your life around and the things
Speaker 1: that you're doing is it is a cautionary tale. Like
Speaker 1: and that's why I wanted to spell out who you
Speaker 1: were up until that point, because I do get tired
Speaker 1: of people sitting and judging people on the they've done this,
Speaker 1: they've done that, therefore they must be a bad person.
Speaker 1: Let's take a step back, let's go a little bit further,
Speaker 1: and what was what led you to that situation?
Speaker 3: Now people could sit here.
Speaker 1: And go, oh, yeah, well I had a tough jobhood
Speaker 1: and I didn't do that, and we accept that. We
Speaker 1: accept that, but everyone's different in the way they react.
Speaker 1: And I'm not making excuses for you. It was a serious,
Speaker 1: serious charge, but you've got you, You've paid your paid
Speaker 1: your price, you served your debt to society. So I
Speaker 1: think we move on past that. Because I also saw
Speaker 1: with some of the interviews, I thought it was a
Speaker 1: bit of an ambush. And you've been interviewed before you'd
Speaker 1: even been sentencing, and you're in a foreign jail and
Speaker 1: you've been criticized for not giving people up or what
Speaker 1: I know about jail is you're not very well liked.
Speaker 1: If you're giving people up, and if you're talking on
Speaker 1: a national TV show giving people up, I can only
Speaker 1: imagine the reception you'd get back when you walk back
Speaker 1: into back into the prison. So I'm not making excuses
Speaker 1: for you, but I'm just I'm saying I understand why
Speaker 1: some of those interviews might have been misconstrued. You're in
Speaker 1: a very vulnerable situation. I sound like I'm defending you.
Speaker 1: Maybe you should have got me in to defend you
Speaker 1: at at the court matter. But what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: I understand it was a very complex situation.
Speaker 3: I think people don't think and.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate how vulnerable are circumstances you were in
Speaker 1: in that pre and then we're talking life and death,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're going to talk talk about from there.
Speaker 1: So let's move on past past the offence you. Let's
Speaker 1: take your wind it back to the point at the airport.
Speaker 1: You're walking through the airport and you're being stopped by
Speaker 1: customs and they've taken you to a back room. Tell
Speaker 1: us what happens from there.
Speaker 2: So I got tied up working with obviously the Gentlemen's
Speaker 2: Club and everyone that was involved there. And it was
Speaker 2: from there that with my lovely friend, the offer came
Speaker 2: up to go overseas, and well, they're just escalated from there.
Speaker 2: So I got into the back room, suitcase of city
Speaker 2: on the table still, and I've got these guards, these
Speaker 2: police and other people there and they're speaking at me
Speaker 2: because it was understanding anything. And one guy just goes suitcase,
Speaker 2: he pointed to it. I said yes, And then a
Speaker 2: translator that can't translate very well came in and on
Speaker 2: his phone he goes, can we can we can we
Speaker 2: open it? I said, that's fine, open up suitcase. They
Speaker 2: go is this clothing yours? Yes? It is. Then they
Speaker 2: pull aside and then there's this nice of bag in there.
Speaker 2: They pull it out start opening it, and I know
Speaker 2: people always criticize me on this, but obviously they unwrap.
Speaker 2: They're all individually wrap, and they unwrapped the first one
Speaker 2: box of headphones, and stupidly, it was almost relief when
Speaker 2: I saw it was just headphones. And then they started
Speaker 2: unboxing it. And obviously in example these headphones in the box,
Speaker 2: there's like a middle part that's got some cardboard packaging
Speaker 2: and they pulled out obviously a black role, and they're like,
Speaker 2: is this yours? And I'm like, well, I didn't put
Speaker 2: it there, if that's what you're asking. And then they
Speaker 2: basically said they were going to do a drug test
Speaker 2: on it. I can't remember the exact word that they use,
Speaker 2: and if it comes back, I do belie think it
Speaker 2: comes back blue. It's positive sounds. Yeah. Then basically came
Speaker 2: back blue and the astray you're under rest. And I
Speaker 2: stood there and I watched them keep unboxing these headphones
Speaker 2: and keep pulling out these roles, and I just I
Speaker 2: remember standing there looking at it. Not only was I
Speaker 2: so pissed off that I was going through this, I
Speaker 2: was hurt because of everything that I'd just gone through beforehand,
Speaker 2: obviously feeling completely betrayed by someone that I really liked
Speaker 2: to looking at all this cocaine and going, I'm never
Speaker 2: getting out of prison. I'd never really been around drugs
Speaker 2: ever in my life. Obviously in obviously a brothel, you
Speaker 2: see bits and pieces here and there, but not like that,
Speaker 2: and I just remember thinking, I'm going to die in
Speaker 2: prison because it just looked like so much.
Speaker 1: So when you were going to the airport and we
Speaker 1: don't need to go into details, but you knew you
Speaker 1: had something that you shouldn't have in your bag, but
Speaker 1: you were surprised when you saw the extent of it
Speaker 1: when the Border Force or the officers were going through
Speaker 1: the bag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's correct. I did know that there's something I've
Speaker 2: input in there, but I didn't know how it was
Speaker 2: or what was in it. I obviously imagined the worst,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I just hadn't actually seen what it was
Speaker 2: or how it was coming or anything. So handcuffs on.
Speaker 2: I was very lucky that to a certain degree, I
Speaker 2: had a police officer who actually just covered up my
Speaker 2: handcuffs with a jacket so it didn't create too much attention.
Speaker 2: It's putting a van taken to an anti narcotic station
Speaker 2: which is literally just over the outside of the airport
Speaker 2: where I was questioned by the head commander via Google
Speaker 2: and he's like, you would you like a lawyer? And
Speaker 2: I said, yes, I would like a lawyer.
Speaker 1: So when you say via Google with the phone, the
Speaker 1: translation through the phone, okay.
Speaker 2: I said yes I would, And then obviously he tips
Speaker 2: back and he goes, oh, you know, it's pretty late,
Speaker 2: so it might take a little while to get here.
Speaker 2: Do you mind if I just asked you a couple
Speaker 2: of questions in the meantime and I in the situation
Speaker 2: and that it was. It wasn't like I could just go, well, no,
Speaker 2: you can't ask me questions. So through through obviously Google Translate,
Speaker 2: it was you know where you're from, where are we're staying?
Speaker 2: What do you do for a living? Are you married? Kids?
Speaker 2: Basic questions that I didn't really see as harmful. And
Speaker 2: then obviously do I have a contact number? And I
Speaker 2: and I'm like, there's this, there's my phone. And he goes, okay,
Speaker 2: is this your this is your phone? I'm saying, he's
Speaker 2: got my phone. He's like, is this your phone? I said,
Speaker 2: yes it is. He goes, can you can you unlock it?
Speaker 2: So I unlocked it and by the time he went
Speaker 2: back and he went to look it again, he locked
Speaker 2: and he goes, take the lock off. That's all, okay.
Speaker 2: So I took the look off and then he grabbed
Speaker 2: the phone and put it in his drawer. Okay, it's
Speaker 2: a bit a bit weird, but okay. Then he kept
Speaker 2: going going through some questions about what happened really that
Speaker 2: where I was I staying? Did I know anyone if
Speaker 2: I'd bought anything while I was in Columbia places i'd gone.
Speaker 2: And then I get taken away and sat down for
Speaker 2: by myself for like another three hours, and then I
Speaker 2: get brought this massive stack of paper like it would
Speaker 2: have been like this thick, and he goes, you need
Speaker 2: to sign all of this, and I said, but I
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm signing, Like how can I sign something?
Speaker 2: I'm like, where's where's the lawyer that I asked for?
Speaker 2: No lawyer not coming. And then obviously there's not really
Speaker 2: much I can do at that point, so I sign
Speaker 2: everything that I'm asked to sign. They still do a
Speaker 2: lot of manual fingerprinting over there, so ink and fingerprint
Speaker 2: all that sort of stuff. And then I get put
Speaker 2: in a van and taken to a medical center where
Speaker 2: obviously I'm attended by a nurse who sees that I've
Speaker 2: got bruises over me, obviously in between my legs and
Speaker 2: all the all sorts of places, and this nurse same
Speaker 2: thing translator like, are you okay? Do the police do
Speaker 2: this to you?
Speaker 1: Those bruises between between your legs. That's from that it's
Speaker 1: referred to in your book the incident that's happened before
Speaker 1: the arrest at the airport.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's that's correct, it was violated before.
Speaker 1: And again just to put in context with the version,
Speaker 1: this is the people that you were getting involved in
Speaker 1: in bringing the bag out of the country or taking
Speaker 1: the bag out of the country. And when you say
Speaker 1: you're violated, as described in the book, you're sexually sold.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's correct. Yeah, okay, So with all these bruises,
Speaker 2: the reason why they take you to see this medical
Speaker 2: center is obviously there's a lot of issues with police
Speaker 2: brutality over there, so if you get hit or anything
Speaker 2: by a police officer, they could potentially ruin the whole case.
Speaker 2: They take you to these medical centers and they make
Speaker 2: sure that you've been treated well through your arrest. So
Speaker 2: basically said that the police hadn't done anything to me,
Speaker 2: and this nurse is trying to talk to the police
Speaker 2: officer that's with me, and the police officers just saying
Speaker 2: I don't care, I don't care, I don't care what
Speaker 2: she's been through, I don't care what she needs. Just
Speaker 2: do what I ask and that's it. So then I
Speaker 2: get taken back to the same anti nicotic station and
Speaker 2: within two or three hours, I'm taken to the courthouse
Speaker 2: where I actually get a chance to meet my prosecutor
Speaker 2: before I and it was really it was so nerve
Speaker 2: wracking because although it was happening really quickly, at the
Speaker 2: same time there's this whole window of opportunity that if
Speaker 2: they don't manage to get you with your charges within
Speaker 2: the first I think it was thirty six hours of
Speaker 2: your arrest, they can't actually hold you in any kind
Speaker 2: of holding, sell or anything. They have to leave you
Speaker 2: on parole. So these people were moving really quickly because
Speaker 2: obviously I was arrested over Easter and over there they've
Speaker 2: got more public holidays and then I want to do
Speaker 2: with So it was they had to get it done
Speaker 2: really quickly. So I went into the courthouse met my prosecutor.
Speaker 2: She seemed like a genuine, genuinely nice, caring prosecutor as
Speaker 2: far as they go, and she basically said to me, like,
Speaker 2: what happened because it doesn't make sense? Ah, and I
Speaker 2: and I at that point you kind of like, do
Speaker 2: I trust you? Do? Can I speak to you? Because
Speaker 2: obviously I've been traumatized that the police are involved, that
Speaker 2: they've got this under the belt. That they've got all
Speaker 2: these people, and I go, who can I actually speak to?
Speaker 2: So it was it was really I was quite who
Speaker 2: do I trust? So I just said to her that
Speaker 2: I was that there were other people involved, didn't say who,
Speaker 2: and she just said, it's so obvious that you.
Speaker 3: Are.
Speaker 2: I'm all, you're the full guy. She said, Unfortunately, whether
Speaker 2: I can prove or you can prove, at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, the drug was in your suitcase and
Speaker 2: it was in your name, and you did the check in.
Speaker 2: She said, although you might have gone through a lot
Speaker 2: of things beforehand, that's the facts and you can't argue
Speaker 2: those facts, which was true. So went into having my
Speaker 2: charges officially put against me, and I was told that
Speaker 2: I was going to be facing up to four hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty six months of prison. It was like thirty years.
Speaker 2: And I'm sitting there because I do everything in months,
Speaker 2: and I'm like.
Speaker 1: What, so what when all this was going on? What
Speaker 1: was going through your mind? Like this, You've gone from yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say, a relatively sheltered life in terms of traveling internationally,
Speaker 1: and you know, this is the first time you're overseas.
Speaker 1: You're in the South American detention or being held by
Speaker 1: South American police, and you've been told you might be
Speaker 1: doing thirty years.
Speaker 2: I I'm going to be fifty something when I get out.
Speaker 2: And although I laugh now, at the time, I was
Speaker 2: just I was cold, Like it was almost like this shock.
Speaker 2: I was frozen, and I'm doing the math, and I go,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be fifty fifty two when I get out,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not gonna have a life, Like I'm not
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna have anything. And it was absolutely mind numbing.
Speaker 2: And even even now when I still hear the amount
Speaker 2: of months that they initially said, it just sounds like
Speaker 2: an eternity. I hadn't even seen what their holding cells
Speaker 2: look like, little alone in the prison, and I was
Speaker 2: just worried about, you know, getting through those potential thirty years,
Speaker 2: not everything else that could potentially happen in between that
Speaker 2: as well being in those in those environments. So I
Speaker 2: was kind of like, okay, thirty years, right, what do
Speaker 2: I do? Like, how do I how do I how
Speaker 2: do I reduce it?
Speaker 3: That's what that was going through your head.
Speaker 1: So they obviously got the got the charges within the
Speaker 1: allocated allocated time, and then my understanding you were taken
Speaker 1: to a detention center. And that's a whole nother level
Speaker 1: of panic and fear. Do you want to talk us
Speaker 1: through that when you went to the detention center.
Speaker 2: So it was about two o'clock by the time all
Speaker 2: my charges had officially been pressed against me. I'd been
Speaker 2: told that I was going to be held in Elburn
Speaker 2: Pastor Women's Prison in Bogota, but the guards already told
Speaker 2: me that they didn't have any capacity for me at
Speaker 2: that time. So I was going to a holding cell,
Speaker 2: and I honestly thought I was going back to the
Speaker 2: anti narcotic station when I get taken to a different
Speaker 2: place and I'm taken underneath the building and then there's
Speaker 2: this door, and you know, they stood there knocking on
Speaker 2: the door, and then there's two police officers appear and
Speaker 2: they look at me and then they're speaking, no idea
Speaker 2: what was said, And then I was told you're going
Speaker 2: in here. And so I still had like a like
Speaker 2: a bag full of some clothing that I'd been allowed
Speaker 2: to keep, and they've tipped it out on the floor,
Speaker 2: kicking about, pulling stuff out and saying, oh no, this
Speaker 2: doesn't go through, this doesn't go through. Left with pretty
Speaker 2: much nothing. Then I get searched, which is some of
Speaker 2: the search is over there. It's the some of the
Speaker 2: worst searches you could go through. Basically, there's no privacy,
Speaker 2: there's no personal space, there's no nothing. And some people
Speaker 2: would go, well, you're a criminal, what do you expect.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, there are still some basic
Speaker 2: human rights, like men should not be doing my strip searches.
Speaker 2: It's women should be doing it the same sex. So
Speaker 2: the men are male police officers, they were quite handsy
Speaker 2: when they were doing their searchers. And then I'm told
Speaker 2: to obviously get dressed again, get ready, walk through, and
Speaker 2: then I find myself in front of about sixty men.
Speaker 1: Sorry, just on those strip searchers, like and what you said,
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, the you brush over it. But they
Speaker 1: were sexual assaults. There's no other way of describing it.
Speaker 1: It was you were strip naked, internal body cavity searchers
Speaker 1: by a male, a male officer that was behaving rather strangely,
Speaker 1: and as you described in the book, fondling you and
Speaker 1: then yeah, even after he searched you, smelling his fingers
Speaker 1: and doing stuff like that. Like people need to understand,
Speaker 1: Like people think, okay, you're a criminal. You Okay, obviously
Speaker 1: we've got to search criminals before they go in the prison,
Speaker 1: but what happened to you was outrageous, And yeah, I
Speaker 1: think people need to understand it to appreciate your full story.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry I'll bring it up in the detail,
Speaker 1: but because it must be hard for you to talk about,
Speaker 1: but yeah, what your experience. It made me angry even
Speaker 1: thinking about it. I don't care what type of crime
Speaker 1: you've committed. To be treated like that was so so wrong.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes to kind of a way of processing
Speaker 2: through those situations. Obviously, because there was quite a lot,
Speaker 2: you kind of go do you just go, it's a
Speaker 2: part of it, it's what happens. It's and for me
Speaker 2: a lot of those situations, I kind of had convinced
Speaker 2: myself that I deserved it. So, yeah, it's and that
Speaker 2: was a mentality through I guess through the first two
Speaker 2: years of it all really that I.
Speaker 1: Suppose it's a survivor's mentality. Yeah, you've got to come
Speaker 1: to terms of some way otherwise that yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and although it was hard every time it happened,
Speaker 2: it really was kind of well, this is what I get,
Speaker 2: this is what I deserve, This is this is my fault.
Speaker 2: I'm here because I did this to myself. So it
Speaker 2: was always constantly trying to justify something that isn't correct,
Speaker 2: but making it okay in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I'm in front of I got sixty sixty odd men,
Speaker 2: and these are really old holding cells. So there's one
Speaker 2: big one on my left hand side, there's a small
Speaker 2: one right next to the entrance, and then on the
Speaker 2: other side there's another big cell, and then in front
Speaker 2: of me there's three toilets, no doors, no toilet seats,
Speaker 2: because toilet seats over there are luxuries. So I'm putting
Speaker 2: this little cell near the entrance. And I felt like
Speaker 2: I was a zoo expedition essentially, because all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I'm there. All these men just flock and I'm not
Speaker 2: understanding absolutely anything. They're saying things at me. The way
Speaker 2: that they look at me, I basically know the comments
Speaker 2: that they're saying, and I'm just left there with these men.
Speaker 2: And there was one one guy who spoke very very
Speaker 2: broken English, and he was kind of a bit of
Speaker 2: a bit of an angel in that instinct, because he
Speaker 2: really did help me along the lines in that time
Speaker 2: in those holding cells, because after being there for a
Speaker 2: day day and a half, I had an encounter with
Speaker 2: quite a full on male inmate and he basically tried
Speaker 2: to sexually assault me while I was trying to go
Speaker 2: to the toilet, and this guy who spoke a little
Speaker 2: bit of English, he did manage to intervene and entirely grateful.
Speaker 2: I actually still speak to this person. But it was
Speaker 2: absolutely disgusting to be put amongst all these men in
Speaker 2: a different country where they know that a foreign woman.
Speaker 2: They're very vulnerable in those situations, and the police they
Speaker 2: don't care unless you've got money to give them. They
Speaker 2: would just throw out there to the wolves and they'll
Speaker 2: leave you. They won't intervene. Actually, the police are often
Speaker 2: worse than the actual inmates. So it was absolutely disgusting
Speaker 2: to be in that situation. I do remember I had
Speaker 2: an asthma attack on the morning the morning after I
Speaker 2: got there, and they refused to help me because I
Speaker 2: couldn't pay them to help me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a brutal environment. And when I was speaking to
Speaker 1: you yesterday, I had to just check I hadn't misread
Speaker 1: it in the book that you were sent to a
Speaker 1: male holding the holding detention center like I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: It's throwing the lamb in with the wolves in an
Speaker 1: environment like that. And the scary part about when you
Speaker 1: were going to the toilet and the person that was
Speaker 1: trying to sexually assault you, he was speaking to the
Speaker 1: officers beforehand. It's almost like they are involved. Like it's yeah,
Speaker 1: I think for people we see it, see these things
Speaker 1: on the movies, on the TV and that type of stuff.
Speaker 1: But this is the reality of what you were going
Speaker 1: through as a twenty two year old. So if people
Speaker 1: judge you on the crime that you committed, well, okay,
Speaker 1: let's look at what happened to you, what happened to
Speaker 1: you after that. We might take a break now, and
Speaker 1: I think we need to break. It's pretty pretty heavy conversation.
Speaker 1: What you what you're going through. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the prison experience, because this
Speaker 1: is bearing in mind, this is just the detention center.
Speaker 1: We haven't even got you in the prison prison yet,
Speaker 1: and what happened in there. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the bashings, of stabbings and sexual assaults, what I call
Speaker 1: the torture session in the dentist chair, and I was
Speaker 1: already scared of dentists, so I think I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go there unless I have to after what happened
Speaker 1: to you. But interesting, Cassie. I want to find out
Speaker 1: how you survived and how you kept your humanity throughout,
Speaker 1: and how you've turned your life around, because I think
Speaker 1: that's the amazing part, because there's so many times looking
Speaker 1: at what the situation you're in, I don't know how
Speaker 1: you survive. So I'd be fascinated to find out how
Speaker 1: you've navigated your way through that environment because it was
Speaker 1: one scary.
Speaker 2: Place, terrifying.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll be back shortly, Nanna, and to die