Speaker 1: Picked up the bird, took it up to wintel and said,
Speaker 1: this might be a long shot, but this pigeon won't
Speaker 1: nick off. And so we made some phone calls and
Speaker 1: found outa was registered to one of the prisoner's fathers.
Speaker 1: Like this woman was in her aiding tongue kissing his
Speaker 1: mother and then when they strip searched her, well, she
Speaker 1: didn't care. She just flashed out, flashed out, flashed everything,
Speaker 1: and there was these little packets of heroin in a
Speaker 1: bra and.
Speaker 2: Mum, I'm Andrew Rule. This is life in crimes. Last
Speaker 2: time we spoke to Brian Coglan, former prison officer and
Speaker 2: for racing photographer. He told us a little bit about
Speaker 2: one of his favorite prisoners, a bloke called Tony Mockbell,
Speaker 2: and I suspect that this week he's going to tell
Speaker 2: us a little bit more. Tony Mockbell pretty good company.
Speaker 2: You quite liked him. God On, Well, careful of course,
Speaker 2: never to be compromised by people like that, because ever
Speaker 2: tried to be fair, you know, you never tried to bribe,
Speaker 2: you know, hundreds of them.
Speaker 1: Do you offer your things? But what sort of things? Frank,
Speaker 1: I remember telling a crook one day, I was I
Speaker 1: don't know how I was short or I needed. And
Speaker 1: he literally came and said, he's an account with twenty
Speaker 1: grand in it. Pay your bills. I don't care if
Speaker 1: you pay us back or not. It's money I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to not have, basically, And I just looked at him
Speaker 1: and said, thanks, but no thanks, I said, mate, I planned, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: this is quite early.
Speaker 3: And he goes, why not?
Speaker 1: I said, mate, I intend to take a million dollars
Speaker 1: out of this joint over the ten years. I want
Speaker 1: to work here, you know. I said, well, why would
Speaker 1: I take twenty grand? It's you know, and I'm made
Speaker 1: of a job in a month.
Speaker 3: You know. It just didn't make sense.
Speaker 2: What sort of offender was he?
Speaker 1: He was a sex offender. Oh yeah, he was actually
Speaker 1: a child sex offender.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 3: He had a place up near Ballarat and right was
Speaker 3: up that.
Speaker 1: Way, and he literally told me where it was buried,
Speaker 1: where the money was money.
Speaker 3: I presume, well, I presumeables cash there.
Speaker 2: Oh so when he said an account, yeah.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, no, yeah, that's right, it wasn't really an account.
Speaker 2: It was buried.
Speaker 3: Money was buried in a.
Speaker 1: But he couldn't see himself using it for any reason,
Speaker 1: and he said, the neighbors. I don't know if they
Speaker 1: were looking for the money or whatever, but he got
Speaker 1: word that they'd smashed up his house. Now I think
Speaker 1: it was probably because he was a pedophile. Probably, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think they were looking for money, but because
Speaker 1: there's no reason to think it pedophile's got Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't even see that Blake's name now, but yeah, he
Speaker 1: was well I think he had land.
Speaker 2: Land and having twenty rand in cash barriage too true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that could be true.
Speaker 2: I've got some land, but I've never had twenty grand
Speaker 2: buried anymore. So that's one. And do you think he
Speaker 2: was manipularly even enough to want to do that to
Speaker 2: get you or you know, on site, Because I mean,
Speaker 2: I know they do like to manipulate.
Speaker 1: There's not much we can do for them, to be honest,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, really, I mean, give them
Speaker 1: an extra pillow?
Speaker 3: What can we do for them? Well?
Speaker 2: What what? What a mock bell type of a good
Speaker 2: operator who's a bad man can manipulate an officer to
Speaker 2: do something illegal that could cost the office of these job.
Speaker 2: And so now we don't want to tell anybody about that.
Speaker 2: When you brought in the bla blah for me. Well,
Speaker 2: that's the first thing we get taught that they're going
Speaker 2: to set you up. As soon as you do one
Speaker 2: thing for you, you're in their pocket. You're in their pocket
Speaker 2: and they want whatever.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, listen, I was there for twenty
Speaker 1: six years. They probably would have flipped one staff member
Speaker 1: a year. You know, either a female has a relationship
Speaker 1: with one of them or yeah, you know, a staff
Speaker 1: member will bring in a phone or yeah that do
Speaker 1: something along. Phones on phones probably phones were weapons. Were drugs, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: we had drugs in there. Go now there's drones dropping
Speaker 1: drugs off.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It was a reality that drugs got in, right. I
Speaker 1: will tell you most of it. I will tell you
Speaker 1: a couple of funny ones that I was thinking about.
Speaker 1: One day I worked it, walked into a unic or
Speaker 1: Pennine which was a young offenders unit, and it was
Speaker 1: surrounded by pigeons, which wasn't unusual because there was guys
Speaker 1: were always throwing out bread rolls and things for them.
Speaker 1: And I walked into the pennine yard and all the
Speaker 1: pigeons flew off bar one.
Speaker 3: I'm looking at it.
Speaker 1: Didn't think too much about it when in, saw the staff,
Speaker 1: signed the book, did what I have to do in there,
Speaker 1: and then I'm walking out, probably twenty minutes later, and
Speaker 1: all the pigeons fly off again. Pigeon doesn't move. You
Speaker 1: look at it and I say, it's got some racing
Speaker 1: bands on its back, and thought, nah, surely not. Anyway,
Speaker 1: picked up the bird was as tame as anything, picked
Speaker 1: it up, took it up to intel and said, this
Speaker 1: might be a long shot, but this pigeon won't nick off.
Speaker 1: And you know, acting he's not here all the time,
Speaker 1: but it comes and goes and it's not scared of
Speaker 1: people of us. So we made some phone calls and
Speaker 1: found out it was registered to one of the prisoner's fathers.
Speaker 1: Because this was a young offenders unit, they're all kids basically,
Speaker 1: And yeah, so next thing, we released the pigeon, let.
Speaker 3: It go, blah blah blah, kept an eye on.
Speaker 1: It, and then we found his father on the other
Speaker 1: side of the wall and the son both calling it down.
Speaker 2: And they trained it.
Speaker 1: They trained it. You could call it down, Oh, you
Speaker 1: could call it down? Yeah, yeah, is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So and he's sending stuff in. Yeah, well that what's
Speaker 1: presuming because they kept finding gear in the unit, couldn't
Speaker 1: work out how it was getting in there. That is wonderful.
Speaker 1: So that was one of the funny ones. And then
Speaker 1: another funny what happened to that prisoner? Oh nothing, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, did he end up? What's gone on? Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: he was a career criminal. His uncle was in the family,
Speaker 1: was well known to police, let's put it that way.
Speaker 1: So he did well known pigeon, yes, the in racing world.
Speaker 1: But oh well, I don't know. But yeah, So that
Speaker 1: was one way that was quite funny. And then another
Speaker 1: one that comes to mind was we got alerted to
Speaker 1: one of the toughest blokes in jail in there an
Speaker 1: old time crook, Johnny, an old armed robber, and you know,
Speaker 1: just a tough old crook, no issues for staff or
Speaker 1: anything that was institutionalized. You knew how the joint worked.
Speaker 1: The one day staff alerted us to him tongue kissing
Speaker 1: his mother who was in her eighties. And when we
Speaker 1: went over and investigated, found out she was trying to
Speaker 1: pass little balloons of I think it was heroin or something.
Speaker 1: Ah Jesus, was the funniest thing. Like, this woman was
Speaker 1: in her eighties kissing his mother and then when they
Speaker 1: strip searched her, much to his well, she didn't care.
Speaker 1: She just flashed out, flashed out, flashed everything, and there
Speaker 1: was these little packets of heroin in a bra and
Speaker 1: and well something we didn't we didn't know Johnny was
Speaker 1: into the.
Speaker 2: Gear for a start, and into it or selling him.
Speaker 1: Don't know, I don't know. He might have been pressured
Speaker 1: to bring it in. There's heaps of reasons why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe thought it was you know, he wouldn't be suspected
Speaker 1: because he wasn't in on that sort of gear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'd be a good candidate. Yeah, it might have
Speaker 2: been a way to get some money outside organized for mum.
Speaker 1: Exactly, or that they won't strip at eighty year old,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean earn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so what happened to Johnny over there having
Speaker 2: the kiss your mum? Probably Yeah, it's probably punishment enough.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 1: I know that that picture stayed up on the intel
Speaker 1: wall there for quite a while of oh, because she
Speaker 1: was sticking her tongue out and pulling faces, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was absolutely the.
Speaker 3: Funniest thing we've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's great, And that was one of the good
Speaker 1: things about that job, because you go into work every
Speaker 1: day and you just shake your head and go. People
Speaker 1: on the outs, I wouldn't beleave this, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's where it was quite interesting working at a
Speaker 1: place with an edge. You know, it could go off,
Speaker 1: it could swing. The prisoners used to make allegations about everything,
Speaker 1: and you.
Speaker 2: Know, maybe some of them have been known to tell lies. Yes,
Speaker 2: some would say they got nothing better to do. They
Speaker 2: actually are dishonest, some of them.
Speaker 3: It was a game to them.
Speaker 2: What about some of the fellow officers. Were they all
Speaker 2: officers and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: I listened to be fair because of the way they
Speaker 1: recruited it poor film. It was very much custom orientated.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of people persons employed, but there
Speaker 1: were some big boys. And then there was the Islanders.
Speaker 1: We had some pretty big Islander officers and make up
Speaker 1: for some Islander prisoners.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, well you had to fight fire with fire.
Speaker 2: So if you've got a Tonguean, can you get someone
Speaker 2: or what is ours?
Speaker 1: It work well on our side of the fence. The
Speaker 1: Tonguan's gone on well. With the Samoans on their side
Speaker 1: of the fence, it didn't go that well. But yeah,
Speaker 1: for some reason, the staff there were Samoan and Tongan
Speaker 1: and boys. Well, they never was an issue. You know,
Speaker 1: they like brothers, you know, they like rugby. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like half of them they New Zealand anyway, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're like hunging exactly. Yeah, and they're pretty easy going guys.
Speaker 1: But yes, shoes, you try and tackle them, it's like
Speaker 1: running into a tree, you know, they don't move, you know.
Speaker 1: And so we had some pretty pretty tasty guys come
Speaker 1: over from New Zealand staff. Yeah, they imported some pretty
Speaker 1: pretty heavy guys. And yeah, listen, because the main aim
Speaker 1: of everything, and especially in the last few years now,
Speaker 1: since you're not leaving allowed to touch a prisoner. You know,
Speaker 1: if they're mouthing off and going back, you've got to
Speaker 1: de escalate, de escalate, de escalate. You're not allowed to
Speaker 1: touch unless they touch it first.
Speaker 3: You know. I've had four teeth knocked out you Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Tell us about that. Well, what's your worst day? What
Speaker 2: was your worst day on the job in twenty six years?
Speaker 2: Losing four teeth's got to be in the list. Well,
Speaker 2: I didn't lose it.
Speaker 1: They were loosened at the stage, but over time they
Speaker 1: were I think to be honest, that was from friendly
Speaker 1: fire from one of the of the islanders. Yeah, who
Speaker 1: was We were trying to take this guy down who
Speaker 1: just run at us, and yeah I got I got
Speaker 1: my teeth knocked out in the backwash of us.
Speaker 2: What else happened? I didn't put a smile on your die.
Speaker 3: To be honest.
Speaker 1: I've only been attacked a couple of times, and one
Speaker 1: of them was a what we'd call a bail out
Speaker 1: of the unit. I knew he didn't have an issue
Speaker 1: with me. I knew, but he was getting pretty agitated
Speaker 1: and I turned around to speak to another staff man
Speaker 1: and he jumped me.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Now it didn't really hurt me, but he knows jumping
Speaker 1: staff will get him out of there. He had to
Speaker 1: get out of that unit. And quite often they do
Speaker 1: things like that, or they'll do something to it, and
Speaker 1: then they kill straight up and apologize.
Speaker 2: Oh, when you say bailout, it's a voluntary, and he's wanting.
Speaker 1: He wanted to get out of the unit and didn't
Speaker 1: want to lose face and wanted to be seen to Yesh,
Speaker 1: he's not leaving because he's got issues. He's leaving because
Speaker 1: he attacked a staff member. So it was all at
Speaker 1: prison politics. And then another time where that makes sense.
Speaker 1: I actually this is actually quite quite a funny one.
Speaker 1: It was another career criminal. He was Aboriginal. Listened, he
Speaker 1: was our billet. He was a terrific kid, like he
Speaker 1: knew the way jail worked. He used to do stuff
Speaker 1: before he even asked him as clean out of seale
Speaker 1: or paint a sale or doing it like really really
Speaker 1: unfortunately institutionalized, but no trouble to staff. Then one day
Speaker 1: we had a prisoner coming in late and I had
Speaker 1: to go and ask him to double to bunk up
Speaker 1: with this prisoner. And I said, listen, it's only for
Speaker 1: the night. Well, first of all, I sent the staff
Speaker 1: down to talent, thinking there wouldn't be an issue because
Speaker 1: he's very compliant. Now I don't know if he just
Speaker 1: had something or whatever, but he was going to his
Speaker 1: cell and he said, no, I'm not sharing a sale.
Speaker 1: So then the staff came and got my I was
Speaker 1: supervising in the unit, and said, you know, knackers won't move.
Speaker 3: Anyway. So there was.
Speaker 1: Another kid who'd been on been on the floor. A
Speaker 1: staff member had been on the floor for probably about
Speaker 1: six months and was struggling prisoners weren't getting on with him.
Speaker 1: He didn't know how to talk to prisoners. He was
Speaker 1: falling out with staff, he was falling out with people,
Speaker 1: and anyway, another staff member said, Knacker's go with mister
Speaker 1: Coglin and learn how to talk to a prisoner who's upset.
Speaker 1: So we walked on down and he's following me down,
Speaker 1: and I said, mate, just let me do the talking.
Speaker 3: He'll move. There's no drum. There's something going on, but
Speaker 3: we'll work it out.
Speaker 1: So I walked down and opened the door and said
Speaker 1: to the guy, listen, what's going on. And he was
Speaker 1: lying on the bed and he goes, I'm not moving.
Speaker 1: I'm not moving seals, And I said, come on. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll get you a single cell back tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I said, we've run out of his room. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: don't know what was up up his nose or up
Speaker 1: he was different. And I had this guy behind me
Speaker 1: and he goes, get that guy out of the cell.
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, no, I said, we're not coming into
Speaker 1: hassle yet. I just want to tell you to listen,
Speaker 1: make room. You're going to get a cell mate tonight. No,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you how I'll bash him. If he comes in,
Speaker 1: I'll do all this and carry on. And the funny
Speaker 1: thing was, he started getting up off the bed and
Speaker 1: you just let him stand up. Then I saw him
Speaker 1: cocky's arm and thought he's going to have a crack here,
Speaker 1: and I literally grabbed him and put my head on
Speaker 1: his chest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how close we were.
Speaker 1: And so I pulled him together just so he couldn't
Speaker 1: get a swing in my head basically and just telling
Speaker 1: him to calm down. Well, he saw the guy who
Speaker 1: he didn't really like behind me. Anyway, he's taking a
Speaker 1: swing of mate, but I've ducked. He put my head
Speaker 1: on his chest and so he couldn't get me all
Speaker 1: the poor bloke behind me crack got him in the nose,
Speaker 1: broke his nose.
Speaker 3: As claret everywhere.
Speaker 1: Oh, oh Jesus, And I'm trying to teach you. Was
Speaker 1: it meant for you that punch? Once again, I don't
Speaker 1: know if he would have done it if I was
Speaker 1: there on my own, But because he had a reason
Speaker 1: to unleash. He didn't like the other bloke and when
Speaker 1: none of us will know, are probably real to him, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I didn't listen to this other guy well, he's
Speaker 1: not in the job anymore. He wasn't great with crooks.
Speaker 1: He didn't know how to speak to them. He didn't
Speaker 1: have their respect, if you know what I mean in
Speaker 1: a funny sort of way. So he wasn't really cut
Speaker 1: out for the job. And I must admit I never
Speaker 1: thought that prisoner would attack me. So the next day
Speaker 1: I went down to the slot with the Aboriginal liaison
Speaker 1: officer because he was completely out.
Speaker 3: Of character for this guy.
Speaker 1: So we both went down and I'm expecting him to
Speaker 1: literally put his hand out and say sorry, Brian. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what got into me. For some reason. Well,
Speaker 1: he was red hot again. He nearly came across the
Speaker 1: table again at me. And I was there with the
Speaker 1: with the liaison with the liaison officer, and we're both
Speaker 1: looking at each other, going, this is so out of character. Now,
Speaker 1: I think he was off his head on ice or something.
Speaker 1: It must have and must have got a taste during
Speaker 1: the day. And you know, it was just a complete
Speaker 1: form reversal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I mean, police will tell you this, but
Speaker 2: prison officers must have the same problem.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that ice does leads to terrible things. Oh it's
Speaker 1: a shot mad bad do mad crazy stuff. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you're flat out holding them down. Yeah, he's stronger. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's And I don't know why you'd want to
Speaker 1: be on ice in jail.
Speaker 3: You're just speeding off.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't seem to be you know, I can understand
Speaker 1: if you'd want to have a smoke or or chill
Speaker 1: out in there, but been on ice is not the
Speaker 1: right place to be.
Speaker 2: So some of the other people, you, I mean, we
Speaker 2: don't want to talk about really bad people too much,
Speaker 2: but you knew Leslie Camaliary and Lindsay Hamani Beckett, who
Speaker 2: were the terrible pair who killed the biggest school girls.
Speaker 2: Now we're not going to dwell on them because better
Speaker 2: their names are not spoken most of the time, your
Speaker 2: impressions of them and looking after them, and other prisoner's
Speaker 2: attitudes towards them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be fair, they copped a fair burn from
Speaker 1: the other prisoners because of the future trins are on
Speaker 1: and they did get burnt a lot. But they were
Speaker 1: together initially, and then I believe Beckett gave evidence against
Speaker 1: Camaliary and we had to separate them.
Speaker 2: And when you say burn, what sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: The other prisoners yell out call them, calling them dogs,
Speaker 1: rapists and murderers and kid killers.
Speaker 3: And just.
Speaker 2: Would you have would they be in protection or they
Speaker 2: were in protection? They're in a protection wing, and they'd
Speaker 2: be in there with the likes of Andrew Fraser, the
Speaker 2: lawyer Andrew Fraser, who this show knew quite well. We
Speaker 2: had him on our show here for hours, and we
Speaker 2: knew Fraser pretty well. And he he resented being put
Speaker 2: on protection because he saw it as a deliberate attempt
Speaker 2: by the authorities to smear him, as as some sort
Speaker 2: of give up.
Speaker 1: He knew the stain of being in protection, Yeah, was,
Speaker 1: and he was desperate to try and get out of it.
Speaker 1: Kept writing to the powers of Pee to get him
Speaker 1: out of protection. And how do you read their decision
Speaker 1: to put him in protection as a sort of cynical
Speaker 1: ploy to what do you think Andrew wouldn't have survived
Speaker 1: in mainstream? He was very arrogant and why he wouldn't
Speaker 1: talk to a lot of people. Protection was probably the
Speaker 1: best place for him.
Speaker 2: But so you think the system knew better?
Speaker 3: I think so. I think so.
Speaker 1: There was word also out there that he'd also upset
Speaker 1: a lot of blokes, a lot of blokes that he'd
Speaker 1: represented were in there and whether they should have been
Speaker 1: in there or shouldn't have been in there. But yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: he didn't like protection. He was a little bit snobbish,
Speaker 1: to be honest. We actually had a mutual friend in
Speaker 1: My neighbor was one of his associates, as in he
Speaker 1: was a lawyer to oh, and so he got wind
Speaker 1: of that or I told him. I said, listen, do
Speaker 1: you know Tom And he goes, yes, he said we
Speaker 1: work together. I said, yeah, I know. I said he's
Speaker 1: my neighbor and he was asking after you, and he goes, oh,
Speaker 1: tell Tom, I'm good. And you know, so we built
Speaker 1: a bit of an instant rapports straight away from that.
Speaker 1: And Snobby's not probably the wrong. He was careful who
Speaker 1: we'd speak to. He thought everyone was trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: out to get him.
Speaker 3: He was.
Speaker 1: He put his hand up and took blame for the
Speaker 1: cocaine issues he had and all of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: So you know, as he used to say to me,
Speaker 1: cocaine is your way of telling you you've got too
Speaker 1: much money. You know, That's exactly what he used to
Speaker 1: say to me all the time.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 1: I did get a bit disappointed with Andrew when he
Speaker 1: put his hand up for the for the Peter Dwpass conviction.
Speaker 1: I don't believe there's no way Duwpass would have confessed
Speaker 1: to him, especially the way he said it and everything.
Speaker 2: But this is your guesswork.
Speaker 1: This is purely my gut feeling and knowing due Pass
Speaker 1: and knowing what a piece of work he is, There's
Speaker 1: no way he would have anyway. That's that's been and gone,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately Andrew's gone to now, so you know that
Speaker 1: chapter's pretty much closed.
Speaker 2: Of course, Peter Dupaz is the sex killer, one of
Speaker 2: the worst people in the system, who is going to
Speaker 2: live and die in jail because of the many crimes
Speaker 2: he's done. And his relevance here is that Andrew Fraser,
Speaker 2: the late Andrew Fraser, the criminal lawyer who did almost
Speaker 2: five years for cocaine charges. He gave evidence against du
Speaker 2: Pass and was able to get a reward for doing so,
Speaker 2: and that evidence was enough to convict Dupass of the
Speaker 2: murder of Mersina hal Vargas, a crime for which he
Speaker 2: had not been convicted, but which he obviously did. And
Speaker 2: what it was was a way for the dead girl's
Speaker 2: family to get some closure because Dupas was in fact
Speaker 2: already in jail and going to stay there a very
Speaker 2: long time. And Fraser's evidence nailed it down. For the family.
Speaker 2: Mother names that were big names in the past. You
Speaker 2: knew Hugo Rich real name Oli Diadrich talking about arrogant crooks.
Speaker 3: He was right up there.
Speaker 1: He fancied himself, especially with the female staff.
Speaker 3: He was actually quite a clever guy.
Speaker 1: He designed them kitchens and did he walkways, and it
Speaker 1: was very good. He was very good at a lot
Speaker 1: of things, really. But he was in our woodwork department
Speaker 1: and he designed and built a desk that was thin
Speaker 1: but could hold a mobile phone. Came apart, really, and
Speaker 1: for years or for ages, we didn't know about it
Speaker 1: and all of this, and we knew there was a
Speaker 1: mobile phone in the un and we couldn't round it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was inside this wooden thing that probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been more than an inch thick.
Speaker 3: But it was so well put together.
Speaker 1: Like Japanese jewelery that yeah, yeah, so far, and the
Speaker 1: craftsmanship was unbelievable really, and I thinking, and you know,
Speaker 1: he said no, and I thought.
Speaker 2: Jeez, I wonder what happened to that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know where that is at the moment,
Speaker 1: But Hugo got ended up getting bundled off down to Barwin.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to leave, and put on a hall
Speaker 1: of a show dragging him out of the place. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I wanted to stay at Poor Philip,
Speaker 1: but he certainly didn't want to go to Barwin.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he had issues there or whatever.
Speaker 2: Just for our listeners, Oli Dietrich alias Hugo Rich was
Speaker 2: a prolific among other things that I'm robber and his
Speaker 2: last big sentence was because he he shot us a
Speaker 2: fellow German I think of Austrian in the face. But
Speaker 2: Hugo was doing the robbing and the man he shot
Speaker 2: was a security guard you know, that was delivering cash
Speaker 2: to a was the Eastern suburbs and he hadn't been
Speaker 2: out for very long. No, it was a terrible crime,
Speaker 2: and you do wonder about what the background of that was,
Speaker 2: whether whether he was getting rid of someone who he
Speaker 2: might have known a little bit.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: a lot funny, but in the jailhouse dark humor side
Speaker 1: of things when he did come back in because he
Speaker 1: wasn't out for very long. He came up to me
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what happened. You know, you've
Speaker 1: been pinched with a murder. And he said, you know me, Brian,
Speaker 1: I'm no murderer. I said, mate, it was pretty cold blooded.
Speaker 1: And I think two other prisoners gave him up, two
Speaker 1: other crooks, two other yeah, yeah, yeah, gave gave evidence
Speaker 1: against him because we had to keep him separate from them.
Speaker 1: And he was adamant to me, Oh, you know me, Brian,
Speaker 1: I'm not a.
Speaker 3: Cold blooded murderer, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And I did say something like, well, we used to
Speaker 1: call him Ollie just to annoy him because he was
Speaker 1: so full of himself. He really did fancy himself narcissist, yeah, complete,
Speaker 1: And I said to him, you go, the only thing
Speaker 1: that would be actually funnier is if you go down
Speaker 1: on this.
Speaker 3: And when he did, he wasn't happy.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't no.
Speaker 3: And you know, he was just a menace.
Speaker 2: Was he pretty dangerous bloke, so clever and clever, willing
Speaker 2: to manipulate, willing to inflict violence all of the I.
Speaker 1: Had to talk to him when he come back from court.
Speaker 1: And now half the time he came back from court
Speaker 1: and he would have given the judge a bake.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh yeah, you know he was encourageable.
Speaker 1: He just loved deferring everything, just making it hard. You know,
Speaker 1: he knew he was going to go down on this,
Speaker 1: so he just wanted to make it as hard as possible.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're going to use his fellow's surname.
Speaker 2: It's a very common surname. It's a common surname in
Speaker 2: the way that well, you know that somebody like Carl
Speaker 2: Williams has got a common surname. But you've mentioned to
Speaker 2: me before we got in front of a microphone that
Speaker 2: there's a bloke in there that you thought was relatively
Speaker 2: unknown to the public and yet a very potent figure
Speaker 2: behind me bars is that true man with a common surname?
Speaker 3: Listen, there are some guys in there. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: They're there or who they are, and after a while
Speaker 1: you don't even bother googling them. You just deal with
Speaker 1: them as you find them. Now, I found this guy
Speaker 1: quite charming, quite respectful. Thought, oh gee, he's more like
Speaker 1: one of these old time crooks. You know, who is
Speaker 1: this guy?
Speaker 3: And I go to the.
Speaker 1: MoU or the Major Offenders unit, and I'd say, listen,
Speaker 1: he's been a model prisoner here. He doesn't put a
Speaker 1: thing wrong. I've got to get him out of this unit.
Speaker 1: I've got to clear him out to mainstream, get him
Speaker 1: out of here. And for some reason they just wouldn't
Speaker 1: do it. And they just kept saying to me, Brian,
Speaker 1: you don't realize he's the most influential person in the system.
Speaker 2: Really, And were they saying state, They were saying, you know,
Speaker 2: we don't want to put him at Barwin or something,
Speaker 2: or just move him around here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was just moved around the system.
Speaker 1: Well, he was moved around Port Phillip, was he But
Speaker 1: he was nearly always by himself, and he was No.
Speaker 2: It wasn't overtly menacing, No, not.
Speaker 1: At all, not at all. So those ones, and they
Speaker 1: they pop up every now and again, you'd see this
Speaker 1: sort of blow like he wasn't covered in tats, but
Speaker 1: all the all the top common cheios, all the top
Speaker 1: banditos go out of their way to try and get
Speaker 1: in contact with him, try and get messages to him.
Speaker 2: So deducing this, you would one must think this is
Speaker 2: a person with a lot of influence, probably financial, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because financial buys everything else, isn't it. If you if
Speaker 2: you're worth millions outside, you can get things done, You
Speaker 2: can organize things. He must have been high up in
Speaker 2: some form of criminal endeavor, presumably drugs.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, a lot of the o mcgs.
Speaker 1: You know, we're trying to get him to get involved
Speaker 1: or out and and you know I used to it
Speaker 1: there and think, God, you know.
Speaker 3: Who are you? Who are you? You know?
Speaker 1: How do you have so much pull in the joint?
Speaker 1: Now obviously the authorities above my level knew about it, yes,
Speaker 1: because they refused to put him back out into the mainstream.
Speaker 2: Is that man still inside?
Speaker 1: That man when poor Philip closed, he was still inside.
Speaker 1: So I presume he's gone to Barwin.
Speaker 2: When when was Port Philip closed again?
Speaker 3: It was closed at the end of twenty twenty five deceeventh.
Speaker 2: Thirty first, right, so he went to Barben. Yeah, I see.
Speaker 2: So in your view, one of the most influential prisoners
Speaker 2: in the system in Victoria probably is now in Barbwan.
Speaker 2: And you still wonder what it is about him that
Speaker 2: makes him have so much influence. Yeah, that is intriguing,
Speaker 2: intriguing that you didn't hear on the grapevine.
Speaker 1: Nah, And I don't think even our intel knew exactly
Speaker 1: because they were very nervous in dealing with him and unsure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just wondering why he had such pull in the system. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they pop up, and generally they are the quiet ones,
Speaker 1: you know, the ones you don't hear about.
Speaker 2: The right, the ones that so he acted more like
Speaker 2: a businessman than a crook.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wasn't missing teeth and Nah.
Speaker 1: His wife had come in nearly every day near it
Speaker 1: seemed like, you know, it probably wasn't probably three or
Speaker 1: four times a week, but she was always coming in.
Speaker 2: He didn't donks his mother.
Speaker 1: No, he wasn't tissing his mother, although I think he
Speaker 1: did have a very good looking barrister or someone who
Speaker 1: used to visit him tourn Oh, you know, but he's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see out there.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. Well, now, Brian, you've did twenty years racing,
Speaker 2: you've done more than twenty years in the prison system.
Speaker 2: You've got a few stories to tell. I think you're
Speaker 2: thinking that you might tell them to people around the traps. Maybe,
Speaker 2: you know, rutary clubs, whatever it might be, pubs, clubs, weddings, parties.
Speaker 1: Anything, and and well I'm unemployed now, so I know
Speaker 1: I needed. Yes, they didn't take us on at the
Speaker 1: new prison. We were all dinosaurs and they didn't want
Speaker 1: any of the old poor Philip Scandinavians.
Speaker 3: They didn't want any of the old Port Philip culture
Speaker 3: at the brand new place. That's absolute, you know joke.
Speaker 1: But and now I hear that they're trying to now
Speaker 1: call the CV prisoners by their first names.
Speaker 2: Oh are they? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So one legacy of Port Phillips lived.
Speaker 2: On is that okay, well let it be would reflect
Speaker 2: the government of the day, pats. Yes, So, Ryan Coughlan,
Speaker 2: you've gone from racing to a dinner party in camber
Speaker 2: Well where someone said why don't you come and work
Speaker 2: for us? And you did. Twenty six years later you've finished.
Speaker 3: Up there, and to be honest, I loved it.
Speaker 2: And you're still wanting to get around and do stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, I've got all this useless information in my head
Speaker 1: that a lot of people find interesting. You know, ask
Speaker 1: anyone who works in a prison. They otherwise get told that.
Speaker 1: You get you know, pin at a party.
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, end up.
Speaker 2: You know this one? You know that, Yeah, you tell it.
Speaker 2: I hope we've been down a few of those rabbit
Speaker 2: holes today. But of course you've only told us probably
Speaker 2: ten percent of the things you know. And obviously with
Speaker 2: a podcast you can't be totally frank because it's a
Speaker 2: broad audience. Yes, and we certain things we don't say,
Speaker 2: but in a live speaking environment you could be slightly
Speaker 2: more frank.
Speaker 3: You think, so, yes, that's what I think.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Brian Cochland. That is the end of the
Speaker 2: penny section.
Speaker 3: Thanks Andrew, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
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