Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed 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. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world. Ian,
Speaker 1: welcome back to part two. Thank you if I catch killers.
Speaker 1: I'm digesting some of the things that you're saying. And
Speaker 1: I look at you sit here, looking at you, and
Speaker 1: we talked of off camera a little bit during the
Speaker 1: break and how intimidating an environment that would have to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like I said, words can't describe. It's very
Speaker 2: hard to, you know, deal with everything.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine the emotional angst about what the
Speaker 1: hell am I doing in here? When am I going
Speaker 1: to get out? You just don't know how long this
Speaker 1: nightmare is going to go on for.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: And now in jail you you had the fight, Yeah, plenty.
Speaker 1: How many fights would you estimate your head?
Speaker 2: Ten?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 1: Maybe? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Maybe? Well it was a few kind of scuffles, but
Speaker 2: probably ten, probably good ones.
Speaker 1: Were you a physical bloke before you went went there?
Speaker 1: Were you?
Speaker 2: Oh? I mean I was waying what seventy eight kilos?
Speaker 2: I'd done a little bit of boxing through my childhood
Speaker 2: with a few fellas from the beaches and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't as a professional boxer though, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I can handle myself to a degree.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you could invoke some aggression where you needed
Speaker 1: to stand up for yourself.
Speaker 2: And I had, you know, I had a fair bit
Speaker 2: of aggression because of my situation. You know, I could
Speaker 2: draw on that.
Speaker 1: Why are you so angry? Why are you so angry?
Speaker 1: Just let it go. I honestly, mate, I don't know
Speaker 1: how you survived. I'm sitting here and I'm looking at you.
Speaker 2: Know.
Speaker 1: We've had people on that have committed crimes that they
Speaker 1: know they're going to get if they get caught, they're
Speaker 1: going to get lengthy sentences in foreign prisons and different things.
Speaker 1: But we're talking at the worst. It's damaged to an
Speaker 1: ATM machine. And I can tell you after me meeting you,
Speaker 1: if I go across it whenever I'm overseas, be very
Speaker 1: kind to ATM machines.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be going to camba to you.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, look, we make light of a situation so
Speaker 1: far from light, but I think sometimes you've got to
Speaker 1: find that the brightness in the darkness or you can't survive.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I've had that from good advice for people,
Speaker 2: that you've just got to move forward. And yeah, and
Speaker 2: look again I said earlier, you either laugh or you cry,
Speaker 2: and I've done me crying, and I'm in Sydney laughing,
Speaker 2: but I'm not on the inside. It's just it's one
Speaker 2: of those responses, isn't it like a nervous laugh or
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: It's a way of dealing dealing with it. I want
Speaker 1: you talked. You said to me that you mentioned in
Speaker 1: part one that you saw eleven people die in the prison,
Speaker 1: and there's one that you wrote about in detail, and
Speaker 1: I just want to read that out and then ask
Speaker 1: you some questions, questions about that, and you're describing this
Speaker 1: particular death of an inmate. They handcuffed this tie guide
Speaker 1: to the bars at the back of the cell or
Speaker 1: because he was sick and needed to keep using the bathroom.
Speaker 1: They then took it in turns, kicking the absolute shit
Speaker 1: out of him. This must have lasted at least an
Speaker 1: hour when they finally stopped and removed the handcuffs. This
Speaker 1: guy was so scared to move, the just pissed and
Speaker 1: shit himself in the back corner. The next morning he
Speaker 1: had died. So we're talking here about witnessing someone being.
Speaker 2: Beaten to death.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you know why he was being beaten.
Speaker 2: Because he was using the bathroom too much, because he
Speaker 2: had gastro right and couldn't get any help. And that's
Speaker 2: why I was in the hospital. So that that's in
Speaker 2: the hospital now.
Speaker 1: And that was a good part. That's where you paid
Speaker 1: extra together.
Speaker 2: I paid one thousand US to get into the hospital.
Speaker 2: So the room would only be full of thirty people. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like there was only six people in the room all
Speaker 2: the time, But then patients would come in and out right,
Speaker 2: and so he'd come in because he'd had bad gastro
Speaker 2: and just kept having to keep using the toilet. But
Speaker 2: two of the guys worked at the hospital, so they
Speaker 2: had our pair of handcuffs in the cell for that purpose.
Speaker 1: What was going through your mind watching this?
Speaker 2: Want? I wanted again, I wanted to stop it. I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe what I was watching. It's very again, very confronting,
Speaker 2: and you just you feel bad because the way that
Speaker 2: someone would treat another human being, it's just it's beyond me,
Speaker 2: you know, like I can't, I can't. I just I
Speaker 2: just remember that him screaming as well, stop, you know,
Speaker 2: and and they just taking turns and laughing like it
Speaker 2: was some kind of evil game. You know. The more
Speaker 2: he pleted, the more they builded him and kicked him.
Speaker 2: I think it lasted longer than an hour, to be honest,
Speaker 2: you know. And then they'd look at one another and go, oh,
Speaker 2: look what I can do next, and kick him in
Speaker 2: the ribs, and you know, another guy just slap him
Speaker 2: across the face at one and like to make him flinch,
Speaker 2: and you know they had Yeah, it was it was
Speaker 2: pretty full on. And you know the next day the
Speaker 2: guy's dead in the morning.
Speaker 1: And just laughing at while they're doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's a crazy, crazy place to be.
Speaker 2: I just so many things, so many things I saw
Speaker 2: that people should never see. Really, I could go on
Speaker 2: and on. I mean, seriously, I know, and I've just did.
Speaker 1: There's so many things you can pull out, pull out
Speaker 1: of what happened to you in prison. When you reach
Speaker 1: it reached out to me. You wanted to tell the story.
Speaker 1: You want people to understand the dangers and all that,
Speaker 1: and yeah, let's not be naive when we think there's
Speaker 1: there's justice and humanity in the world. Some places you
Speaker 1: find yourself that's so far from it, are you? And
Speaker 1: I checked with you before I raised this, but you
Speaker 1: also detailed the account when you were gang raped one
Speaker 1: of the times in the prison. I just get if
Speaker 1: it's okay with you, and I'm going to read out
Speaker 1: what you said there and then I'll let you comment
Speaker 1: if you need to comment or feel feel to comment.
Speaker 1: But I'm also mindful that since been released from prison
Speaker 1: and coming back to Australia, that you're getting treatment for
Speaker 1: the traumas and the things that you happen. So if
Speaker 1: any point in time you want me to stop or
Speaker 1: we change the subject, feel free. I was tipping some
Speaker 1: water from the bucket over my head when five guys
Speaker 1: stormed in. I tried my best fighting them off, hitting
Speaker 1: one Cambodian in the throat and smashing another one's head
Speaker 1: against the concrete wall, but there was too many of them.
Speaker 1: Eventually they pinned me down to the filthy, wet floor,
Speaker 1: two guys holding my hands and two guys holding my
Speaker 1: feet while the fifth Cambadium raped me. My face was
Speaker 1: pushed into the concrete. I was helpless to do anything.
Speaker 1: Words can't describe what I was thinking. In the end,
Speaker 1: I just tried to block everything out of my mind.
Speaker 1: Nobody came to help me. I'll never forget how it
Speaker 1: made me feel, and just one other aspect. And that
Speaker 1: was the first of four times I was raped in prison.
Speaker 1: Sitting here now writing this, I feel a sense of numbness.
Speaker 1: Those men have taken something from me that can never
Speaker 1: be returned. I just remember leaving the shower with my
Speaker 1: backside bleeding, putting on my pants, and sitting on the
Speaker 1: cell of the floor staring at the ground in shame.
Speaker 1: Mm hm, I yeah, I don't know what to say
Speaker 1: that what? What's how?
Speaker 2: How? Literally? How I wrote that down is how pretty
Speaker 2: much happened. Now I felt, you know, you feel guilty.
Speaker 2: I never asked for that, and the shame and that
Speaker 2: just that I could still feel the wetness on my
Speaker 2: face the bathroom floor, and still smell the smells of
Speaker 2: the sewerage, and just having to pick myself up like
Speaker 2: some used up piece of meat, put my pants on
Speaker 2: and sit back in a corner, and life goes on.
Speaker 2: You know, they just keep doing what they're doing. Nothing
Speaker 2: gets said, nothing gets you get the occasional look, but
Speaker 2: there's no there's no I.
Speaker 1: U okay, mate, there's there's.
Speaker 2: Well it's almost like they look at you just like
Speaker 2: I'm glad it wasn't me this time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's what they've created in the environment like that.
Speaker 1: It's well, when I say interesting, maybe not the right word,
Speaker 1: but look at what humans can do to other other humans,
Speaker 1: No wonder the world can be a fucked place at times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you've got people that do that, and yeah, we've
Speaker 1: talked about it, and you mentioned there you feel guilt
Speaker 1: and shame. Mate, I say this to you. You've survived.
Speaker 1: You survived, so you've got got it over them. The
Speaker 1: low lives that do that to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's why when I wrote that down,
Speaker 2: I said, I could talk about the other ones, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't really help me. Yeah, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: if you wanted to seriously talk about the other ones,
Speaker 2: I would, but it doesn't help me. Just to know
Speaker 2: about what you've just read out. It's pretty much the
Speaker 2: same feelings with the others, apart from the one with
Speaker 2: the guards, because I used to come in and just
Speaker 2: drag people out they get drunk, come in and drag
Speaker 2: a person out, take them to their quarters. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: that that you know that, and that they're pretty horrific,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, they're all horrific, but you do
Speaker 2: become a bit more numb to it. I'm still pretty
Speaker 2: shook up because I haven't read this transcript back since
Speaker 2: I wrote it, you know, pretty much. I had a
Speaker 2: glanced over it today, but that's it. And yeah, to
Speaker 2: hear it again just brings back all the memories, just
Speaker 2: keep flooding back, you.
Speaker 1: Know, powerful words and yeah, yeah, you're getting help for it.
Speaker 1: You're saying that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was funny. The Trump sexual trauma counselor said
Speaker 2: to me, you know, when we wrote it all out
Speaker 2: to send off to you and hopefully to the Human
Speaker 2: Rights Commission as well, and things like that. That when
Speaker 2: I was in the police station leading up to going
Speaker 2: into the prison, I was talking in first person, and
Speaker 2: then when I get into prison, I'm talking in third person.
Speaker 2: And I didn't. I didn't. I'm not an author, you know,
Speaker 2: or creative writer, you know. But she picked up on
Speaker 2: that and she said, that's a sure sign of trauma.
Speaker 2: Trauma and how you perceive, you know, how to deal
Speaker 2: with things like you're stepping, you're removing yourself from stuff.
Speaker 1: And I guess that's you know, makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. But the thing that really makes me
Speaker 2: angry is that I never asked for any of this.
Speaker 2: I never once, you know, like, I did nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: Even if you've done something wrong, nothing like this should
Speaker 2: ever happen to you. You know. It takes your dignity away.
Speaker 2: You feel if you know, you feel, you feel so
Speaker 2: much shame and so much guilt. Why couldn't have just
Speaker 2: fought a bit harder? You just can't. There's five guys,
Speaker 2: some of them can kick box, you know. They're not
Speaker 2: all just little skinny Cambodians. There's guys in there doing
Speaker 2: life they're never getting out, you know that they don't
Speaker 2: care if they kill someone, because what are they going
Speaker 2: to do, give them another twenty years on their sentence
Speaker 2: not getting out anyways. It's one of those situations. And
Speaker 2: there's so many of those guys in there, that's what
Speaker 2: makes it a scary place too. And the guards aren't
Speaker 2: do anything about it because they could kill a guard
Speaker 2: and what's going to happen. They'll just they'll probably end
Speaker 2: up getting killed themselves, but it doesn't matter to them,
Speaker 2: you know. And there's so many of them in there
Speaker 2: that are doing life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can't report it to the guards. As
Speaker 1: you said, one of the rape situations involve the guards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I mentioned to you too. The
Speaker 2: lady boys they got the worst. Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 2: ones that were taking in well, whatever they were doing,
Speaker 2: they're getting done for prostitution ties Cambodians all that. That
Speaker 2: would be nightly and not just once a night, five
Speaker 2: six seven, just depend on how many guards and how
Speaker 2: many guards were drinking. They'd gamble, they'd drink, and then
Speaker 2: they just go around.
Speaker 1: And just pluck prisoners out, pluck prisoners. It's disgusting, it is,
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: And there's so many other things, you know, like that,
Speaker 2: I could I want to say about different things like
Speaker 2: if you don't bring them up, I want to, I
Speaker 2: want to get them across.
Speaker 1: Well, there's ten thousand prisoners in there, wasn't it.
Speaker 2: And another great point, it's built for four thousand. Four thousand,
Speaker 2: that's how many is meant to be in that prison.
Speaker 2: There's over ten thousand in there. So when I'm talking
Speaker 2: about four hundred in a cell's it's four hundred. And
Speaker 2: it's not a big cell. You know, people are squashed
Speaker 2: up against the bars. You knows, there's one toilet or
Speaker 2: maybe two if you're lucky. A shower where you've got
Speaker 2: a bucket of green water that's got mosquito larvae and
Speaker 2: you know, dangi fever and you're using that the shower.
Speaker 1: It's just the threat of diseases, every.
Speaker 2: Disease, COVID, all the main in every std under the sun,
Speaker 2: but all the main ones, some of the ones. I
Speaker 2: don't think we've even got much in Australia anymore. You know,
Speaker 2: guys with what's one where you cough up the blood tuberculosis,
Speaker 2: I think that's it. Yeah, it's very it's very contagious
Speaker 2: and then it's like, yeah, you start coughing and then
Speaker 2: you're coughing up blood and that's you know, and that's
Speaker 2: very contagious. And all these other things obviously scabies and
Speaker 2: golden staff rife through everywhere. You know, I was covered
Speaker 2: in it, Yeah, absolutely covered everywhere everywhere, and bedsaws from
Speaker 2: laying on the ground on the concrete for too long,
Speaker 2: like your hips, they start getting lumps in your hips
Speaker 2: and either side.
Speaker 1: You know, you wrote in wrote in your transcript there
Speaker 1: about the mattress that was up with all just the
Speaker 1: wire and torture as in putting people electric uity people describe,
Speaker 1: describe that what you saw there, Just to put.
Speaker 2: It briefly, there's six or eight cells. That's the hospital basically,
Speaker 2: and then where they do the surgeries over here and
Speaker 2: they administer their medications, their medications down the other end
Speaker 2: was this room and it had a small room, smaller
Speaker 2: than this and it just had a bed. But the
Speaker 2: springs of the mattress in it, all the material and
Speaker 2: that all gone all gone, yeah yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: and there's a few bars on it. Yeah, one can't
Speaker 2: only think you know what was going on there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: And the way, and in the hospital too, you're dealing
Speaker 2: with people that are clearly have got severe mental health
Speaker 2: issues that should be in care, real care, that are
Speaker 2: going around and you know, bashing people, but then ten
Speaker 2: seconds later wouldn't even know they've done it, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: You know it's crazy.
Speaker 1: You got stabbed? Yeah, yeah, tell us about that incident
Speaker 1: and what happened.
Speaker 2: Well, I had an altercation because, like I said, there's
Speaker 2: all these lane ways and nooks and cranny so there's
Speaker 2: not a lot of cameras. It's not like no, no,
Speaker 2: of course not. They only put him in the areas
Speaker 2: where the people come in and see who fund. So
Speaker 2: I had an alccasion with one guy and he's as
Speaker 2: he's come up and ran or not ran, as just
Speaker 2: kicked me in the arm like this nearly busted my
Speaker 2: arm his mate.
Speaker 1: Do you mind for show you this is a so
Speaker 1: that for those listening to this podcasting, and just showed
Speaker 1: me the stab wound where he was stabbed in the
Speaker 1: chest and it hit his ribs. You can't see it
Speaker 1: obviously if you're listening to this, but if you want
Speaker 1: to see what we're talking about, you can view it
Speaker 1: on YouTube.
Speaker 2: No that's what sharpened up a piece of perspects pipe.
Speaker 2: And just as so, the other guy's kicked me. He's
Speaker 2: come up from underneath and got me. So there's two
Speaker 2: on me. And then I didn't really because it got
Speaker 2: jammed in between my ribs.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So I'm quite fortunate that he well, you know what.
Speaker 1: I didn't get a vital organ.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it got stuck in there and then I and
Speaker 2: then I just kept going and then it kind of
Speaker 2: dissipated and then I pulled it out. And there's no
Speaker 2: way I was going to the hospital. No way it was.
Speaker 2: It was. There was no doctors at the hospital, not one.
Speaker 2: It was all prisoners doing procedures.
Speaker 1: So how did you treat yourself? Because that feeling, that womb? Yeah, significant,
Speaker 1: significant word.
Speaker 2: I just I got, you know, some some guys. You know,
Speaker 2: there was a Belgian guys, a Filipino guy. They was saying,
Speaker 2: put this stuff on it, and they had some stuff. So,
Speaker 2: you know, the foreigners all kind of stuck together.
Speaker 1: So there was that smidgen of humanity in there with
Speaker 1: the foreigner foreigners. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's almost like us against them, you know,
Speaker 2: And that's how it was for quite some time. You know,
Speaker 2: and and and one of the Nigerians even said that
Speaker 2: to me. He said, how he approached me after he
Speaker 2: known I've been raped and he goes, how you traveling right?
Speaker 2: And I said I'm not good and he goes, mate,
Speaker 2: just remember this, it's us against them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that was the first time I had the
Speaker 2: first cigarette.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then I use them as currency because that's
Speaker 2: what you do, you know, to get some food or something.
Speaker 1: So what was what was your lowest point in the
Speaker 1: time that you're in prison?
Speaker 2: Ah? I mean, obviously the rapes, sexual assaults pretty hard
Speaker 2: to deal with. You going to a pretty bad depression.
Speaker 2: You don't want to talk to anyone. You get some
Speaker 2: foreign guys, like there's a friend. I called him a
Speaker 2: friend because a sign I could confide in. He'd come
Speaker 2: up and go, mate, I know what's happened, and you
Speaker 2: kind of you're trying and remove yourself from people, which
Speaker 2: is a bad thing because then you go into a
Speaker 2: dark place and then you start thinking, well, maybe I'll
Speaker 2: just try and escape and they'll shoot me, you know,
Speaker 2: or if you end up doing too if you start
Speaker 2: doing some stuff that really puts there their naise out
Speaker 2: of whack. They'll put you in this place. It's called
Speaker 2: the dark Room for thirty days. It's just a dark
Speaker 2: room with the most crazy people in there that they
Speaker 2: you know, that aren't getting out, and they'll supply methanphetamine, whatever.
Speaker 2: They don't care. It's like a zoo, you know, in
Speaker 2: that room. There's no clocks, there's no nothing. Everything you
Speaker 2: buy if you want a bottle of water, it's ten
Speaker 2: times the price and I don't can to afford anything.
Speaker 2: I know. If people look the Nigerian guy, Chicker, he
Speaker 2: bought his way out of there. He was only in
Speaker 2: there a couple of days, and he says, you're just
Speaker 2: in a corner. You can't see anything, or you can
Speaker 2: see people lighting lighters, smoking ice. It's completely black, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And he said he was just
Speaker 2: there's a guy jerking off next to him. He doesn't care,
Speaker 2: you know, like he's going to get away from me.
Speaker 2: But that's the least of his problems, you know.
Speaker 1: And just when I didn't think you could surprise me
Speaker 1: anymore now, like mate, the dark room, Yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to picture it, all these crazy people or whatever
Speaker 1: in there in a pitch black room and you just
Speaker 1: frown in there.
Speaker 2: No clock's known nothing, thirty days, sixty days, ninety days,
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty days, there's been God, there was
Speaker 2: guys in there months and months.
Speaker 1: Don't keep your sanity, you don't.
Speaker 2: That's the thing, that's what they want. That's how they
Speaker 2: break you. You want to muck around real bad. They're
Speaker 2: just chucking in there. You know, if you get caught
Speaker 2: with something. It's such a corrupt place that they supply
Speaker 2: all the drugs, the phones because people buy it off them.
Speaker 2: Then they'll get an independent organization like the police from
Speaker 2: the outside would come just out of the blue and
Speaker 2: start raiding sections like oh, they're going through BLOCKAH today
Speaker 2: and just going in there, and then they find a phone.
Speaker 2: Who's this belonged to? It's that Chinese guy, beat the
Speaker 2: crap out of him, give him another three years on
Speaker 2: his sentence, and then the same guy two weeks later
Speaker 2: selling him back that same phone or drugs or whatever
Speaker 2: else it was. You know, moonshine. There was plenty of
Speaker 2: everything going on in there, you know everything. Guys were
Speaker 2: walking around with monkeys, with the real rich guys. There
Speaker 2: was a guy walking around with like a spider monkey
Speaker 2: pet monkey, pet monkey on his on his shoulder. There
Speaker 2: was guys who had like massive bil constrictors in tanks.
Speaker 2: There was lots of different birds and things like that
Speaker 2: that people were allowed to have and keep because they
Speaker 2: paid big money. Are paying like a thousand the vip
Speaker 2: sells are paying ony twelve hundred US a month, and
Speaker 2: they could get any luxury they wanted, you know, and
Speaker 2: the guards would go in there and drink with them,
Speaker 2: even the senior guards, you know, they would go in
Speaker 2: and drink with them. You know, they'd have girls brought in.
Speaker 2: They could have anything they wanted, you know. And those
Speaker 2: guys weren't getting out. They knew it. So I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I've got millions of dollars. I'm just gonna make the
Speaker 2: best of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you have concerns when you're in there that, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got this minor charge that you're fighting that one
Speaker 1: would hope you're not going to get years since to
Speaker 1: Did you have concerns that you'd be laded up with
Speaker 1: another charge or defend yourself and injure someone, or end
Speaker 1: up charge and yeah, yeah, definitely for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life.
Speaker 2: Definitely. Well, my charge at one stage was three years.
Speaker 2: Three years. That was going to be the charge for
Speaker 2: damaging your beast of property. Yeah, you know, and you
Speaker 2: know I fell in to protect my head and my
Speaker 2: hand hit the glass like that. But I was all
Speaker 2: over the shop because I've been drugged.
Speaker 1: And like I sit here, I wouldn't care if you
Speaker 1: ran up and kicked the ATM or attacked it with
Speaker 1: a baseball bat.
Speaker 2: Funnily enough, that's what they said in court when I
Speaker 2: went to court. The first time they said to me
Speaker 2: was I tried to steal the ATM machine, right, pick
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 1: It weighs more than me. Well, you grew up around
Speaker 1: the northern It was a spade of ATM robberies, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe missing missing the point.
Speaker 2: And then I said to them, can you show me
Speaker 2: the footage? Then they brought up the next time. I wasn't, Oh,
Speaker 2: you're trying to attack it with an iron bar? Bring it?
Speaker 2: Can you just remind me? Bring up the footage? Then
Speaker 2: you what was something else? Oh? Look, Then they brought
Speaker 2: out the photos. These were the best, the photos of
Speaker 2: me with my hands on the buttons and stuff. And
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, that's because I'm trying to withdraw money,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Like you've got to you've got to touch.
Speaker 2: It, ye, or you got to touch the buttons as well.
Speaker 1: Did you get a did you get a sense? It
Speaker 1: was just what can we extore.
Speaker 2: Out of you? They called the land of wonder? Yeah,
Speaker 2: it should be called the land of extortion. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: that's what they do, you know, from the top down. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm not mucking around when I say that.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, like the fact that they had it released
Speaker 1: in the paper straight away as this Peneus crime, the
Speaker 1: Peneus crime that you've committed, and you still won the
Speaker 1: round as a tourist, and don't change fly or make
Speaker 1: any effort to.
Speaker 2: You know, if I'd have done something bad, the first
Speaker 2: thing you'd be doing is getting to the border of
Speaker 2: Thailand and getting across. Yeah, you know all that n
Speaker 2: up all ouse. You know, you wouldn't be hanging around
Speaker 2: checking out the sites.
Speaker 1: It doesn't doesn't quite quite add up. Now does the
Speaker 1: money that the money that your ex partner was sending
Speaker 1: to you, you've credited that we've saving your life. What
Speaker 1: sort of figures are we talking about? How much this
Speaker 1: whole experience earns. Excellent adventure in Cambaiti it.
Speaker 2: Costs one hundred and twenty thousand US. Yeah, as my
Speaker 2: pretty much all my mum's inheritance that she'd left when
Speaker 2: she passed, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's a shame, the shame and guilt attached to
Speaker 2: that too. Yeah, you know, but my sister told me
Speaker 2: one thing that was important. When I was feeling really
Speaker 2: low about that, she said, look, if mum was still alive,
Speaker 2: she would have paid that to get you out, you know.
Speaker 2: But it was and the way they did it as well,
Speaker 2: you know, the you're bribing everybody, you know, it's not
Speaker 2: just one person.
Speaker 1: Did I read it right? At one point in time,
Speaker 1: when you could pay this much money and you'll be released,
Speaker 1: This as the advice you're getting. But if you can't
Speaker 1: pay that much money, you'll get charge with bribing a.
Speaker 2: No, No, it was. What it was was that they
Speaker 2: sent a figure, their lawyers send a figure, save eight thousand.
Speaker 2: I think it was the first time to fix a
Speaker 2: piece of glass that might cost one hundred dollars to
Speaker 2: fix eight thousand. So if we send eight thousand straight away,
Speaker 2: they'd send it back when we want fifteen, send fifteen,
Speaker 2: we want twenty five, and so on just kept on
Speaker 2: going up. Yeah, So my initial charge would have I
Speaker 2: would have been in there for three years. And then
Speaker 2: I said to my lawyer, I said, we're not a
Speaker 2: wealthy family. We kind of just keep for chucking money,
Speaker 2: thrying money around. We're not rich. You know, we did
Speaker 2: have extra money, but we weren't trying to tell her
Speaker 2: that at this stage. And that that's another thing where
Speaker 2: you you just you feel all your you just get
Speaker 2: depleted again. It's you know, like it's like you're just
Speaker 2: trying to you think you make an inroads and they
Speaker 2: knock your back down. Lots of prisoners inside there said
Speaker 2: you never leave Cambodia. You never ever leave Cambodia. And
Speaker 2: that's so true. I didn't believe it until I actually
Speaker 2: got out. How much harder it was just to get
Speaker 2: out of the country.
Speaker 1: Once I got there, they keep you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and then you know you're not just bribing judges,
Speaker 2: your bribe and guards, you drive bribe and everyone, you know,
Speaker 2: just to you know, my lawyer was ringing my ex
Speaker 2: partner saying we're going to need extra money for this,
Speaker 2: and she was handing it over thinking that I was
Speaker 2: verifying it because we couldn't always communicate. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: you know, the embassy would charge me money when they
Speaker 2: brought money in for me. But the thing is, you say,
Speaker 2: if you've got two hundred dollars US, the first couple
Speaker 2: of times you come in that gate, they'd patch you
Speaker 2: down and just take it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I wondered that when you get money,
Speaker 1: how you hang on to it? Where is it? Where's
Speaker 1: the captain? You had said that when you got food
Speaker 1: or water or that quite often you just drink it
Speaker 1: all either all because it was going to get taken
Speaker 1: off you anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, if you went back to the captain and
Speaker 2: the captain goes, why and you buy the water off
Speaker 2: me or cigarettes or food food here was a bit
Speaker 2: easy going on with because they would kind of understand
Speaker 2: that we couldn't eat their food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kinder mind.
Speaker 2: You they're farm and catfish and give them your maggot
Speaker 2: ridden rice, you know, and grown a few vegetables that
Speaker 2: were sprayed with toxins, you know, and it was growing
Speaker 2: on top of the sewer. Yeah. And that's another thing
Speaker 2: that the smell of the sewer was there the whole time.
Speaker 2: Like it's the rainy season for example, that the place
Speaker 2: just floods, you know, snakes everywhere place, floods, generators go out,
Speaker 2: the fans stopped working, there's no light, don't you think
Speaker 2: it starts kicking off? Then prisoners just fighting each other
Speaker 2: in the dark. No one's going to know what's going on. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's crazy. Yeah, yeah, like the king Cobras women in.
Speaker 1: Someone called it killed it like.
Speaker 2: A whip, like picked it like as a farmer, and
Speaker 2: then they led the Cambodian go yeah, just picked up
Speaker 2: on the towel and crack and then it was eating
Speaker 2: that the next day. But they ate anything anything, they
Speaker 2: get their hands on, dogs, everything.
Speaker 1: Even when the negotiations got to the point like I'm
Speaker 1: not even going to break down the court matter, like
Speaker 1: and I've got all these emails here and I bore
Speaker 1: them in. I was going to dissect some of them.
Speaker 1: But their emails, communications and text messages and different things
Speaker 1: between yourself, your partner, and the consular admin and the embassy.
Speaker 1: What comes across in all of these is how desperate
Speaker 1: the situation was. It was just frustration, and frustration is
Speaker 1: felt in every page. And then yeah, it's all tied
Speaker 1: it up. Ian's doing fine. We're working to get him out.
Speaker 1: But it didn't seem to be any progress whatsoever, And
Speaker 1: there was nothing that was Okay, you've got to get
Speaker 1: to this if you plead guilty, or this is going
Speaker 1: to happen. It was always ambiguous what was going to happen,
Speaker 1: what the next thing was.
Speaker 2: We're bound by Cambodian law.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you made the point too that when embassy
Speaker 1: officials or a consular officer came out, there was always
Speaker 1: a Cambodian with them the whole time, just making sure
Speaker 1: that you're You never felt safe that you could tell
Speaker 1: someone from the Australian console, this is what the ship
Speaker 1: that's going down, because you've got someone there listening that.
Speaker 2: And also that she was watching her too, because then
Speaker 2: she would because they go away and have conversations because
Speaker 2: they don't want the prison to look bad, so they
Speaker 2: lose funding. That funding goes to the trickles down from
Speaker 2: the top CEO of the you know, the prison all
Speaker 2: the way down or the general or what you want
Speaker 2: call him, because that's how they run it like a
Speaker 2: like an army.
Speaker 1: When no, I I think I'm not if. I often
Speaker 1: wondered what cloud in Australian citizen has been arrested abroad,
Speaker 1: But it just shows how limited it is depending on
Speaker 1: where you've you've been apprehended.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, getting out the worst. One of
Speaker 2: the worst parts was when you when you get to
Speaker 2: your last month, you have to go and take your
Speaker 2: photos for inter pola. So they take photos of your tattoos,
Speaker 2: they take your face obviously, and what you look like.
Speaker 2: You got your name, you got your board up. But
Speaker 2: that sends a signal to every other prisoner that you're
Speaker 2: getting out, yeah, within a month. And if someone's in
Speaker 2: there for twenty five years to life, they just want
Speaker 2: to cause trouble for you because they want, you know,
Speaker 2: to see you get more time. It's almost like a
Speaker 2: jealousy thing too. If I can't get out, he.
Speaker 1: Should should he's better than us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I do avoid people like the plague for
Speaker 2: that last month, which I managed to do. But I
Speaker 2: think it was Chicker, the big Nigerian guy helping me there.
Speaker 1: He was putting the word or keeping an eye out.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, he was really a good, good fella.
Speaker 1: But that must be so hard. Like here it is freedom,
Speaker 1: it's dangled in front of you, but knowing that you're
Speaker 1: at the higher risk at that point in time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was tough, very tough. After everything that
Speaker 2: was going on, guy's still tried to fight and stuff.
Speaker 2: I just I don't know, we got difused pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: You tried to step away from it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well there's occasions where you had to just kind
Speaker 2: of hurt something pretty quickly. Doo. Yeah, you know, honestly
Speaker 2: make it so that no one's you know, he just
Speaker 2: fell over, yeah, or something like that.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. When did you actually find out that you got
Speaker 1: a date and that you were being released from prison?
Speaker 2: Well, that's an interesting story in itself. They used to
Speaker 2: the guards used to tell me I was getting out tomorrow,
Speaker 2: paperwork's coming tomorrow, just to play with it, play with
Speaker 2: my emotions. And that went on for a few weeks,
Speaker 2: and then it finally came. I can't remember what time was,
Speaker 2: early afternoon. And then they all, as I wrote in
Speaker 2: the transcripts, they all stood there with their hands out
Speaker 2: like as if I wanted money, as if that they'd
Speaker 2: done me a favor, thanks.
Speaker 1: For thanks for looking after you that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then on the way out, every guard on the
Speaker 2: way out as well. So yeah, and then and then
Speaker 2: I find out, you know, I was told told time
Speaker 2: and time again. Once you get out of prison, you're
Speaker 2: going home. Yeah, and then I find out that I've
Speaker 2: got to spend another three months there. Explain that, well,
Speaker 2: I was told by the Australian embassy over in Cambodia.
Speaker 2: But once I got out, i'd be released. I received
Speaker 2: my passport back and my luggage back to the point
Speaker 2: where I actually went to the courthouse and paid two
Speaker 2: hundred dollars US to get that in process. And then
Speaker 2: my lawyer was even too worried to come and see me.
Speaker 2: She rang me and said, oh, you know, I said, well,
Speaker 2: what's happening with the courts? When do we get my
Speaker 2: past back? I want to go. I've got my family
Speaker 2: to go and see. I've got my boy to go
Speaker 2: and see. You know, when I'm going home. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of days, a couple of days, and
Speaker 2: just kept on going like that. So what's going on?
Speaker 2: And she goes buy law Cambodian law. They've got three
Speaker 2: months to the right of the right of an appeal.
Speaker 2: So I roped all these people work. How can you
Speaker 2: appeal that? You know?
Speaker 1: And then because so you had the remaining Cambadia for
Speaker 1: three months after being released from prison because they might
Speaker 1: or might not appeal lodging the pill.
Speaker 2: And they still have my passport and my all my
Speaker 2: luggage at court, so I'm still walking around and then
Speaker 2: pretty much the same clause as I had on when
Speaker 2: I left prison, which is filthy.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine if you, if you did anything wrong,
Speaker 1: you would have been straight.
Speaker 2: Straight in prison. That was the scary thing. But I
Speaker 2: went straight out of it because I was still at
Speaker 2: that stage well at that STAF. I just moved into
Speaker 2: the apartment straight across the road from the Strain Embassy.
Speaker 2: So I've run down there and gone knocked in there
Speaker 2: and said, what's this about? You told me I was
Speaker 2: going home. They knew the law, they knew that there
Speaker 2: was three months I had to stay longer, but they
Speaker 2: told me differently. Otherwise why would they do that? I
Speaker 2: don't know, but you know, that's something that I'd like
Speaker 2: to discuss further with the right people, because them saying
Speaker 2: that to me, you know, and then saying again I
Speaker 2: were bound by Cambodian law. The only thing they ever
Speaker 2: did for me was mere stat deck, which they are
Speaker 2: very they weren't very keen on doing that. I asked
Speaker 2: them for other things to say, No, we can't do that,
Speaker 2: you know, ask them to write a letter to the
Speaker 2: courts to get more stuff ret leased. Oh, we can't
Speaker 2: do that. It's the courts, it's Cambodian law, you know.
Speaker 2: And I was so paranoid at that stage that just
Speaker 2: going to get a knock any time, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't want to go outside, but then I felt unsafe inside.
Speaker 2: And then you'd see police officers, you hear sirens, you'd
Speaker 2: hear bangings, you know, you hear a banging door, and
Speaker 2: you can just remind you of a jail door closing,
Speaker 2: you know, the closing. Yeah, triggers, heaps of triggers.
Speaker 1: How did you eventually get your passport back?
Speaker 2: We finally, the lawyer finally got it back.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 2: Pretty much after that was when I laughed, because you're thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: I've got my passport and got my luggage. By this stage,
Speaker 2: I'd moved out of that apartment. So we get to
Speaker 2: immigration and I've got my passport, I've got my luggage.
Speaker 2: I go into immigration and he looks at the paperwork
Speaker 2: and he says, you've overstayed your visa by X amount
Speaker 2: of months. I said, I understand that I'm I've been
Speaker 2: in jail. He's the paperwork for them, you know. And
Speaker 2: he goes and then there's an extra three months your law, Cambodian.
Speaker 1: Law, you know where you I wasn't allowed to love, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wasn't allowed to leave. And then he just he
Speaker 2: sits down and he's talking to her, the solicitor and
Speaker 2: lawyer talking to her. They've come up with this agreement
Speaker 2: that I should be paying. I think it was either
Speaker 2: fifteen or twenty US dollars for every day i'd overstayed
Speaker 2: my versa. So that quiet, and then he goes look forget,
Speaker 2: and they're talking nothing. I can't understand what they're saying.
Speaker 2: And then he goes, look, how about we square this
Speaker 2: up five thousand US. I just looked at him and
Speaker 2: I said, mate, I don't have any money. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then he kind of he kind of understood a little
Speaker 2: bit and the body language, and then they've started going again,
Speaker 2: and then he's gone down to twenty five hundred, and
Speaker 2: I said, listen, I told you I don't have any money.
Speaker 2: And then he started getting angry and he says, well,
Speaker 2: I want receipts. You show me where you spend all
Speaker 2: this money I said, well, you know, I just started
Speaker 2: naming names, you know who didn't get a bribe. Basically
Speaker 2: it was there. It was you know, everyone got a bribe,
Speaker 2: you know. So and then he just couldn't handle any
Speaker 2: more of it and he just get out, get out.
Speaker 2: So and I think that was the last time I
Speaker 2: saw my solicitor too. I'm pretty sure that was the
Speaker 2: last communication I had with her ever. But I'm still
Speaker 2: stuck in Cambodia. Like I said, Cambodia is it keeps
Speaker 2: you there? You can't get out, you know, it traps
Speaker 2: you there. So then the next time I'm speaking to
Speaker 2: the embassy again, saying listen, deport me, deport me. I
Speaker 2: want out. They're going, well, this is before I'd got
Speaker 2: my passport back. They were saying, we can't deport you.
Speaker 2: We know where your passport is. It's in the courts.
Speaker 2: I'm saying, We'll just get me a new passport. Can't
Speaker 2: you just do that? Can't I just sneak over the border?
Speaker 2: Can't I do any of this stuff? They said, we
Speaker 2: don't advise it. Have you get caught, You're going back
Speaker 2: to jail. And I'm glad I didn't. Yeah, but in
Speaker 2: the same taken when I heard that I had to
Speaker 2: stay another three months. That was one of the times
Speaker 2: that nearly broke me and I nearly took my own life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was looking for places to jump. I found myself
Speaker 2: in a state where I was checking door handles of
Speaker 2: the top floor of the apartment building to see if
Speaker 2: I'll get on the rooftop. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you think that the culmination of it, you just
Speaker 1: had nothing.
Speaker 2: Left, nothing left in the tank, nothing left mentally. You
Speaker 2: know I was done.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, you've broken.
Speaker 2: Broken, but very much so broken.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I've sat in front of my trauma counselor and broken
Speaker 2: down many times, and that's one of the terms of used.
Speaker 2: I just feel like a broken person. I feel like
Speaker 2: sometimes I feel like I it would be better if
Speaker 2: I wasn't around, you know, because I just I don't
Speaker 2: know what I can give. I know I've got to offer.
Speaker 2: She reminds me, I've got a lot to give an offer,
Speaker 2: and it keeps me going.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you're getting advice from experts, So
Speaker 1: take what I say with a grain of salt. But
Speaker 1: there's total respect there too. What you've got through a
Speaker 1: lot of people wouldn't have got through and you talk
Speaker 1: about shame and disappointment of all these different things. Mate,
Speaker 1: you survived something that I reckon ninety percent of people
Speaker 1: wouldn't survive.
Speaker 2: Well, it blows my mind. I lost my mum. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my relationship broke down and then I end up in
Speaker 2: that position.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of those three can knock people around pretty baily,
Speaker 2: and I got all three of them. But my mum
Speaker 2: died in front of me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was doing CPR and my mum with the mobile
Speaker 2: phone with a loud speaker on with the lady counting
Speaker 2: in to do the compressions until the ambulance drivers got there.
Speaker 2: You know this, This, this is how it unfolded. There
Speaker 2: was that, and the relationship came to breaking down, and
Speaker 2: then I went on this holiday and ended up in
Speaker 2: a campbadi in prison and not in the space of
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're dealing with dealing with so much.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I don't. I don't know how I've done it.
Speaker 1: But again, you're doing it one step at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: keep moving forward.
Speaker 2: I mean I had beatings too where I couldn't count
Speaker 2: and come my guard. Because you're doing prison counts, you
Speaker 2: come up with a big set of old keys, you know,
Speaker 2: and just smash it in.
Speaker 1: The back of the head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't even remember. I try to forget. Yeah
Speaker 2: I used to be able to count to ten, but yeah,
Speaker 2: you just do that, you know, things like that at all.
Speaker 2: But yeah, getting back on. So I then went to
Speaker 2: the embassy again and said, listen, this is what's going on.
Speaker 2: They're trying to this is wrong. You told me three
Speaker 2: more months I had to stay here. I did the
Speaker 2: three months, and now they're trying to tell me that
Speaker 2: I've got to pay, you know, because I've overstayed my visa.
Speaker 2: This is wrong. What are you going to do about it?
Speaker 2: And it got to the point where I had to
Speaker 2: physically go down there myself, go into that office and say, listen,
Speaker 2: there are no receipts. I want to be deported. I
Speaker 2: wanted to be deported now. And I just I was
Speaker 2: at that point where I didn't care what happened anymore.
Speaker 1: You get to a point where, yeah.
Speaker 2: Reckless, abandon if you want to call it, where you're
Speaker 2: screaming at the top of your lungs. People are in
Speaker 2: there just going what's going on here? I want to
Speaker 2: be fucking deported. I want to be deported right now,
Speaker 2: because the immigration office is literally just across a road
Speaker 2: from the international airport. Two guys come in with guns right,
Speaker 2: grab me, pulled me out, which was probably a good thing.
Speaker 2: Pull me out. Say down there, it's the police station.
Speaker 2: You go down there and you tell them what you're saying, okay,
Speaker 2: because there they look after the people who get who
Speaker 2: are getting deported, and they've got to stay in that
Speaker 2: cell for a month. So I get down there or
Speaker 2: fight up and then something clicks in me and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I just got to remain calm. Now. I got out
Speaker 2: of that situation when I didn't think I was.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're very lucky, lucky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very lucky. That guy could have just gone right,
Speaker 2: police take him. But he sent me to a police station.
Speaker 2: But it's also to do with immigration and stuff as well.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I've gone down and seen him. I've told him, look,
Speaker 2: I've showed him the paper I had all the paperwork
Speaker 2: there as well. That's something I couldn't understand. So he
Speaker 2: and he could speak fairly decent English, this one guy, right,
Speaker 2: But I was upset. I was physically shaking. I was crying,
Speaker 2: and he's looking at me, and like, when you're that emotional,
Speaker 2: he'd start saying stuff to me, and I'd start cutting
Speaker 2: him off, and he'd say, listen, do you want me
Speaker 2: to help you or not? You know, you want me
Speaker 2: to help you or not, he said, because usually i'd
Speaker 2: put you in that seal. You be in that seal
Speaker 2: for a month before you get deported. And that's the
Speaker 2: last thing I needed. So anyways, and then he's got
Speaker 2: my passport, which I was shitting myself about because the
Speaker 2: last time someone had my passport I was ended up
Speaker 2: back I was in prison, right, they didn't give it back.
Speaker 2: He's got that. He's put me up against the wall
Speaker 2: with a sign, you know, with the you know, I
Speaker 2: don't even know what it. Yeah, like I was back
Speaker 2: at the start in the airport, you know, with all
Speaker 2: the pictures of all the deals and stuff on stuck
Speaker 2: up the back, making me look like I was a
Speaker 2: drug dealer or something.
Speaker 1: You know that with a freak. Yeah, it did.
Speaker 2: But when I wrote about it, I said I had
Speaker 2: to trust him, even though every part of me said don't.
Speaker 2: I just he had literally he had my life in
Speaker 2: his hands. At that stage. I was so powerless, so
Speaker 2: so powerless that if he'd taken it one direction, then
Speaker 2: he could have said, oh, yeah, he's caught a scene
Speaker 2: down there. Give him another six months or a year
Speaker 2: or whatever, sort him out, you know. But then there
Speaker 2: was all these other guys, and they're all asking me
Speaker 2: questions where you're from, what you're doing, why you're in prison.
Speaker 2: You know, some of them could talk a bit of English.
Speaker 2: I guess it goes with immigration, you know, they must
Speaker 2: have to know a little bit more English to understand,
Speaker 2: like they can speak to Indians and so forth, because
Speaker 2: they all speak English as well. And there was an
Speaker 2: Indian bloke in funnily enough, in the detention center there,
Speaker 2: while waiting to get out and so and then he goes, right,
Speaker 2: what I need from you? How quickly can you get
Speaker 2: a plane ticket? I said, I can get it tomorrow.
Speaker 2: He was right. And then he gave me an email address,
Speaker 2: and he said, and I lied and said that the
Speaker 2: embassy sent me down here. I do, mate. But that
Speaker 2: was the other thing. If if he caught onto that
Speaker 2: the game was up, and you know, the embassy said
Speaker 2: to come down here to speak to you, you.
Speaker 1: Know about this, I'd put it in the little after.
Speaker 2: Going yeah, after going up being up there, you know,
Speaker 2: and then just sending me down. So obviously there was
Speaker 2: no communication through that those two different entities or whatever.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Well maybe that's what happened later with
Speaker 2: the car, the card or better retribution for that. But
Speaker 2: so anyways, I said, I can get it tomorrow and
Speaker 2: get I can get a letter from the embassy, which
Speaker 2: I did. It's just say, you know, well they photo
Speaker 2: copied the because he says email it to me, and
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do that. I said, no, mate,
Speaker 2: I'll do you one better. I'll get a photo copy
Speaker 2: of the flights. I'll hand it to you. I'll get
Speaker 2: three copies, one for me, one for you, and one
Speaker 2: for the embassy. And so I get down there, and
Speaker 2: I get down there as early as possible because traffic's
Speaker 2: bad and stuff like that, and with my luggage, with
Speaker 2: my passport, and things just weren't seeming right, you know.
Speaker 2: And you know, you meant to be on a flight,
Speaker 2: an international flight. Was it three hours before you meant
Speaker 2: to be at the the two hours to go? And
Speaker 2: I'm asking, ah, you know, it's do we need to
Speaker 2: get going across the road there? And then yeah, they're
Speaker 2: all getting dressed up in their military outfits, like those
Speaker 2: headhind chows at the prison. They're all in their black
Speaker 2: They look like they're a car key with all their
Speaker 2: medals and their black shiny shoes and the black bround. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then they're very proud, you know. And then he there's
Speaker 2: a police car there, one that we're going in, and
Speaker 2: he put your hand on there, like to get in,
Speaker 2: and he just slams the door straight on it. Bang
Speaker 2: there you go out. Yeah, that's a spiral fracture. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the other fingers got in there as well, but that
Speaker 2: one got the brun of it. Blood everywhere, blood everywhere.
Speaker 1: So just he told you to put your hand there,
Speaker 1: and then deliberately.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but as I was getting in, so he's
Speaker 2: strategically done it. But he's just gone bushka. And there
Speaker 2: was no accident because then the cane came out. He
Speaker 2: started caning me and another guy started caning me like
Speaker 2: with a piece of you know that you get in
Speaker 2: the school for massive Well, it's all over my back,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, And I think one of the ways
Speaker 2: that it was disguised is because I was covered in
Speaker 2: say any other things, scabies and golden staff you.
Speaker 1: Know, and then you look at picture of hell oh mate,
Speaker 1: and I got, I got.
Speaker 2: I got to you know. It was a half an
Speaker 2: hour before we went over there and they marched me
Speaker 2: in luggage. I didn't think, you know, there was there
Speaker 2: was two things concerning me when I picked my luggage
Speaker 2: up from the court because it'd been there a long
Speaker 2: long time, that they might have signed something into it.
Speaker 2: I had presents for my son and stepdaughter and all
Speaker 2: this at the time, right, they were all taken all.
Speaker 2: The only thing they didn't take was the sea and
Speaker 2: reaped t shirt with a picture of ank or what
Speaker 2: on it, because that would be bad for them to do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: But I think they've got karma coming at them in
Speaker 1: some way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they just yeah, well, I don't know that
Speaker 2: that's they used religion when they want to know, with
Speaker 2: the Buddhism, I thought Buddhas would meant to be peaceful.
Speaker 2: And I said to one, I copt a beating for
Speaker 2: that too. Bordha's watching you, Ba's watching you. Yeah, got
Speaker 2: a bashing for trying to save someone his life as well,
Speaker 2: you know, performing CPR on them. They said, let him die.
Speaker 2: I was screaming out for the guards. They never come,
Speaker 2: so yeah, and then my thingers bleeding everywhere. He's put
Speaker 2: a bit of tape around it, tissue and a bit
Speaker 2: of tape. Put me on the plane and it felt
Speaker 2: like an eternity sitting on that tarmac. I just thought
Speaker 2: they were going to come back walking back on which
Speaker 2: they could have done, because it's almost like they're the
Speaker 2: military the police over there. They've got the same power
Speaker 2: pretty much. You know, the King of Cambardia doesn't really
Speaker 2: do anything. It's the Prime minister who's got all the power.
Speaker 2: And anyways, but we talk off when I get to Thailand,
Speaker 2: and thankfully they had a hospital in the airport which
Speaker 2: they could clean it up because I was worried about disease,
Speaker 2: and you know, they're just the fact that the stuff
Speaker 2: in the air it just breeds back to aia, you know,
Speaker 2: very quickly. And they fixed that up and then I
Speaker 2: got but I was stuck in Thai airport for twenty hours,
Speaker 2: still walking around in my ratty old clothes, you know,
Speaker 2: because everything in the bag that wasn't stolen was filthy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'd been there over a year, but I
Speaker 1: could imagine from what you've come from, it was probably luxury.
Speaker 2: I was going into you know where you can go
Speaker 2: and use the testers doing that because I was stinking,
Speaker 2: and I was filthy, you know, and bit my feet
Speaker 2: were filthy. I had a pair of radiold thongs on.
Speaker 2: I landed in Sydney Airport and it was freezing, absolutely
Speaker 2: freezing out A short, short pair of pair of shorts,
Speaker 2: T shirt and thongs on.
Speaker 1: Who was here to meet you?
Speaker 2: No one I had to get from. Then I had
Speaker 2: to get the plane up to the Gold Coast right.
Speaker 2: And the funny story is that because I didn't drank
Speaker 2: in such a long long time, these old rock and
Speaker 2: rollers get on at Sydney right and wearing their sunglasses
Speaker 2: and long scraggly hair. And then this guy gets on
Speaker 2: with the aviators and the long curly hair. I can
Speaker 2: smell him coming from the front of the plane. I
Speaker 2: can smell the whiskey on him, a cigarette. It was
Speaker 2: Dave Gleason now screaming jets and so I had him
Speaker 2: sitting somewhere close to me in a Titans footy player
Speaker 2: sitting directly across from me. I think it might have
Speaker 2: been four and actually, and then when I got off
Speaker 2: the plane, I always promised myself this. I got off
Speaker 2: the plane. I literally went down. I was at the
Speaker 2: back getting off the back, down the stairs and kissed
Speaker 2: the ground. And he's looked at me and gone, what's
Speaker 2: going on there? Said, mate, don't even ask. Just got up,
Speaker 2: got into the airport waiting for my luggage, and I
Speaker 2: saw Max Partner and you could see the look on
Speaker 2: her face. She hugged me, but you could see the
Speaker 2: look on her face. She couldn't believe how much weight
Speaker 2: I'd lost. I was skin and bone and I was covered.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised you wanted to argue. I was down to
Speaker 2: forty forty five kes, something really gaunt in the face,
Speaker 2: rib sticking out everywhere, and it took me a long
Speaker 2: time to get any appetite back. You know, I couldn't eat.
Speaker 1: How your health you would have got your health checked out?
Speaker 2: I had to how you scrub up with any I
Speaker 2: had every every blood test done for every STD all
Speaker 2: come back negative, thankfully. I had a lot of general
Speaker 2: towards and things like that. I had to get burnt off,
Speaker 2: and then you know, the scabies and stuff that and
Speaker 2: the Golden Staff was pretty bad. Like it took a
Speaker 2: long time with tablets, ointments that you weren't just putting
Speaker 2: dab and it was everywhere and for weeks or some well,
Speaker 2: my face only took My face took the longest to
Speaker 2: clear up. I don't know why, but it was maybe
Speaker 2: a good month and a half before I've seen any results.
Speaker 2: Was that bad, you know, And just the weight as well,
Speaker 2: Like it was scary and I just couldn't eat. And
Speaker 2: but you know, it's not just because it's over. It's
Speaker 2: never over.
Speaker 1: No, you're describing the physical repairing of yourself, but I
Speaker 1: imagine there's a mental and emotional scarring there.
Speaker 2: I just I can't work at the moment at all.
Speaker 2: Everything triggers my traumas everything. I can't have people sitting
Speaker 2: behind me. I've always I can see people out of
Speaker 2: the corners of my eyes, you know, I always always
Speaker 2: can see constantly worried about noises. It just triggers anxiety
Speaker 2: as well, triggers trauma, you know, just so many different things,
Speaker 2: like I can't sleep at night. The nightmares are some
Speaker 2: of the worst things I've ever had in my life,
Speaker 2: Like the especially you know, reoccurring nightmares, the rape. For example,
Speaker 2: when I was saying to you before about you know,
Speaker 2: I've never felt a sensation in a dream before, or
Speaker 2: a smell. I can still feel that cold damp floor
Speaker 2: on the side of my face when my head was
Speaker 2: pushed down into the concrete while I was being attacked
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted. The smell of the sewer, looking at the
Speaker 2: filthy cook like crevice of a white wall, you know,
Speaker 2: picturing that like just trying to, like I said, trying
Speaker 2: to not think about what was happening to me. But
Speaker 2: those it's almost like a still shot. But but in
Speaker 2: a movie, like shots of a movie, it's not good.
Speaker 2: It's not good, and it's going to take a long
Speaker 2: time to get right.
Speaker 1: What the type of services are available to well.
Speaker 2: I see a psychiatrist every fortnight, and I see a
Speaker 2: sexual trauma counselor every week. But you know, look, when
Speaker 2: I first got back to after I spent the first week,
Speaker 2: how long have you been back now it's about six
Speaker 2: and a half months, I think. But when I first
Speaker 2: got back to every service and it was very hard
Speaker 2: to because you know, they deal a lot of people
Speaker 2: coming out of prison in Australia, but they don't deal
Speaker 2: a lot of people coming from overseas, and so they
Speaker 2: just didn't know how to deal with me, and put
Speaker 2: me to someone else. And you can't understand. My trauma
Speaker 2: levels are so high, My anxiety levels are so high
Speaker 2: that it's going in one ear coming out the other.
Speaker 2: I'll go and see these people. I must have met
Speaker 2: thirty or twenty people, all different abbreviated PhDs, this that
Speaker 2: the other you know. Couldn't remember half of them. I
Speaker 2: was writing them down, still couldn't remember. I was getting bombarded.
Speaker 2: But they just moved me on and moved me on,
Speaker 2: and moved me on and moved me on to another agency.
Speaker 2: Couldn't deal with it. Then I got to like housing
Speaker 2: places to sort out some temporar accommodation. They asked me
Speaker 2: the wrong question, so I fell through the cracks there.
Speaker 2: One of the ladies from safe Haven said are very
Speaker 2: poignant things. She said, It's like you've just been plucked
Speaker 2: from Mars and been chuck straight back on Earth. You're
Speaker 2: just an alien, you know how you're dealing with all this,
Speaker 2: like everything your sensory overload from coming from you everywhere,
Speaker 2: And then and then some temporary accommodation is not ideal
Speaker 2: and you stay there and it just triggers trauma. Because
Speaker 2: of other people there that have got other issues themselves,
Speaker 2: you know. So it's not been easy. I've been living
Speaker 2: in my car at times. You know, it's not good. No, So,
Speaker 2: you know I think today, I mean, there's so much
Speaker 2: much more we could discuss about things. But I really
Speaker 2: want people to understand be very cautious when you go overseas.
Speaker 2: You might not be. You might be just crossing a
Speaker 2: road and someone runs a map ed into your leg
Speaker 2: and goes you were drunk, calls the police up, you
Speaker 2: get arrested. That's how there was people in the Canvadian
Speaker 2: prison that they were set up. You know, they just
Speaker 2: flee them for money because they're European or whatever. Just
Speaker 2: be very mindful about that. And I don't think that
Speaker 2: because you're an Australian citizen that there's someone there to
Speaker 2: help you either. Yeah, we're not.
Speaker 1: We're not eve, aren't we. Yeah, Like I think of
Speaker 1: all the third world countries I've traveled in, the stupid
Speaker 1: stuff you do when you're traveling, or the risks you take.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But most importantly, I hope it puts a real
Speaker 2: strong light on the fact that you could, you know,
Speaker 2: you could be in any situation and end up in prison.
Speaker 2: That's what happened to me. I did nothing wrong, and
Speaker 2: I I've had one hell of a hell of a time.
Speaker 1: You know, it's such such an important message. And when
Speaker 1: their mutual friend got in contact with me and told
Speaker 1: me a little bit about your story and then started
Speaker 1: breathing documents, yeah you had it just blew me away.
Speaker 1: And yeah, obviously here on my catch Killers, we have
Speaker 1: people who have done a lot of time in prison
Speaker 1: for a variety of crimes. But this is I think
Speaker 1: this is an example of how something so innocuous can
Speaker 1: turn into just change your life. But I also want
Speaker 1: to make the point that your courage for you to
Speaker 1: come out and talk about this, because I can see
Speaker 1: how sometimes it might be your inclination. I just want
Speaker 1: to walk away from it. I don't want to know
Speaker 1: about They want to try and forget it. But my
Speaker 1: way of viewing the way that you're approaching this, you're
Speaker 1: taking it on, acknowledge that, not letting it break you,
Speaker 1: and you're moving forward. And I keep coming back to
Speaker 1: it because I'm just thinking, and I think anyone that's
Speaker 1: listened to this podcast would be wondering how would I
Speaker 1: react in that situation? That you found yourself in. Would
Speaker 1: I survive? I don't know, Like that was a hardcore
Speaker 1: where you found yourself in.
Speaker 2: It's funny how you know you can find resilience in
Speaker 2: the places that you don't know where you've got them,
Speaker 2: you know. I just again, there was times where I
Speaker 2: didn't think I was going to make it, to be honest,
Speaker 2: I had to think about my son, you know, he's
Speaker 2: the one. And if it wasn't for my partner ex partner,
Speaker 2: you know, sending that money. I mean, there's many factors
Speaker 2: that kept me alive, yeah, you know, but they were
Speaker 2: the two main ones. She saved my life. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm forever, eternally grateful for her for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you talked about another Aussie bloke that was
Speaker 1: over there, and he had a long sentence and you
Speaker 1: don't know what's happened to him, No, And I don't.
Speaker 2: See that the Australian embassy would be able to do
Speaker 2: anything to help him there. Yeah, and I'd be very
Speaker 2: surprised whether he's still alive or not. Yeah, it's you
Speaker 2: just if you've got no money, you've got no chance.
Speaker 2: And that's that's just that's the bottom.
Speaker 1: Line, you know.
Speaker 2: And if you get sick, you die. You're constantly battling
Speaker 2: those things, you know, like I just can't get sick.
Speaker 1: You know, like it's tiptoeing through it. Mindfild it is.
Speaker 2: And then you've got people coming at you, want to
Speaker 2: attack you, rape ya, kill you, pedophiles all around as well.
Speaker 2: Like I didn't even touch on those kind of guys
Speaker 2: I met, ye, mate, there's some of the stuff that
Speaker 2: they did the young kids. But this guy came into
Speaker 2: the cell on the very first day that he got
Speaker 2: into prison, tried to commit suicide, jumped on off the roof,
Speaker 2: climbed up on the roof and jumped on the razor. Y.
Speaker 2: His name was Stephan from Switzerland. So I was in
Speaker 2: the hospital at this time. So he's been stitched up
Speaker 2: like he's you know, but he stayed in our room.
Speaker 2: Now before when I was telling you about those two
Speaker 2: guys who worked at the hospital, they also got the
Speaker 2: charge sheets, so they could tell when I walked in there.
Speaker 2: They get like, oh, you're the at M guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, So they get fed to them.
Speaker 2: Because they can't speak very decent English or you know,
Speaker 2: English very well. I was almost like the conduit between
Speaker 2: Stephan and because he could speak five languages. This guy
Speaker 2: and all the pedophiles always had the same thing as well.
Speaker 2: They'd all blame the angio. The angios of people come
Speaker 2: in and say, listen, you're you're in trouble, you know.
Speaker 2: So I've been read what this guy has done. He
Speaker 2: had so he was with this woman who had six
Speaker 2: kids to six different fellas. She's a nice addict Cambodian woman.
Speaker 2: He's living with her. He's prostituting these children out to
Speaker 2: men were coming to the house. I think the oldest
Speaker 2: was ten, you know what I mean, And the youngest
Speaker 2: was four boys and girls, you know. And I'm having
Speaker 2: to sit there and try and speak to this guy.
Speaker 2: And you know, as you know of the podcast I
Speaker 2: mentioned many times, we've got a son and he was
Speaker 2: four at the time, and just and they very what
Speaker 2: I learned about the pedophiles in the time that I
Speaker 2: spent with him in prison. As the master manipulators, they'll
Speaker 2: turn everything back on you. They deflect all the time,
Speaker 2: they deflect. I'll turn the conversation to something else, like
Speaker 2: the angio was a perfect example. Ah. They they've been
Speaker 2: trying to catch me. It's the corruption and this and
Speaker 2: that and the other and you know, sure I might
Speaker 2: go on, but with that something like that, you know,
Speaker 2: where yeah, things like that, and having to deal with
Speaker 2: those guys that goal was in my cell for you know.
Speaker 2: And because he had money, they left him alone, you know.
Speaker 2: And then he started manipulating people in the cell, because
Speaker 2: there was always six or seven people that were regulars
Speaker 2: in that cell, me included, and he started manipulating you know, people,
Speaker 2: and you know, like yeah, and then as soon as
Speaker 2: he got better, the first thing he did was signed
Speaker 2: up with this American guy who had been doing whatever
Speaker 2: he'd been doing to just terrific stuff.
Speaker 1: There's levels of yeah that just keep stooping down in
Speaker 1: a prison, prison like that. Well, yeah, and as you've
Speaker 1: told me, and then all the conversations we've had, there
Speaker 1: so many stories, and I've only drawn on a small
Speaker 1: part of it. The document we've been referring to as
Speaker 1: a narrative that you wrote down. I read it and
Speaker 1: I was blown away. And as I said to you,
Speaker 1: I was reading another book and prep for a guest
Speaker 1: coming on the podcast, and this was sent to me
Speaker 1: by a mutual friend, and I started reading and I
Speaker 1: didn't put it down because I just it was just
Speaker 1: so heavy in what's there? So an amazing story, and
Speaker 1: I've just got to say in finishing up, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think you should feel shame. I think you should
Speaker 1: be proud of the fact that you survived the situation
Speaker 1: that most people wouldn't.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Gary, I appreciate that. Really.
Speaker 1: All the best, all the best for the future. It
Speaker 1: was a good future.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Cheers.