Speaker 1: This investigation was only possible thanks to subscribers of The Australian.
Speaker 1: For access to additional material connected to this series and
Speaker 1: all our investigations and news coverage, please search for the
Speaker 1: Australian subscription.
Speaker 2: Pushed nine to eleven's always kind of ugly sports car.
Speaker 2: He sort of like midlife crisis he type stuff. He
Speaker 2: had a Maserati once. I don't know where they all
Speaker 2: came from. I used to hate it because I was
Speaker 2: never allowed in them or to drive them. He had
Speaker 2: a white convertible nine to eleven. Just looked like the
Speaker 2: biggest stickhead in it, and he'd be driving around with
Speaker 2: my son's girlfriend in the car.
Speaker 1: If you thought Hamis couldn't stoop any lower, buckle up.
Speaker 1: In twenty ten, Beck Rose and married Hamish McLaren. The
Speaker 1: following year, her teenage son Jack started dating a girl
Speaker 1: from school. To protect her privacy, we've called her Jane.
Speaker 1: We've been in contact with Jane. She didn't want to
Speaker 1: be interviewed, but she's happy for us to use a pseudonym.
Speaker 1: Jane was just sixteen when Hamish first began taking her
Speaker 1: for rides in his convertible Porsche. I'm Greg Barrel. This podcast,
Speaker 1: Who the hell is Hamish? He's brought to you by
Speaker 1: the Australian newspaper.
Speaker 2: So was this gorgeous little wounded.
Speaker 1: Girl the beepshell here utter maask Jane's identity.
Speaker 2: Who came from a pretty messed up family situation. She
Speaker 2: and Jack got together when they were in New ten
Speaker 2: So that was in twenty eleven. First love, like, you know,
Speaker 2: first every thing for the two of them. They were
Speaker 2: fifteen when they first got together. The two of them
Speaker 2: got quite serious at the end of eleven and she
Speaker 2: pretty much moved in. So she to me she was.
Speaker 1: Just like my daughter, and wonderful for you having another female.
Speaker 2: Gorgeous and she really helped me with the house. Like
Speaker 2: I'd go to work and I'd come home and she
Speaker 2: would have, you know, folded the washing or started making
Speaker 2: dinner or cleaned up, and she was just and I thought,
Speaker 2: she just seems so happy. Jack was so happy. It
Speaker 2: was great. Hamish used to just kind of joke around
Speaker 2: and call her the dwarf and we'd all sit down
Speaker 2: and have dinners together and it just felt like happy families.
Speaker 2: I sort of thought, wow, like I'm doing all right,
Speaker 2: this is this is good. It wasn't too long after
Speaker 2: that that I just started to feel uncomfortable about the
Speaker 2: way that Hamish was around, being like a beach place.
Speaker 2: She might come up from being asleep downstairs with cozy
Speaker 2: bottoms and like a T shirt maybe with no cozy
Speaker 2: top on, and she's gorgeous and she's sixteen, and he'd
Speaker 2: sort of get the tetail and flick her balm or
Speaker 2: something like that, and just things like that just irked me,
Speaker 2: and I'd say to him later, hey, like, you can't
Speaker 2: do that, like that's kind of not appropriate, and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, get over it. Like she's just a kid.
Speaker 2: I'm just mucking around with her. It's nothing. I didn't
Speaker 2: like it. That relationships, that situation grew from that point,
Speaker 2: and he then started, like he did with the boys.
Speaker 2: He took her right under his wing with sporting stuff
Speaker 2: and going running and doing triathlons and all of that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff because he was right into it, as
Speaker 2: you know, yes, so he started sort of being her
Speaker 2: personal trainer.
Speaker 1: Beck watched all this unfold under her own roof with
Speaker 1: a sense of rising dread. She raised her concerns her
Speaker 1: three sons would take Hamish's side it was divide and rule.
Speaker 2: This is twenty eleven when they first met. Movie into
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, things started to get more full on with
Speaker 2: in year eleven and twelve she was studying business studies,
Speaker 2: which he thought was you know, just amazing. And he's like, well,
Speaker 2: I can help you with work, and I can help you,
Speaker 2: you know, help with your assignments and all of that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, which of course she was like, fantastic.
Speaker 2: He introduced her.
Speaker 1: To HAMI said. He introduced her to a colleague in
Speaker 1: Sydney and had organized for Jane to do an internship.
Speaker 2: She's a clever girl and she's you know, she was
Speaker 2: a school captain. You know, she's going and doing all
Speaker 2: these like youth leadership courses and all of this. She's amazing.
Speaker 2: So that was yes, twenty eleven. Sorry, they just I
Speaker 2: just was suss. I can remember one time walking the
Speaker 2: beach access just across the road, and Hamish and I
Speaker 2: were going down to the beach. Had gone down with
Speaker 2: her sister earlier. I don't know where Jack was at
Speaker 2: work or something, and I got to the top of
Speaker 2: the stairs at the beach and I don't know what
Speaker 2: it was about this site, but I saw walking down
Speaker 2: to the water and Hamish just leaning on his haunches,
Speaker 2: just watching her walk to the water, and I just
Speaker 2: it just I felt repulsed. I was like, this is
Speaker 2: not right.
Speaker 1: There was something predatory about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I just thought this is wrong, like something
Speaker 2: is not right. But if ever I said anything to him,
Speaker 2: he just told me I was a lunatic. You're crazy,
Speaker 2: like you're fucking imagining things.
Speaker 3: Beck.
Speaker 2: There's nothing, like, what are you talking about. She's a kid.
Speaker 2: Jack started saying to me, Mom, you need to butt
Speaker 2: out of my relationship and stop going on about her
Speaker 2: and Hamish. She's getting really upset, and so he was
Speaker 2: really cranky with me. He was saying, you need to
Speaker 2: stop saying stuff like that, Beck, because nothing's going on
Speaker 2: and you're crazy. So I sort of had everyone telling
Speaker 2: me you're wrong, like get over it, like you're crazy,
Speaker 2: and so I don't think I thought I'm crazy, but
Speaker 2: I thought I felt really I felt like suffocated with
Speaker 2: people nobody hearing what I was saying, and knowing in
Speaker 2: my gut that something wasn't right.
Speaker 1: The signs were not good. They had not been long married,
Speaker 1: and Beck and Hamish were in counseling with a well
Speaker 1: known professor of psychology in Sydney.
Speaker 2: I kept saying to Hamish, you know, I'm this is
Speaker 2: I feel really wrong? You know I was. I think
Speaker 2: I was trying to pull out of the relationship. And
Speaker 2: he would just, apart from telling me I was crazy,
Speaker 2: beg me like I love you so much, like you
Speaker 2: can't leave me? What about the boys? I love the boys?
Speaker 2: And he'd do this whole kind of dance of how amazing,
Speaker 2: Let's go to therapy, Let's go and get counseling. And
Speaker 2: so I said, okay, cool, let's go to counseling. So
Speaker 2: he found a guy in Sydney in gleebe so we'd
Speaker 2: just go down and have like a session every two weeks.
Speaker 2: And this went on for quite a few months, and
Speaker 2: you know, I got to talk about how I felt
Speaker 2: about and feeling like Hamish was a liar, and he
Speaker 2: would tell me a lot all the time, and I'd
Speaker 2: find things out and Hamish would sit there and he'd
Speaker 2: cry and say how much he loved me. And the
Speaker 2: Professor's like back, like, I really think that you're getting
Speaker 2: the wrong idea, like he genuinely what I can see
Speaker 2: here is a man who genuinely loves you, and you know,
Speaker 2: I don't feel like there's any like months and months
Speaker 2: and months and months of hearing that from him as
Speaker 2: well just gave Hamish more ammunition to tell me how
Speaker 2: fucked up I was.
Speaker 1: Hamiy should even manage to hoodwink the professor.
Speaker 2: I thought I was going nuts, and I thought I'm
Speaker 2: just worthless. Like there were times like I see, especially
Speaker 2: you know later down the track, when I'm working out
Speaker 2: how much financial should I mean, actually, because of all
Speaker 2: the loans he signed, like forge my signature on, you know,
Speaker 2: there were times that I was like, go, you know,
Speaker 2: I could literally I'd sit on a varada and go,
Speaker 2: I could fucking just hang myself off this and you
Speaker 2: know it would just go away. But then I kept thinking,
Speaker 2: they'll never talk, you know, how could I do that
Speaker 2: to the three most important things in my whole life.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was pretty dark times and just feeling
Speaker 2: like no one would believe you.
Speaker 1: Jane was young and, as Beck says, Jess gorgeous, but
Speaker 1: Hamish had motivations other than just having a trophy in
Speaker 1: the passenger seat of his Porsche. So can you explain
Speaker 1: how you came to meet Hamish?
Speaker 4: Yeah, our eldest granddaughter was going with her with his stepson, Yes,
Speaker 4: Jack Jack. They went to school together like the high school.
Speaker 1: You'll recall Glenn Pickard from episode two the Miner from Mudgie.
Speaker 1: These are his good friends Rain and Peter Cross. They
Speaker 1: live in a stunning new house on the shores of
Speaker 1: Smith's Lake, not far from Bluey's Beach. It's a paradise.
Speaker 1: They worked hard all their lives to get it. Lorraine
Speaker 1: is a retired hairdresser. Peter and Glen worked alongside each
Speaker 1: other in the mines. The men were good mates and
Speaker 1: competed in long distance kayaking events. Both were fitness freaks.
Speaker 1: That was until Peter was badly injured in an industrial accident.
Speaker 1: A truck rolled on him, leaving him with a permanent
Speaker 1: brain injury. It affects his balance and his memory. Lorraine
Speaker 1: and Peter are also Jane's grandparents. They have a different surname.
Speaker 1: Their grandkids grew up in fractured families and so they
Speaker 1: took on much of the parenting. Two of their grandkids
Speaker 1: were twins born with serious disabilities. One died not long
Speaker 1: after birth. The other had cerebral palsy and died at
Speaker 1: the age of fourteen. These were Jane's sisters.
Speaker 4: We actually had the grandkids living with us because my
Speaker 4: daughter had a married married their partner that split up.
Speaker 4: Our granddaughter died and when she was fourteen, the one
Speaker 4: that had cerebral pausing, and when we built the house,
Speaker 4: it was one of the bedrooms her wheelchair and the
Speaker 4: main bathroom could go in and out. Because there were
Speaker 4: six children, four girls and two boys, and then the
Speaker 4: three girls, their stepfather said that he couldn't keep them.
Speaker 4: He had the two boys. Harriet had died by this time,
Speaker 4: so they came and lived here.
Speaker 1: So you took on a parenting role for your.
Speaker 4: Grandparents, probably, but had kind of that role right from
Speaker 4: the beginning because it was hard work. When Harriet was born,
Speaker 4: Gabrielle died, and her twin and then Harriet, she was
Speaker 4: only going to live four days, and then it was
Speaker 4: four months, and it just went like that, and each
Speaker 4: time that she had seizure she got worse. So it
Speaker 4: got to the stage where she had a track here,
Speaker 4: you know, in the stomach to be fed, and couldn't move,
Speaker 4: couldn't say anything, So it's constant.
Speaker 1: Lorraine and Peter, like Glenn Picard, had done well out
Speaker 1: of the mining boom and from Lorraine's hairdressing business. They'd
Speaker 1: invested heavily in property and we're planning to use the
Speaker 1: money to help put their grandkids through university and generally
Speaker 1: just give them a leg up in life. They met
Speaker 1: Hamies through their granddaughter Jane, at a local restaurant.
Speaker 4: The first original meeting was we went to a Chinese restaurant.
Speaker 4: They were there. We walked over and just said eloso.
Speaker 4: Were introduced in the conversation. He knew that Peter was
Speaker 4: trying to get back into his single kayak because he
Speaker 4: lost his balance, so he was trying to still wanted
Speaker 4: to do kayaking, So Hamish was kayaking over near the
Speaker 4: WRECKI and said come out and I'll help you. So
Speaker 4: that's how.
Speaker 2: We went there.
Speaker 4: And then the next minute when we got out of
Speaker 4: the water, etc. He said, you got a minute to talk.
Speaker 1: Hamish also knew that Peter was about to finalize his
Speaker 1: compensation payment from his mining accident in two thousand and four.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's where it all started.
Speaker 1: And so you went out kayaking on the lake. Yep.
Speaker 5: He knew what he's doing right from the start. Just
Speaker 5: cond me No, I just said he had something coming up.
Speaker 5: It was real good investment. If I had any spare money,
Speaker 5: I could he get me in on the ground.
Speaker 1: What did you think of this line?
Speaker 4: Well, I just said to them, well, you know, we'll listen.
Speaker 4: You can come around to the house, which he did
Speaker 4: in min Crescent, and yeah, he just told us what
Speaker 4: they were doing and were at the time had an
Speaker 4: overdraft because when Pete had the Act, our bank manager
Speaker 4: got a five hundred and sixty thousand overdraft because we
Speaker 4: were in debt for six hundred seven hundred I think
Speaker 4: at the time of his accident, plus like payments and
Speaker 4: everything that we had to do so just to keep
Speaker 4: it till his court case came about. So I hadn't
Speaker 4: actually canceled that. So I just said to him, well,
Speaker 4: we'll could tribe with one hundred and fifty to start with.
Speaker 1: Hamish became part of their family, dropping in for cups
Speaker 1: of tea, taking Peter out for drives.
Speaker 4: Used to say that I was like a big sister
Speaker 4: to him because I used to say, lot, Grandma, because
Speaker 4: we're grandmother and Nana popped to so many people, and
Speaker 4: he said, no, you're like a big sister to me.
Speaker 4: He said, You're family.
Speaker 1: Returns on their money were eyewatering.
Speaker 4: The first meeting, he said that it's now the thing is,
Speaker 4: it's worth three million. And I just sat there and
Speaker 4: I just looked. I was actually numb, didn't say anything.
Speaker 4: I don't know. Sometimes along the way I think I
Speaker 4: had a gut feeling that was garbage. But anyway, the
Speaker 4: next thing was we got a phone call or he
Speaker 4: said that, I mean, I'm able to get more units.
Speaker 4: Are you interested? So we invested more money, the whole
Speaker 4: hundred five hundred thousand we gave him eventually, and then
Speaker 4: we eventually gave him the super and it just went
Speaker 4: from there to another mining thing. The last lot he
Speaker 4: said he invested it all into.
Speaker 2: He worked for.
Speaker 4: Golden Garb and Sacks Sacks.
Speaker 1: How much did you pay over the rain all told?
Speaker 4: All told, I think it worked out to be one
Speaker 4: point seven that we gave him. But see we'd sold
Speaker 4: our house in Lynn Crescent, which was four hundred thousand
Speaker 4: that we gave him, because we ended up selling all
Speaker 4: by the units to get up here, but we ended
Speaker 4: up having to sell the units anyway.
Speaker 1: During this time, Jane began traveling with Hamish down to
Speaker 1: Sydney supposedly to learn the ropes of the world of finance.
Speaker 1: Hamish promised her that a business in Sydney he had
Speaker 1: connections with would sponsor her to go to Princeton University
Speaker 1: in the US.
Speaker 4: All the teachers at school wanted to do, Oh, you
Speaker 4: should do this, you should do that. And I just
Speaker 4: said to her, you know, to be in finance, it
Speaker 4: would be a good thing for you to do, not
Speaker 4: knowing that it was what it was.
Speaker 1: Did you have concerns about her going down there with
Speaker 1: him or you thought it was you thought it was
Speaker 1: one of a good thing.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 4: I thought that would be good for her, that she
Speaker 4: would go to unidown there.
Speaker 1: Didn't think that there was anything nefarious about it at
Speaker 1: that stage. M hm hm. And she told you that
Speaker 1: there was going to be a Princeton scholarship.
Speaker 2: No, he did, didn't he He did.
Speaker 5: He took her over there, didn't he.
Speaker 1: And he took her to the US US and she.
Speaker 4: Took it to exam or something.
Speaker 1: He said. Did you have any concerns at that stage
Speaker 1: of what him taking her at US?
Speaker 4: No? They had a lady go with him. They had
Speaker 4: a well that's what what he said. A chaperone or
Speaker 4: whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 1: I don't think there was anyone went did she have
Speaker 1: a relationship with him as well?
Speaker 2: You'd have to ask her.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I mean that she's a seven annear old
Speaker 1: girl that stage. Yeah, that's pretty a barrant behavior. I
Speaker 1: would have thought for a forty eight year old guy,
Speaker 1: just a con man m because you know, she's very vulnerable.
Speaker 5: That's what he worked on. Everybody but vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Beck Rosen was not the only one who had concerns
Speaker 1: about Jane and her relationship with Hamish fashion designer Lisa
Speaker 1: Hoe did too.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 6: The story that we were fed was that was one
Speaker 6: of Beck's boys girlfriends and that she was particularly bright
Speaker 6: and that had a mentoring role in supporting her so
Speaker 6: that she could travel overseas for an opportunity to maybe study.
Speaker 2: Overseas at Princeton.
Speaker 6: I can't remember exactly which university was, but that they
Speaker 6: wanted to give her an opportunity.
Speaker 1: As it happens, Lisa Hoe has a holiday house up
Speaker 1: at Bluey's Beach.
Speaker 2: I met maybe twice.
Speaker 6: I remember one time when I was on holidays with
Speaker 6: my children and we were at home at the holiday
Speaker 6: house and he turned up. You know, in the kitchen
Speaker 6: in tow and they'd apparently been on a run, and
Speaker 6: she was apparently quite athletic, and so they used to
Speaker 6: go on regular runs together. And then another time when
Speaker 6: my daughter and I were having a manicure, and I
Speaker 6: don't know, he must have seen my car parked in
Speaker 6: the street and he's bounded in, bare chested, bare feet.
Speaker 6: The two of them looked as if they'd well. They
Speaker 6: said they'd been to the beach and they were covered
Speaker 6: in sand. And I thought, that's sort of odd. Sunday afternoon,
Speaker 6: you're with like this young girl and he'd been to
Speaker 6: the beach. This was in Sydney, in Sydney and Paddington actually,
Speaker 6: and I thought, well, why would you come and sort
Speaker 6: of present her to my daughter? And I like, I
Speaker 6: found that a bit odd.
Speaker 1: Did you think at that stage that there was something
Speaker 1: more than mentoring going on?
Speaker 6: I for the first time. Probably that's when I thought
Speaker 6: something doesn't stack up. I wonder if Beck knows about this,
Speaker 6: or is she comfortable? But to be honest, he kept
Speaker 6: Beck away from us.
Speaker 1: Hamish was skilled at keeping various aspects of his life separate.
Speaker 1: He would spread rumors and lies, pitting people against each
Speaker 1: other lest they get together and compare notes. As you'd imagine,
Speaker 1: the relationship between Jane and Hamish was causing serious problems
Speaker 1: in Beck and Hamish's marriage.
Speaker 2: That's really when I started spending a lot of time
Speaker 2: in Sydney with Hamish, going down to allegedly work.
Speaker 1: For This is the internship Hamish had supposedly lined up
Speaker 1: for Jane at a business in Sydney.
Speaker 2: And that it meant she was going to be offered
Speaker 2: at the end of her internship, they'd pay for her
Speaker 2: to do a degree at Princeton in New York.
Speaker 1: She expressed her concerns to Hamish. He brushed them aside,
Speaker 1: It's why are you.
Speaker 2: So unhappy for her? It's just just because Jack's not
Speaker 2: that smart. It's really clever. Like that's when he really
Speaker 2: started putting the boot into Jack, which of course made
Speaker 2: me even more furious and devastated and hurt. And he
Speaker 2: told me gave him like five hundred dollars and he
Speaker 2: started investing or trading for her, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: like she's getting handed kind of like two thousand dollars
Speaker 2: here and there to her at seventeen sixteen, who'd never
Speaker 2: had a haircut.
Speaker 1: Before One day, Hamish came home with what he said
Speaker 1: was big and exciting news.
Speaker 2: He said, I've got great news. The internships come through
Speaker 2: and he's going to go on a trip to New
Speaker 2: York to go to Princeton and do a walk through
Speaker 2: the university, and yeah, I have three weeks in the States.
Speaker 2: And I just went, like my stomach just dropped, and
Speaker 2: I knew straight away, and I went, be fucking kidding me,
Speaker 2: And he goes, what's your problem? Why can't you be
Speaker 2: excited for her? And we were sitting, all of us
Speaker 2: in the family and she's sitting there, and I said,
Speaker 2: I just was gobsmacks. I got up, I left the thing,
Speaker 2: and I went to a girlfriend's around the corner. He
Speaker 2: then came over because I'd said, this is happening, you know.
Speaker 2: I told my girlfriend he's saying that he's taking overseas,
Speaker 2: but he's not going.
Speaker 1: Hamis told beck that the owner of the business was
Speaker 1: going with Jane, and.
Speaker 2: I just think this is all bullshit, Like what is
Speaker 2: going on. He then convinced me it was all above board.
Speaker 2: But two days later he said, oh, can you believe it?
Speaker 2: I have to go to China at the same time
Speaker 2: that this trip is booked for the internship trip to
Speaker 2: Print University, And I said, are you serious? And he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to tell you this once. If you
Speaker 2: meet up with them, if you see her over there,
Speaker 2: it's it. I'm done, like it's over. He went, are
Speaker 2: you giving me an ultimatum? And I said, yeah, I am.
Speaker 2: If you do, then that's it. Don't come back. So
Speaker 2: then they all go off on this trip. He's away
Speaker 2: for two weeks or two and a half weeks. They
Speaker 2: come back. First thing I say is did you meet
Speaker 2: up with them? And he went I saw them for
Speaker 2: a minute at La Airport, but that was it, and
Speaker 2: I just completely lost it.
Speaker 1: Beck recalls the utter humiliation of having her son's seventeen
Speaker 1: year old girlfriend come in and lecture.
Speaker 2: Her and I'm sitting there balling my eyes out. She
Speaker 2: sat on the end of the bed. She went, you
Speaker 2: really need to stop interfering in my relationship with Hamish
Speaker 2: and my relationship with Jack. This is an internship. Yes
Speaker 2: we caught up with him, but you really have no
Speaker 2: right to make an ultimatum like that that you made
Speaker 2: to him. This is something you and I need to
Speaker 2: discuss with a glass of wine on the veranda. This
Speaker 2: was a seventeen year old girl who was my son's girlfriend,
Speaker 2: and I was just born and Jack was sitting there
Speaker 2: rubbing her back and I remember thinking, is this actually happening?
Speaker 2: Am I What is going on?
Speaker 1: That was shortly before Christmas twenty thirteen. Jack and Jane
Speaker 1: broke up that Christmas. They'd both finished school and she
Speaker 1: moved to Sydney. Hamish never really returned to the house
Speaker 1: at blew His Beach. He was living at the apartment
Speaker 1: on the finger Wharf at Willemloo, the apartment he'd bought
Speaker 1: with other people's money.
Speaker 2: I'd gone down to. There was a hairdresser around in
Speaker 2: Potts Point that I used to go to sometimes, and
Speaker 2: I went in to get my hair done and the
Speaker 2: hairdresser said to me back, you know that Hamish's bringing
Speaker 2: that your son's girlfriend, because because i'd taken that's where
Speaker 2: i'd taken her for a first tear cup. You know
Speaker 2: that Hamish's bringing her in here and paying six hundred
Speaker 2: bucks for her to get head done. And I was
Speaker 2: like what and he said yeah. I said, he's sure,
Speaker 2: and he's like, yeah. The white Porsche out the front,
Speaker 2: you know, drops her off, then picks her up.
Speaker 1: For years afterwards, Beck would be dealing with a host
Speaker 1: of dodger Carly says, HAMI should forged her signature. She
Speaker 1: and her father went to the Porsche dealership in Sydney.
Speaker 1: They spoke to the manager to try and sort it out.
Speaker 2: We show him the document and he goes, oh, look,
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about this and I didn't sign this.
Speaker 2: And they get the financial guy in who goes, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: like I organized that for Hamish And we're like, who's
Speaker 2: this person who's witnessed it and he's just a kid
Speaker 2: at a desk, And they ended up saying, look, we
Speaker 2: just kind of work on a basis of trust with customers,
Speaker 2: like customers that we know. Hamish always told us that
Speaker 2: you didn't like coming to Sydney, that you had a
Speaker 2: bit of agroaphobia, so he even said he I think
Speaker 2: he even said he had supplied photos of you signing
Speaker 2: the documents, which he didn't because I never signed anything
Speaker 2: and it's rubbish. After that first one, we found about
Speaker 2: another three or four.
Speaker 1: Previously, we tried to interview Jack rosen Beck's oldest son,
Speaker 1: but he declined. However, after last week's episode, he sent
Speaker 1: me this text message, I've just listened to Mum's podcast. Amazing,
Speaker 1: thank you for telling this story. Already I feel better
Speaker 1: about everything. The podcast brought back up what I'd tried
Speaker 1: to push down and forget, and it feels good. Jack
Speaker 1: is about to graduate from a four year science degree
Speaker 1: at Newcastle University. On the weekend, I drove up to
Speaker 1: Newcastle to interview him in the bedroom of your sharehouse.
Speaker 1: He sat in his bed beneath the pink void past up.
Speaker 1: Jack's formative years were spent with Hamish. It's so confusing
Speaker 1: because in some ways, he says Hamish was a positive influence.
Speaker 1: Because of Hamish, Jack never took drugs or drank during
Speaker 1: those years.
Speaker 7: So he taught me how to surf, and he got
Speaker 7: me into fitness, like we do Trithlons together and a
Speaker 7: lot of boxing, like every afternoon we train, and you know,
Speaker 7: we built a pretty strong relationship on that, I thought,
Speaker 7: and I trusted him a lot through it and believed
Speaker 7: a lot of the things that he was saying, because
Speaker 7: he was so good at building you up and just
Speaker 7: you know, making you think that you were going to
Speaker 7: be all these things and that all these really great
Speaker 7: things were going to happen and everything if you just
Speaker 7: listened to what he said and you know, just followed
Speaker 7: his lead kind of thing. He just seemed like someone
Speaker 7: you could really trust.
Speaker 1: Jack said, Hamish came into their lives when they were
Speaker 1: all at a very low point after his parents' separation.
Speaker 7: And she was still getting over that definitely. But that's
Speaker 7: why I guess he was so appealing because she was
Speaker 7: in such a state and we all were, you know,
Speaker 7: even me and my younger brothers, like we didn't really
Speaker 7: have a father figure or anything like that, and he
Speaker 7: really filled that role.
Speaker 1: And then he was betrayed by his stepfather and the
Speaker 1: girl he loved.
Speaker 7: They were quite close, but I never I never really
Speaker 7: suspected anything. I trusted them both so much, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: and they both were, you know, very important people in
Speaker 7: my lives, you know, which, like I said, I bestowed
Speaker 7: so much trust into both of them. I think it's just, yeah,
Speaker 7: the fact that she was so young and you know,
Speaker 7: didn't have a great upbringing. I don't it's it's hard,
Speaker 7: but I'm not angry or I don't blame her for anything.
Speaker 7: It's it was definitely like he was the one who
Speaker 7: had the plan, master plan, and she was just you know,
Speaker 7: a part of it.
Speaker 1: Jack says, when Hamish first sold the story of Jane's
Speaker 1: internship down in Sydney, he was very supportive.
Speaker 7: Because she was really smart and she was going to
Speaker 7: do great things, and she had a pretty shitty family life,
Speaker 7: and I think she saw the opportunity and I thought
Speaker 7: it was great because I thought, you know, she could
Speaker 7: really make something of herself, and Hamish has the resources
Speaker 7: to do that and facilitate whatever it is that she
Speaker 7: wants to do.
Speaker 1: And what did she talk when she went down to Sydney.
Speaker 1: Did she say that she was going into an office
Speaker 1: down there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what did she say? She told me that she'd
Speaker 3: go into the office.
Speaker 7: She'd help with kind of little things like coffee runs
Speaker 7: and sitting in on meetings and just basically observing what
Speaker 7: they're doing and how they do things. But she'd always
Speaker 7: have these, you know, come back with these really nice clothes,
Speaker 7: or her hair would be done or you know.
Speaker 1: Jack has spent the years since trying to process what happened.
Speaker 7: There's so many stories that are you know, even just
Speaker 7: Hamish as well, like that, all the stories that he
Speaker 7: always told me when I was growing up and like that,
Speaker 7: I had even built models on are just I don't
Speaker 7: know if you.
Speaker 3: Know their fact or fiction or like.
Speaker 7: That's when you're developing as a person and you need
Speaker 7: like a role model kind of thing to base that off.
Speaker 7: And it's hard when it's someone like that because you
Speaker 7: don't know, you know, it's it's all bullshit, It could
Speaker 7: all be bullshit.
Speaker 1: Has it taken a while to kind of get over.
Speaker 3: Them, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 7: I mean when it all kind of came out, I
Speaker 7: was not good for a while, and even still I can't.
Speaker 7: I find it so difficult to trust people on both
Speaker 7: ends because of it as well, like a father, you know,
Speaker 7: role model, and then also my girlfriend, who like your
Speaker 7: first love kind of thing is so.
Speaker 1: Because effectively your stepfather slept with your girl.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they had an affair for I don't know how long,
Speaker 7: but we're thinking, you know, at least eight months kind
Speaker 7: of thing.
Speaker 1: Sometime after she fled Blue's Beach, Jack got back in
Speaker 1: contact with Jane. He needed some answers.
Speaker 7: I think I wanted to contact her because Mum was
Speaker 7: still unsure about everything and we just wanted closure and
Speaker 7: we just wanted to hear it from her voice. I
Speaker 7: guess even though it's not not that important, but it
Speaker 7: sort of.
Speaker 3: Was to us. Well.
Speaker 7: She said that she had just been having an affair
Speaker 7: with Hamish and he'd basically been grooming her, buying her
Speaker 7: gifts and taking her out, you know, it's nice sinners,
Speaker 7: and letting her ride in porsches and flying her to
Speaker 7: know the US and whatnot. And I know that they
Speaker 7: had a sexu relationship, and you know, they'd spend a
Speaker 7: lot of time together. It kind of shifted from Hamish
Speaker 7: and I are training and doing things all the time
Speaker 7: to doing things all the time, and it's almost like
Speaker 7: she kind of took that spot and.
Speaker 3: The spotlight.
Speaker 1: I guess, gosh, it must have been confusing for your mom.
Speaker 3: Righto oh yeah.
Speaker 7: That was probably the worst thing about it was the
Speaker 7: fact that he could infiltrate off like our family unit
Speaker 7: and turn me and my brother's against my mum. I
Speaker 7: can recall one occasion when I was sitting on the
Speaker 7: bed with my mom and Mom was making these accusations
Speaker 7: that had been sleeping with Hamish and all these things
Speaker 7: have been happening, and I just I thought she was crazy.
Speaker 3: I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker 5: Mom?
Speaker 7: Like why would Hamish ever do this to us? What
Speaker 7: you know, are you just getting jealous that they're doing
Speaker 7: things and that she's doing all these great things in
Speaker 7: her life. But yeah, it.
Speaker 3: Was really hard, It was all true.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I felt really betrayed and a bit silly, but
Speaker 7: I still in a way felt sorry as well, because
Speaker 7: she was only so young, and like I said, she
Speaker 7: didn't have the greatest upbringing, and I think she just
Speaker 7: saw it as.
Speaker 3: A way out.
Speaker 7: And as well because my mum took her in as
Speaker 7: almost like her daughter, like she'd look after her and
Speaker 7: they'd go down to Sydney together on trips, and I
Speaker 7: really loved that they had a strong bond as well,
Speaker 7: and that was probably you know, another thing that really
Speaker 7: really hurt me was the fact that she did that
Speaker 7: to my mom as well.
Speaker 3: Probably more than.
Speaker 7: How it felt about what she did to me, was
Speaker 7: how much she betrayed my mom as well.
Speaker 1: Jack says he's happy that finally Hamish's story is being
Speaker 1: told and that Hamie she's not the one controlling the narrative.
Speaker 7: I think it was just nice to hear that other
Speaker 7: people had felt a similar way to how we had felt,
Speaker 7: and also that our story was only such a small
Speaker 7: part of this bigger thing that has come out, which
Speaker 7: is so great that you know, all these people are
Speaker 7: coming forward and the story is being told truthfully, which
Speaker 7: is something that Hamish's never done. He's never told his
Speaker 7: story the right way, and it seems like through this podcast,
Speaker 7: his story is going to be told properly and he's
Speaker 7: going to be brought to justice, which is I think
Speaker 7: all that we can really ask for it.
Speaker 1: At this point, he's still working his way through what
Speaker 1: it all meant.
Speaker 7: I think definitely just the way that it hurt my
Speaker 7: mum because it took her ages to get over it,
Speaker 7: and just the trust thing.
Speaker 3: I find it still so difficult to trust people, especially.
Speaker 7: Especially you know, like people that I'm intimate with or
Speaker 7: I'm really scared to get close with a lot of
Speaker 7: people because I always have this thing in the back
Speaker 7: of my head where I think that they're trying to somehow,
Speaker 7: you know, play me or get something out of me.
Speaker 1: When Haimi spok from his mother, Jack tried to contact him.
Speaker 7: Once I found out everything, more more than anything, I
Speaker 7: just wanted to understand why, and you know, I wanted
Speaker 7: to know what happened and why he did it just
Speaker 7: for closure, and he just couldn't even give that to me.
Speaker 7: He's so spineless, you know. He'd happily talk to you
Speaker 7: about anything, or be there and comfort you when he
Speaker 7: wanted something from you, But as soon as he was
Speaker 7: done with you, it was just like he didn't exist anymore.
Speaker 7: You couldn't couldn't get to him, wouldn't give you a
Speaker 7: second of his time.
Speaker 3: I think I just I just really want to understand
Speaker 3: how how he works.
Speaker 7: I feel like I've moved on past the stages of
Speaker 7: being really angry at him, and you know, I just
Speaker 7: want to understand why and how he could do it,
Speaker 7: and like just what goes on in his head? How
Speaker 7: did he get away with it for so long?
Speaker 3: How? There's so many questions?
Speaker 1: So what became of the million dollars Jane's grandparents invested
Speaker 1: with Hamish? At one stage he told them that their
Speaker 1: investment was worth more than ten million. It was a lie.
Speaker 1: The money is gone and no one knows where. The
Speaker 1: damage he caused was immense. Firstly, he ruined the relationship
Speaker 1: between Jane and Jack. Do you think Hamuch split that
Speaker 1: up as well?
Speaker 4: Split it split them up?
Speaker 5: Ye?
Speaker 1: For a while, Hamish was depositing eight thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: month in their account for them to live on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it didn't last. Like I was continually on
Speaker 4: the phone after I don't know, maybe one year, two
Speaker 4: years or something after two saying we need money.
Speaker 2: And what would he say, Yes.
Speaker 4: Loss, it's coming, I'll get it. Da da da, Just
Speaker 4: things like that. I always had an excuse. I mean
Speaker 4: it was numerous times I said to him, right, well,
Speaker 4: you know, I think we'll pull out. The last time
Speaker 4: I said I'll have two and a half million, thanks,
Speaker 4: and he said, well that's not plausible. Sorry, Loss. And
Speaker 4: as if I tried, it would just feed as dribbles.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't he Yeah, bits and pieces here and there. Then
Speaker 5: in the end he wouldn't have a meeting with us.
Speaker 5: Always won the meet on over the phone. Yeah, what
Speaker 5: do you call it? You know when you can look
Speaker 5: at each other and yeah, if I meet with you,
Speaker 5: I want to be sitting at a table.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I've been caught on the highway. And it was
Speaker 4: always an excuse.
Speaker 1: They feel terrible for recommending Hamish to their mates, Glen
Speaker 1: and Vicki Picard.
Speaker 4: We'll still talk on the phone with them and Glenn
Speaker 4: often if anything came up or something came up in
Speaker 4: the paper. I think it was about Hamish. So he said,
Speaker 4: you know who's seen this and send it through, sends
Speaker 4: a message when it's our birthday, that sort of scenario.
Speaker 2: But we're all very busy.
Speaker 1: And what do you have left now? This us this house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have to sell this house to downsize to
Speaker 1: be able to live.
Speaker 4: Is that that's what they plan. But over time we
Speaker 4: come back here when I come back, because we've been
Speaker 4: away for two and a half months up at our sons,
Speaker 4: and I look at it and I think, I don't
Speaker 4: know whether I want to leave. But you know, got
Speaker 4: to be sensible about it, because we're still young.
Speaker 1: How old you can I ask?
Speaker 5: Sixty seven sixty seven, Peter sixty eight, sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Right. And what of Jane, the Great Hope of the
Speaker 1: Great Lakes. Well, the scholarship to Princeton never materialized. Her
Speaker 1: grandma tells me she's working in a clothes shop in
Speaker 1: a town further off the coast. In a text message
Speaker 1: Jane sent me, she said, of Hamish, I firmly believe
Speaker 1: he will pay for all he has done.
Speaker 2: So it's yet eighteen birthday night he's my middle son
Speaker 2: and brother.
Speaker 1: Their band perform.
Speaker 2: We're a bit scared because it's a Facebook invitation and
Speaker 2: i'm security and adults.
Speaker 1: Tonight there's an eighteenth birthday for one of Beck's sons.
Speaker 1: It's a time for reflection. What a train wreck those
Speaker 1: Hamie shes were for all of them, Beck, her boys, Jane,
Speaker 1: Jane's grandparents, Varin and Peter. What they don't know is
Speaker 1: that none of this should have happened. Hamie should never
Speaker 1: have showed up in blue his beach with a beautiful
Speaker 1: woman on his arm. Beck Rosen should never have fallen
Speaker 1: in love with a guy who had run off with
Speaker 1: Jack's sweetheart. Jane should have finished university by now instead
Speaker 1: of being lied to about Princeton. Glenn Picard should be
Speaker 1: kayaking down the coast and then enjoying a beer overlooking
Speaker 1: the water with his wife Vicky. Tracy Hall should never
Speaker 1: have woken one morning to find out the man she
Speaker 1: loved existed. He manipulated and deceived them all. But it
Speaker 1: should never have happened. Why Because HAMI should have been
Speaker 1: in jail In two thousand and seven, the New South
Speaker 1: Wales Fraud Squad and the Australian Federal Police will sent
Speaker 1: a bundle of documents. The covering letter outlined more than
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars worth of fraud committed by Hamish Watson
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and early two thousands. One of
Speaker 1: Hamish's victims had spent years compiling evidence of his crimes.
Speaker 1: This should have been the outline of a solid brief
Speaker 1: of evidence that would have put him behind bars for years,
Speaker 1: but Hamish slipped the net yet again. Who the Hell
Speaker 1: Is Hamish's brought to you by The Australian newspaper. It
Speaker 1: was written and presented by me Greg Barer and produced
Speaker 1: by Nicholas Adams Jazzbar. The executive producer is Eric George.
Speaker 1: If you know more about Hamish, please contact us at
Speaker 1: Hamish Podcast at the Australian dot com dot au. You
Speaker 1: can subscribe to this series in your podcast app of
Speaker 1: choice to keep track of all future episodes. To learn
Speaker 1: more about our investigation, head to who the Hell Is
Speaker 1: Hamish dot com dot au. They will also find additional material,
Speaker 1: including this week's bonus episode, an extended interview with Jack Rosen.
Speaker 1: If issues in this episode have cause distress, please call
Speaker 1: a lifeline on one three double one one four