Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys, staid,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of I Catch Killers. If I
Speaker 1: met today's guests twenty years ago, I would have said
Speaker 1: he's going to an early grave or spending the rest
Speaker 1: of his life in prison see claud Robertson. Our guest
Speaker 1: has been ad by a Lebano's gang. He's been shot,
Speaker 1: he's been addicted to heroin. He served lengthy sentences in prison,
Speaker 1: but was in jar with notorious murderers like Ivan Malatt
Speaker 1: and the Granny Killer. His life for crime saded when
Speaker 1: he was just ten when he was arrested for breaking
Speaker 1: into cars. A few years later, he became addicted to
Speaker 1: drugs and soon became a drug dealer in Sydney's notorious
Speaker 1: King's Cross. He was heading down a path of self destruction,
Speaker 1: but he's turned his life around big time and he's
Speaker 1: making a difference in the criminal justice system. I first
Speaker 1: met Claude after I'd left the police, at a formal
Speaker 1: invitation only function at New South Wales Government House. The
Speaker 1: function was about criminal justice reform. It's safe to say
Speaker 1: Claude and I stood out a little bit from the crowd.
Speaker 1: Since he last walked out of prison almost seventeen years ago.
Speaker 1: Claude has turned his life around and today he's going
Speaker 1: to tell us his story and I dare say open
Speaker 1: our eyes up to problems within the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a really interesting chat.
Speaker 1: Claude Robertson, Welcome to I catchkell.
Speaker 2: Thanks Garry, A pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, we always seem to meet in these really formal settings.
Speaker 1: The first time I met you was at Government House.
Speaker 2: There's true and I was the last time I wore.
Speaker 1: A suit, a bit of a shing dig with all
Speaker 1: the politicians and the senior members of the legal fraternity.
Speaker 3: It was I remember walking down the long path to
Speaker 3: the government House and the security the security guards were
Speaker 3: dressed immaculately, you know, and he asked my name was
Speaker 3: on the list, and yeah, he gave me directions. And
Speaker 3: it's quite an imposing you know, with the paintings are huge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is an imposing building. When I was in
Speaker 1: the cops, I spent a bit of time there when
Speaker 1: I was doing close personal protection, anitary protection, and have
Speaker 1: times there. But it is an intimidating place and it
Speaker 1: is I got to say, looking around the room, I
Speaker 1: saw of checking out who's there, And the director of
Speaker 1: the DPP was there, and there was judges there and
Speaker 1: politicians there, and I looked around and think, what am
Speaker 1: I doing here. I've just been out of the cops,
Speaker 1: criminally charged, convicted, and I was quite happy I've got
Speaker 1: an invite there. And I look around the room, I
Speaker 1: saw you and I thought, yeah, I reckon, I can
Speaker 1: talk talk to this.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I probably felt very very similar there were
Speaker 3: I remember I think the governor got up and introduced
Speaker 3: and I just remember her entry into the room and I.
Speaker 2: Thought, wow, this is really formal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and she's got up and spoke and
Speaker 3: yeah it was. And I was sitting there very similar thing,
Speaker 3: you know, as you said that the former DPP was there,
Speaker 3: who was in charge of it when I was incarcerating
Speaker 3: New South Wales.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, but I thought it was good because
Speaker 1: that was it was on justice reform and jailing's failing
Speaker 1: and different things about that. It's healthy to have those
Speaker 1: people sitting there talking, talking to people like yourself with
Speaker 1: life experience, people that have been on the other side
Speaker 1: law me as a cop and getting people's opinions. So
Speaker 1: it feels progressive.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The solution involves everyone, you know, I don't. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm not one of those people. But just because I've
Speaker 3: lived experience doesn't I don't believe on an expert in.
Speaker 2: Anything by my own life, but it does give me
Speaker 2: an insight.
Speaker 3: But you know, I have professional experience, and you have
Speaker 3: to take into consideration the different perspectives that everyone brings
Speaker 3: to it. If I look at it just from my perspective,
Speaker 3: is very narrow and the community is made up of
Speaker 3: lots of different people and like you said, most of
Speaker 3: the people there were represented different parts of that community.
Speaker 1: And parts of the whole justice system. Yes. Anyway, so Hobknobin,
Speaker 1: the next time I saw you was at Parliament House.
Speaker 1: It sounds like we lived the good life and that
Speaker 1: again was a formal invitation and you did a keynote
Speaker 1: there and on the back of that, I thought, I've
Speaker 1: got to get this guy on my catch killers you
Speaker 1: were very passionate. Do you want to tell us about
Speaker 1: what you were talking about there and what that function
Speaker 1: was about at New South Wales Parliament.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was invited there because I'm part of
Speaker 3: the Justice reform initiative with Mindy Satory, the amazing Mindisatory.
Speaker 3: I think that's how I got the invite to the
Speaker 3: first one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She's a good lady, she is.
Speaker 2: I've had a bit to do with her.
Speaker 3: Over the years and she knows that I've got lived
Speaker 3: experience and professional and then I'm very passionate about advocacy
Speaker 3: about changing the system. So she, you know, called me
Speaker 3: up and said could you speak you know at Parliament
Speaker 3: House we've got a couple of lived experience speakers.
Speaker 2: Gail was the other one.
Speaker 3: And funnily enough, you know, Gaila and I were in
Speaker 3: rehab together seventeen years ago. So when I as soon
Speaker 3: as I saw it was Gail and you know, and
Speaker 3: our journeys have been different, but you know, we started
Speaker 3: in that rehab coming off methadone together, so pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: And two and we had had a chat with her
Speaker 3: about that while we're in Parliament House, you know, speaking.
Speaker 1: The message you were trying to get across, because again
Speaker 1: there was a lot of politicians, senior police there, there
Speaker 1: was a whole range of people from the justice system.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look my take on it, especially you know, having that
Speaker 3: sort of powerful people there was. The economics of imprisonment
Speaker 3: don't make sense. It's you know, I pay taxes today,
Speaker 3: you know, And as I spoke about that, you know,
Speaker 3: every time we imprisoned someone, you know, you wait longer
Speaker 3: at a hospital because this not a doctor or a
Speaker 3: nurse at cost us. And I think it's a really
Speaker 3: bad investment. And I don't believe the community has an
Speaker 3: understanding of what they the non value for money they
Speaker 3: get right.
Speaker 1: I remember speaking to Tim Watson Monroe. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if you know of Tim, a criminal psychologist. He raised
Speaker 1: that very issue. He said, look, the amount of money
Speaker 1: you spend on having one person in prison, you could
Speaker 1: have a full time psychologist assigned to that person helping
Speaker 1: them get their life in order. So I think we
Speaker 1: do need to look at that, besides all the other
Speaker 1: aspects of it. From the fiscal point of view, the
Speaker 1: cost of keeping people in prison one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And I spoke to that on that very day. You
Speaker 2: know my service.
Speaker 3: So we get funded by DCJ ninety six thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a year to work with four people twelve weeks each.
Speaker 1: And the work that you're doing with those people is
Speaker 1: that at where's.
Speaker 3: That at the Rainbow Lodge here in a city of Sydney.
Speaker 3: So we work with medium, high and high risk offenders.
Speaker 3: So those are few and is a great risk of
Speaker 3: recidivision and returning to custody, so we work with them.
Speaker 3: And we also work with people on the Wallama List,
Speaker 3: which is a new initiative for First Nations people in
Speaker 3: the District Court in New South Wales.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I want to talk about that all in detail,
Speaker 1: but I also want our listeners to get an understanding
Speaker 1: of where you're coming from and your lived experience so
Speaker 1: you haven't always hung out at Parliament House and Government House.
Speaker 1: It's definitely yeah. So tell us about your upbringing.
Speaker 3: So I come from Melbourne originally. I grew up in
Speaker 3: a big Catholic family. So I'm number five of six kids.
Speaker 1: Good Catholics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good Catholics, you know, believe it or not. Altar
Speaker 3: Boy forced religion. And when I look back on my childhood,
Speaker 3: what I understand now that led me on the path
Speaker 3: that I went on was that the message I got
Speaker 3: really early was that the adults in my life were incongruent.
Speaker 3: What they said and what they did were two different things.
Speaker 3: And I'm talking six seven years old. I'd work this
Speaker 3: out and I found that, for whatever reason, really damaging.
Speaker 1: Was sending you mixed messages.
Speaker 2: As a child, it was, Yeah, I didn't know where
Speaker 2: my safety was.
Speaker 3: You know, I say to people, you know, I could
Speaker 3: behave the same way in two days and get two
Speaker 3: different outcomes. And as a child, I understand now as
Speaker 3: an adult and the work I do, how damaging that
Speaker 3: is because it doesn't have any safety.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you break it down, I'm just thinking, in
Speaker 1: that strange world that you live in as a child,
Speaker 1: if you're getting inconsistent messages from parents or people in authority.
Speaker 1: It's acceptable to do that one day and then next
Speaker 1: day you're in trouble. Yeah, yeah, I can see how
Speaker 1: it plays with.
Speaker 2: You and LinkedIn with the Catholicism.
Speaker 3: You know, because my parents were from that where you
Speaker 3: had to go to church and you know, and I
Speaker 3: had to be an older boy, and you know, the
Speaker 3: memories I have from that. I remember where I was
Speaker 3: an altar boy. On the Sunday, my team played AFL
Speaker 3: football over the fence and I had to sit in
Speaker 3: the church and miss the first quarter every week, and
Speaker 3: I could hear my mates yelling out to me, and
Speaker 3: that was just such a painful thing because I hated.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be there.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I wasn't an alder boy because I wanted to. I
Speaker 2: was forced.
Speaker 3: And the other thing was that I saw in my
Speaker 3: community that you know, on a Sunday, everyone went to
Speaker 3: this church and dressed up and pretended the world was perfect.
Speaker 3: Yet you know, during the week, they're sleeping with each other,
Speaker 3: they're bashing their wives, like like I remember going into
Speaker 3: a mate's house to pick him up one Sunday to
Speaker 3: go and kick the footy.
Speaker 2: Or whatever you do with kids.
Speaker 3: The door was off, there was a knife in the wall.
Speaker 3: It was like it was and I didn't think anything
Speaker 3: of it, and I just walked down to his room
Speaker 3: and kicked it, you know, banged on the door, grabbed
Speaker 3: the footy, and walked out, you know. And I think
Speaker 3: about even that talking about it, and I just go, well,
Speaker 3: that's just so insane.
Speaker 2: But that's what it was like.
Speaker 3: I remember on one occasion going down the street read
Speaker 3: and I saw a few of the people I knew
Speaker 3: from church carrying the priest out into the car because
Speaker 3: he was so drunk. Because they would drop around your
Speaker 3: house in those days, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I look, one thing I don't like in life
Speaker 1: is hypocrisy. And I don't want to attack the church
Speaker 1: or agen or whatever, but let's just call it for
Speaker 1: what it is. Yeah, I don't like the hypocrisy of
Speaker 1: present one way, but then the real fact you're a
Speaker 1: completely different person.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that fed into the you know, the incongruence
Speaker 3: of the adults. And then I saw all these and
Speaker 3: I was like, so the message that I understand now
Speaker 3: that I got was that the world was hostile. Fuck everyone.
Speaker 3: You get what you can anyway you can get it,
Speaker 3: you know. And I started stealing money from my parents
Speaker 3: when I was seven eight years old to go to
Speaker 3: the tuck shop and you know, and it just led
Speaker 3: me down that path.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's interesting you say that, like stealing. I think,
Speaker 1: as kids, well I can put my hand up. We
Speaker 1: all go through that stage where he's an opportunity and
Speaker 1: you take it. But then you get caught and you
Speaker 1: think of the consequences, and then you start as you
Speaker 1: get older, you realize it's wrong. But as a child,
Speaker 1: you can go off track pretty easy.
Speaker 3: Cant I did, And you know, I know went off
Speaker 3: track because you know, I two of the primary schools
Speaker 3: I went to, you know, I was expelled from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw you. You managed to do two primary
Speaker 1: schools and two high schools.
Speaker 2: I did the high schools.
Speaker 3: I can understand, you know, Like I look at my daughter,
Speaker 3: she's ate, and I just go, how do you get expelled?
Speaker 1: How did you get expelled from a primary school?
Speaker 3: So the first primary school was the one I'd gone
Speaker 3: to from prep and was close to my house. I
Speaker 3: was just so chaotic, you know, my behaviors. I wouldn't
Speaker 3: do what I was told, and in those days there
Speaker 3: was corporal punishment. I'd have to sit up the front
Speaker 3: of the room with my hands on the desk, and
Speaker 3: he had one of those big wooden meter rulers, the teacher,
Speaker 3: and it didn't matter who did it, but he turned
Speaker 3: around and hit me, you know, and like so I
Speaker 3: just you know again, it was that message, it didn't
Speaker 3: matter whether I was doing right or wrong. I was
Speaker 3: getting punished. Our males will do wrong. So you know,
Speaker 3: they thought, we'll go to school somewhere else and believe
Speaker 3: it or not. So I went to another school because
Speaker 3: my mum was a primary school teacher.
Speaker 1: Just break this down, that thought. You always get interesting
Speaker 1: facts on my catch killers, but you got to expelled
Speaker 1: from a primary school that your mum.
Speaker 2: Was a teacher at I did. I did, so my
Speaker 2: mom's a big effort. Yeah, it is a very big effort.
Speaker 3: So I lived in Franks there's not a pretty tough
Speaker 3: place to grow up. But where my mum taught and
Speaker 3: where I played footy and went to school was a
Speaker 3: place called the pines, you know in New South Wales
Speaker 3: equivalent to eds or man draw to case housing commissioned
Speaker 3: like you know, when all the houses were pink blue
Speaker 3: or yellow and lots of burnout cars. And she taught
Speaker 3: in the school there and it was a tough school.
Speaker 3: So she went there and it was you know, I
Speaker 3: just met a whole heap of kids like me, you know,
Speaker 3: and I and I still can't remember the up to it,
Speaker 3: but I put the remember the old Galvi and I
Speaker 3: steal binge.
Speaker 2: It had at school.
Speaker 3: I put that over the vice principal, mister White and
Speaker 3: hit him with a cricket bat.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good going, how are we?
Speaker 2: I would have been like nine or ten.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I look again, like I look at my
Speaker 3: daughter and I just go, well, what was going on that?
Speaker 3: I was willing to do that and there so we
Speaker 3: didn't get the rule there. We got strapped with a
Speaker 3: thick leather strap called Freddy. And I was so you know,
Speaker 3: and I led this. I did this into my thirties.
Speaker 3: But I would go to the principal's office and then
Speaker 3: go Robinson, what are you doing here?
Speaker 2: And I go, well, let's just get it out the way.
Speaker 2: I drive him nuts, you know, because I thought it's coming.
Speaker 2: You know, I'll get a couple on credit.
Speaker 1: But punish me now because I'm going to do something stupid.
Speaker 1: When I walk out. But yeah, it's interesting when you
Speaker 1: look back at school because I went through an era
Speaker 1: where corporal punishment was there. It was the cane, and
Speaker 1: there were certain teachers, and I can see it had
Speaker 1: to be stopped because certain teachers enjoyed it too much.
Speaker 1: There was teachers that any reason they could think of,
Speaker 1: they would cane you. And it's a little bit creepy
Speaker 1: standing in the in the room with some man with
Speaker 1: your hand out and he's and you get sentenced I
Speaker 1: think six with the maximum. They could give you the
Speaker 1: six strokes and you'd be warming your hands up before
Speaker 1: you went in, but you'd come out with blood, blisters
Speaker 1: and all that. But when I say it didn't hurt,
Speaker 1: it was a bit of fun. You walked out like
Speaker 1: it was a badge of honor. Actually, and I look
Speaker 1: what I got.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And when I look back, you know, the things
Speaker 3: I remember from then aren't the physical scars, you know,
Speaker 3: it's the message, the lesson the emotional, you know. And
Speaker 3: when I tell my story, one of the things that
Speaker 3: I believed happened for me was you know that I
Speaker 3: went too you know at home that you.
Speaker 2: Know I got in trouble. I was tired. I was bad.
Speaker 2: I went to school. I was tired. I was bad.
Speaker 1: You know, becomes a self fulfilling profit.
Speaker 3: So does the police told me I was bad? I
Speaker 3: went to the courts. They told me I was bad.
Speaker 3: I dow up in prison. See, in the end, you
Speaker 3: just couple everyone's says it your males or that's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do. I think if you get that negative
Speaker 1: reinforcement in you, it's almost like you just follow the
Speaker 1: path that your lack of self worth. You got locked
Speaker 1: up by the cops when you were ten or in
Speaker 1: trouble with the cops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the ninten soo again, you know where I
Speaker 3: grew up, as it was a pretty tough place. So
Speaker 3: I'd hang out with older kids. And so we're break
Speaker 3: into cars at night. And yeah, this particular time I
Speaker 3: break into this and this. You know I must have
Speaker 3: been so this has been nineteen eighty, you know, so
Speaker 3: a long time ago. I in those days, you used
Speaker 3: to be I can't remember the make of the car,
Speaker 3: but they get me. I could stand on the roof
Speaker 3: and pop the yeah pop, the things would pop out.
Speaker 3: You didn't even need a cay to get into them.
Speaker 3: And or you could have a budget. They were quite easy,
Speaker 3: you know, back in those days. But they'd get me
Speaker 3: to walk up and jump on the roof and.
Speaker 2: Top the things, break into the car, break into the
Speaker 2: cars and.
Speaker 3: Generally, you know, most of the time we're looking for
Speaker 3: five bucks or smoke source, you know something. And this
Speaker 3: particular day, for whatever reason, this guy left his paypacket
Speaker 3: on the seat and I got the paypack and I
Speaker 3: think it had six hundred dollars in it, which was
Speaker 3: a lot of money, a lot of money. I didn't
Speaker 3: know that he lived in the local sergeant.
Speaker 1: Right, So a lot of money and six hundred dollars
Speaker 1: are going to investigate that, it's probably not too hard.
Speaker 3: Well, I remember it because and I split it up
Speaker 3: with these guys and I think maybe I took one
Speaker 3: hundred dollars, which is a huge amount of money. And
Speaker 3: it was we have the Royal Melbourne Show and it
Speaker 3: was around that time, because I know because I went
Speaker 3: with my mate the Royal Melbourne Show and came back
Speaker 3: with you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where'd you get all that clock?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, there was no criminal genius involved in it,
Speaker 3: and so you know I had to with in back
Speaker 3: those days, you didn't get in trouble.
Speaker 2: You didn't go before the courts at that age, so.
Speaker 1: I juvenile caution would have been what we can hear
Speaker 1: a police officer, you've got to gether. The superintendent speaks,
Speaker 1: you realize what you've done is wrong, Claude, you say yes,
Speaker 1: and yeah.
Speaker 3: This is where you're going to end It's funny, you know,
Speaker 3: this is where you're going to end up if this keeps.
Speaker 3: And you know, I just thought, yeah, And it was
Speaker 3: not that I I wasn't rude or disrespectful to him.
Speaker 3: And my experience with the police that was, I was
Speaker 3: never I never had that relationship with him.
Speaker 2: I just they were doing their thing. I was doing mine.
Speaker 1: You know, when did drugs start to become into your life?
Speaker 3: So do you know, due to my family situation, my
Speaker 3: first escape was sport yep, So I played a lot
Speaker 3: of sports. I was really good at tennis, you know,
Speaker 3: I played baseball for Victoria. You know, I played AFL
Speaker 3: with you know, Nathan Burke, Robert Harvey.
Speaker 1: Like really, so you have a potential career path. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I played all those sort of sports.
Speaker 3: And because I did everything to get out of the house,
Speaker 3: to not be at home and you know. One of
Speaker 3: the things I've learned because I have you know, I'm
Speaker 3: an adict of have addiction.
Speaker 2: I get obsessed or focused, so.
Speaker 1: That can be beneficial for you.
Speaker 3: So, yes, I was really whatever I set my mind.
Speaker 3: I was really good at you know, you know, I
Speaker 3: played tennis. I was a really good junior and you know,
Speaker 3: and that worked for a while, and then me and
Speaker 3: my mate.
Speaker 2: Every when we were grabbed.
Speaker 3: This is like in the early eighties, everyone had you know,
Speaker 3: cooler bar wine cast in the fridge, so you know,
Speaker 3: we'd be stealing his mums whatever at mosal or whatever
Speaker 3: and drinking that and then and I stilled it to
Speaker 3: this day. I don't know why, trying to hold the
Speaker 3: thing open and pour water back in like they were
Speaker 3: going to know that we've taken two glasses out of it.
Speaker 3: It seems crazy now, but you know, as a kid,
Speaker 3: you know, we did that, and you know it gave
Speaker 3: me the sport was good and all that, but I
Speaker 3: had to practice and train, you know, and put effort in.
Speaker 3: And you know, I remember the first time I drunk alcohol,
Speaker 3: I got that same sense of feeling.
Speaker 2: Okay, what age were you around then, twelve something like that?
Speaker 1: Quite young at that time. It's a crucial time in kids' lives,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I see it that a lot of kids
Speaker 1: you can serve and they're fine, it's that, but they
Speaker 1: can go off track very quickly. Yeah, just by perhaps
Speaker 1: being exposed to alcohol or access to different things. Definitely.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, I grew up in the seventies,
Speaker 3: this is the early eighties. And you know another thing,
Speaker 3: My grandmother was the Catholic patriarch, you know, and on
Speaker 3: Christmas Day, Christmas night we go day, we go to
Speaker 3: the other grandma's, but we go to my father's mother's
Speaker 3: house on Christmas Night. And I still remember you'd park
Speaker 3: the car and walk down to her house, and she
Speaker 3: had like a car port, very rudimentary one back in
Speaker 3: those days, and all the men would drop the eski's there,
Speaker 3: go inside, kiss the matriarch, get there lotto to get
Speaker 3: everyone got for Christmas, and walk outside and drink. And
Speaker 3: the women would stay in there and drink tea and
Speaker 3: eat scones, and the kids and you know, I always
Speaker 3: when you're about ten or eleven, you're allowed to go
Speaker 3: outside and have a shandy or a beer. And you know,
Speaker 3: I still have all I ever wanted to do, was
Speaker 3: you know, go outside and drink with the man and
Speaker 3: what would happen was you know, my uncle's and that
Speaker 3: would all get drunk and fight and argue, you know,
Speaker 3: was it like? And I thought I was attracted to
Speaker 3: that back then.
Speaker 1: The role models there, the people you're looking up to
Speaker 1: at the time. It's just a lifestyle of culture that
Speaker 1: is easy to fall into. You played in some bands
Speaker 1: or you been in the music as well.
Speaker 3: I did so I after I started drinking and you know,
Speaker 3: smoking pot, because that gave me the sense of being okay.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do sport anymore because that took
Speaker 2: hard work.
Speaker 3: So I got into music, you know, because I had
Speaker 3: some mates who are into music. And again, you know,
Speaker 3: because with that addictive personality, I set my mind to it,
Speaker 3: you know, and we did pretty well, you know, for
Speaker 3: how young we were. When I look back now, you know,
Speaker 3: we were playing in pubs at sixteen and seventeen to
Speaker 3: three or four hundred people, and well.
Speaker 1: That would have been a bit of a high for
Speaker 1: you at that stage.
Speaker 3: It was it was you know, getting up on stage,
Speaker 3: it was an adrenaline rush.
Speaker 2: And you know, I smoked pot from that pot. I smoke.
Speaker 2: This is normal. Everyone did, and you know, and then
Speaker 2: we drink, and I think that was the other thing though, So.
Speaker 3: You know, when I drunk, I've never would have beer
Speaker 3: in the fridge, like I would never come home and
Speaker 3: have a beer like I drunk to get pissed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that we'll speak more on the addiction
Speaker 1: and your understanding of it. But I see people like that.
Speaker 1: I have friends, yeah, throughout my life that, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can go home and have a drink all each night
Speaker 1: and it's not like it's why I say, it's not
Speaker 1: an addiction, but it's not a problem in any way.
Speaker 1: But then I have friends that don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to drink, I don't drink all week and then
Speaker 1: have an absolute blind They're on the weekend and just
Speaker 1: once they've had one, they need another one, another one,
Speaker 1: until they basically write themselves off. And yeah, it becomes problematic.
Speaker 3: Well, I you know, I realize looking back that I
Speaker 3: drank it for the effect, not for the enjoyment. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, I would rather have a water or a
Speaker 3: coke or something if I wanted to drink, So I'd
Speaker 3: buy alcohol and I'd drink it all.
Speaker 2: For the effect, for the effect of it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and I did music, and I don't want
Speaker 3: to put a picture across that. My parents were all
Speaker 3: bad and neglect you know, you know that shit teachers,
Speaker 3: and they did their best. You know, I was five
Speaker 3: or six. I think by the time I came along,
Speaker 3: they were tired and worn out. They're always working, you know,
Speaker 3: six kids, like I got like one at home and
Speaker 3: an older one.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, six is a lot.
Speaker 1: It's easy unless you've walked that path. I've got to
Speaker 1: that stage. It's easy to look back at life and
Speaker 1: go why didn't they do that? But quite often your
Speaker 1: parents are products of their upbringing and plays on. What
Speaker 1: about the hard drugs? When when did that? When when
Speaker 1: did you realize that it was becoming a problem in
Speaker 1: your life?
Speaker 3: I probably should have, you know, when I smoke pot
Speaker 3: every day, but still you know, and again grown up
Speaker 3: in Australia. And I'll jump forward just a little bit
Speaker 3: before I go back. You know, when I did get
Speaker 3: into hard drugs and i'd get clean and stop using them,
Speaker 3: my parents would you know? If I was smoking pot
Speaker 3: and drinking that was acceptable in Australia.
Speaker 1: You know what most definitely I've got friends of known
Speaker 1: the whole life of the Yeah, poth hits. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: like a smoke, That's that's what they do and they
Speaker 1: and they get functioned in life, per fact.
Speaker 3: So that wasn't my take. So you know, my parents,
Speaker 3: you know, if I wasn't using heroin and I was
Speaker 3: just doing that, you know, I probably they probably thought
Speaker 3: the better of two evils, you know. So I think
Speaker 3: I got in the music industry that you know, and
Speaker 3: I got introduced to speed. You know, in the lay
Speaker 3: eighties we had ecstasy and acid coming along. But I
Speaker 3: think my life it started to change. Then I got
Speaker 3: introduced to some people who were large scaled drug dealers
Speaker 3: that when I look back, that was one of those
Speaker 3: pivotal o It was like the next the next stage,
Speaker 3: because so I knew lots of people and I'd go
Speaker 3: and you know buy, I'd get ecstasy or trips or coke.
Speaker 3: And I was living in Frankston and suddenly I had
Speaker 3: access to you know, coke and like drugs. Yeah, we're
Speaker 3: in Frankston at that time. You know, you might have
Speaker 3: the old truck of speed and drink and smoke.
Speaker 2: Pot. I suddenly had access to this.
Speaker 3: So you know, lots of people would ask me, and
Speaker 3: I'd begun with these people and you know, buying drugs
Speaker 3: not to make money, just because I knew people. And
Speaker 3: I just remembered this guy who became my friend, you know.
Speaker 2: Just said ah fuck. You know, he said, I'll just
Speaker 2: give you some and just sell.
Speaker 1: It and then you It's a path that you see
Speaker 1: so many people walk down. Yeah, I was just taking drugs,
Speaker 1: taking and then I wake up. I'm actually a drug dealer. Yep,
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize it, got the.
Speaker 2: Keys to the candy shop.
Speaker 3: And thankfully, you know, that guy doesn't do that anymore,
Speaker 3: and he's amazing mental health nurse changed his life in Melbourne,
Speaker 3: you know, and he didn't go the same path as me,
Speaker 3: but he certainly got out of it.
Speaker 2: And it's funny. There's a number of us and we
Speaker 2: all work in helping fields.
Speaker 1: You know, when did your life get to the point
Speaker 1: where you realize it was tipping that Okay, this was innocent.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have done that. But I've done this, but
Speaker 1: I'm still a good person. When did you realize, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm living the life of a criminal.
Speaker 3: Well, that same guy when he came after me, with
Speaker 3: a gun. Okay, when I eyed him seventy grand Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: well I'm sticking a gun down my throat.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that. What happened there?
Speaker 3: Well, because I had access to the drugs, but I
Speaker 3: was using too many, so I was what a bit
Speaker 3: was profitable.
Speaker 2: It had become a Pyramids game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So it was going to crash at some stage.
Speaker 3: But so you know, I could get drugs off this guy,
Speaker 3: a couple of pounds of pyton sell and get money
Speaker 3: and buy drugs and you know, rob Peter to pay Paul.
Speaker 1: Sooner or later, you were going to be short.
Speaker 2: The pyramid. Yeah, came crashing down, and.
Speaker 3: You know he came after me in that instance, and
Speaker 3: you know, wanted his money back, and it was it
Speaker 3: was a really difficult time.
Speaker 2: Because there's two areas of my drug use and drug dealing.
Speaker 3: There was that period and I say it's different because
Speaker 3: I was selling drugs to people who didn't do crime
Speaker 3: to buy them.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, okay, so you're mixing in a circle
Speaker 1: of just that's social.
Speaker 2: I would do it.
Speaker 3: I used to do the court run in Melbourne to
Speaker 3: all the barristers, you know, so it's quite prevalent, so
Speaker 3: most of the people. And I was selling drugs to
Speaker 3: people in TV, the music industry. So though my actor
Speaker 3: was criminal, the people I was dealing.
Speaker 1: With weren't, so you weren't call in that criminal.
Speaker 3: So it was a much safer way to do things.
Speaker 3: But my user was getting getting out of control and
Speaker 3: I was using I had news heroin at this stage.
Speaker 3: I was like nineteen twenty and I you know, but
Speaker 3: I was out. I was using drugs all the time, cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana, drinking.
Speaker 3: You know, it was totally out of control. The money
Speaker 3: was all and I remember this. I had a friend
Speaker 3: who was actually a heroin addict who I used to
Speaker 3: sell speed to and it was funny because you'd always say,
Speaker 3: I'll never sell it to you know. It's terrible him
Speaker 3: and his wife, you know, they were and I saw,
Speaker 3: you know, what it had done to their lives.
Speaker 2: Though they owned a house and were manageable, that it
Speaker 2: cost them. And you think, I'm not going to be
Speaker 2: like them.
Speaker 3: And I was with my girlfriend at the time and
Speaker 3: we've been on the two day coke bender, and I
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, I thought I was having a heart attack,
Speaker 3: you know, And I still remember she said to me,
Speaker 3: I forget some heroin, it'll take the edge.
Speaker 2: I think we can have some more cake. And I
Speaker 2: thought it's a.
Speaker 3: Rational yeah, And I wrung my mate, the one who
Speaker 3: said he didn't never sell it to me.
Speaker 1: I'm laughing, I shouldn't know. It's interesting. I think you've
Speaker 1: got to look back at the logic at the time
Speaker 1: and what.
Speaker 3: I thought that was really, you know. And I rang
Speaker 3: and he said because I bought her and got heroin
Speaker 3: off him before, but for other people. And he said, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, who's it for, you know, like he's got
Speaker 3: my moral dealer. It's you've got to laugh about it
Speaker 3: because it's just insane.
Speaker 2: And I said, no, no, it's for me.
Speaker 3: And he's like, oh you know what you did it,
Speaker 3: you know? And I said, no, no, it's all right.
Speaker 3: I'm on a coke ben, I just need to take
Speaker 3: the edge off to take more coke. And he's like,
Speaker 3: and I heard it. I remember yelling to his wife
Speaker 3: and oh yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: So they sold me. Then.
Speaker 3: I remember I was living in East Melbourne near the
Speaker 3: mcg in this giant townhouse and it was funny because
Speaker 3: my sister lived in America and for a long time,
Speaker 3: and my parents had picked her up. I don't know
Speaker 3: if your parents are naive or they just don't want
Speaker 3: to believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes a combination.
Speaker 3: And I remember hearing back, you know that she they
Speaker 3: driven past my house, you know, and it was this
Speaker 3: is like ninety ninety one or something. It's like fourteen
Speaker 3: hundred dollars a week, you know, and.
Speaker 1: The CD he's doing well for himself, young Claude.
Speaker 3: Don't have a job, you know. And my sister was
Speaker 3: like rock what you know. She sort of thought or
Speaker 3: there's something going on here. But so, you know, I
Speaker 3: came back that night and I remember sitting in his
Speaker 3: house and I snorted some heroin, you know that time
Speaker 3: I talked about having the drink and that feeling it
Speaker 3: was that this was the real next one level. And
Speaker 3: I remember standing at the back door. She was sitting
Speaker 3: on the couch. I was at the back door, power
Speaker 3: spewing as you do on heroin, smoking a cigarette, feeling
Speaker 3: like the best.
Speaker 2: It was like.
Speaker 3: Every orgasm you'd ever had, but your grant, all the
Speaker 3: people that ever loved you were like it was just
Speaker 3: and I just remember thinking, I'm going to do everything
Speaker 3: in my power to feel.
Speaker 2: Like this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: That's the day you offer, isn't.
Speaker 2: And that was it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, and drugs took over, you know, and
Speaker 3: you know, within you know, six six months of you know,
Speaker 3: snorting that hair and I was shooting up and I
Speaker 3: shot up my whole recording in studio and every everything.
Speaker 1: Lost it, everything everything, just for that fix.
Speaker 2: Just for that fair I just never had.
Speaker 1: How old were you then?
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty one? You know, the Chinese call it chasing
Speaker 3: the dragon. You never get it that first time. That's
Speaker 3: you spend the rest of your.
Speaker 1: Life seeking that seeking that you know, and.
Speaker 3: It's you know, there's some poems, but you know, everything
Speaker 3: it offered in that moment, it took away one.
Speaker 1: Hundred So what did your life become?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 3: You know, all anyone who was in my life really
Speaker 3: disappeared really quickly. I was a liability, you know, all
Speaker 3: those guys who were in the access to drugs just
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. You would know with the police,
Speaker 3: you don't want junkies around. Annoying junkie yeah, bad for business,
Speaker 3: you know, like you know, were the people we didn't
Speaker 3: deal with.
Speaker 2: And I became, you know, in my group.
Speaker 3: At least ten of us used heroin in you know,
Speaker 3: two of us became addicted and my mate who you
Speaker 3: know is now the psych nurse and threatened me with
Speaker 3: the gun and that, and we lived in that big
Speaker 3: house in East Melbourne, you know, and within a couple
Speaker 3: of years, you know, we slept in a tree on
Speaker 3: Gray Street in the parking, Melbourne in winter.
Speaker 1: What was going through your mind that that stage, Like,
Speaker 1: were you looking at hating yourself? What? I'm just curious
Speaker 1: what the psychology of what goes through your mind when
Speaker 1: you've hit bottom like that.
Speaker 3: I think I had a huge amount of denial when
Speaker 3: I look back at it. You have to, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, because it's shit like I'm living in
Speaker 3: sleeping in a tree that night, and my memory of
Speaker 3: that was that and God bless the Salvos. They ran
Speaker 3: the needle exchange there on Gray Street and their policy
Speaker 3: was winters called him out, you got one great blanket
Speaker 3: and they gave us to that night, which is really
Speaker 3: important because the pivotal moments, you know, with the drink,
Speaker 3: the snorting, the heroine on my journey, that person and
Speaker 3: I don't know who they are, and they don't they're
Speaker 3: that humanity when you can make it of any I
Speaker 3: remember those those acts of kindness.
Speaker 2: We're huge.
Speaker 3: So I just I think it just became so all
Speaker 3: encompassing that I just I didn't think about it and
Speaker 3: I just tried to guess smashed as I I could.
Speaker 1: Okay, what are the crimes you started committee for?
Speaker 3: I thought it was a legitimate crime. I was a
Speaker 3: good forger, so I could do signature. So I would
Speaker 3: steal handbags, get check books, checkbook or the credit card
Speaker 3: because in those days you didn't have pins, you know,
Speaker 3: you used to put them in and sign it. And
Speaker 3: I had it downpacked so much that even if it
Speaker 3: was a female's, they'd put the card in swiper and
Speaker 3: I just turn it upside that sign and all they
Speaker 3: wanted to see was the signature side and didn't say anything.
Speaker 3: And I remember, because i'd go to when I did,
Speaker 3: I'd go to Cole's and it was all desperate, but
Speaker 3: I'd go to Cole's and buy cartons of cigarettes and
Speaker 3: walk across the road and sell them at the Lebanese
Speaker 3: seven eleven. You know, I think in those days, I
Speaker 3: was getting to come for fifty bucks and they'll give
Speaker 3: me twenty five you know, so two of those and
Speaker 3: I could.
Speaker 1: Get okay, so you fraudently get the cartains taken.
Speaker 3: Across and this day, you know, she picks it up
Speaker 3: and she says, oh it's a famous said.
Speaker 2: Oh it's my wife.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, not worry about Yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Was different back then, you know.
Speaker 3: That's how I got caught because we were staying in
Speaker 3: a hotel and I was quite careful, and I remember
Speaker 3: the detectives and I don't know how it come, but
Speaker 3: I was back at my parents as separated. I was
Speaker 3: back at my dad's place, maybe on methadone, I think
Speaker 3: at this stage. And I remember the detectives came to
Speaker 3: arrest me because that was that just luck because that
Speaker 3: was my last address and I was actually back there.
Speaker 1: And they might have been good police work.
Speaker 3: You don't know that, yeah, but in this insin shadow,
Speaker 3: the rock up, my dad comes to the door, the
Speaker 3: detectives are there. I'd been sloppy, I'd put my fingerprint
Speaker 3: on the bit, you know that the carbon bit.
Speaker 2: They just got me on that. And I remember thinking,
Speaker 2: I really is sure, you know, because I thought I
Speaker 2: was always so so careful.
Speaker 1: When did you do your first stint inside?
Speaker 3: So there I spent a lot of time, you know,
Speaker 3: in the three days four days, because you've got to remember,
Speaker 3: so this is the nineties in Victoria. It's not like
Speaker 3: it was now. If you got caught and you weren't
Speaker 3: a dickhead like that kicking in the ass and then
Speaker 3: you want the paper, you know what I mean? They
Speaker 3: throw your drugs down the drain because I knew that
Speaker 3: they cause more pain than any and so I was
Speaker 3: very lucky in.
Speaker 1: A couple of times. You've been given a little bit
Speaker 1: of latitude.
Speaker 3: Oh I remember one time in Melbourne. It's three times.
Speaker 3: We used to call them bluies. Blueis feel Kans. I
Speaker 3: think they call them here, but they were blue easy now.
Speaker 3: And I remember the third time and like the sergeant
Speaker 3: just gone like mate, fucking go on the train and
Speaker 3: get away, like you're a nuisance, you know. So I
Speaker 3: did that, and so I went in and did a
Speaker 3: couple of small stints in there.
Speaker 1: But when was the first time you got a heavy
Speaker 1: sentence and you thought, shit, this is really.
Speaker 3: So the first one was when I came to So
Speaker 3: when I was twenty nine, my mum was diagnosed with cancer,
Speaker 3: and you know, she was dying and she was in
Speaker 3: a lot of pain and you know, she needed to
Speaker 3: have morphine.
Speaker 2: I was like twenty nine and i'd come back home.
Speaker 3: I'd actually been one of the first twenty people in
Speaker 3: Australia on the bupern orphine trial.
Speaker 2: So there was this amazing thing. You took this thing.
Speaker 2: You didn't hang out. And so I was on this trial.
Speaker 3: So my parents, as my family, would let me come
Speaker 3: home or I would come home if I wasn't using
Speaker 3: and causing chaos. So I came home, but Mum was
Speaker 3: sick and she didn't want what She wouldn't have morphine
Speaker 3: in the house because I was there and I was
Speaker 3: doing all right, and I you know, I just got
Speaker 3: to this point and I just went, fuck, I cause
Speaker 3: them enough pain, Like you know, twenty I just need
Speaker 3: to go. Like, you know, my mum, you know, she
Speaker 3: had non Hodgkins slim fomer. She was going to die,
Speaker 3: and I just thought, you know, fucking I need to
Speaker 3: do something adult, something decent. So you know, I left
Speaker 3: and I went to Cans backpacked and you know, drank alcohol,
Speaker 3: holy smoke, pot was dealing in bowen within you know,
Speaker 3: like you know, it's sad thing. Wherever I went Unfortunately
Speaker 3: I got off the plane with me, you know, and
Speaker 3: quickly I ended up in Sydney in late two thousand
Speaker 3: in place with some backpackers in Crown Straight, right near
Speaker 3: the Cross.
Speaker 1: Late twenties ings Cross drugs. So what did you get done?
Speaker 1: Seven years in prison? What did you get locked up? So?
Speaker 2: I was dealing, yeah, straight away.
Speaker 1: So what was the first big sentence you got?
Speaker 3: So the big the biggest one I got was the
Speaker 3: last one I did. So I got six years eight
Speaker 3: months for ongoing supply heroin and well I was on robbery,
Speaker 3: but I got it downgraded to robbery.
Speaker 2: I went to trial on that.
Speaker 1: Okay, who'd you rob again?
Speaker 3: It's a sad story. It was funny I was thinking about.
Speaker 3: I was thinking, fuck, you don't want to tell that.
Speaker 3: It's embarrassing.
Speaker 1: But this is to understand it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was on bail, believe it or not, for
Speaker 3: ongoing supply of heroin. I don't know if people understand that.
Speaker 3: You've got to sell it three times. And I knew
Speaker 3: that I'd sold it to the coppers. But if I
Speaker 3: didn't sell it to him, I knew they were This
Speaker 3: is the insanity. I knew the moment I stopped selling.
Speaker 3: I'm going to kick my daughter down. I couldn't use,
Speaker 3: so I fucking kept putting you my off and so
Speaker 3: I sold it.
Speaker 1: Over it, kept selling it so you could keep using.
Speaker 2: Knowing that they were coming.
Speaker 3: They had to great playing cord. Yeah, and that's the insanity.
Speaker 3: That's the best plan I had, you know. So I
Speaker 3: ended up I was out on bail. I was with
Speaker 3: my girlfriend.
Speaker 2: I had it.
Speaker 3: They used to call me because my name, so my
Speaker 3: dealing name was Corey because you couldn't have you know.
Speaker 1: So what a decent dealer would be called Claude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So I was leaving up there with her and I
Speaker 3: don't even know. I think she'd done a job and
Speaker 3: someone to give her a ton of ice. So I
Speaker 3: ended up on ice for three days and I just said,
Speaker 3: I'm going to get some milk or some smokes.
Speaker 2: So I go up the street and for some.
Speaker 3: Reason I thought, fuck, I feel really sick, and you know,
Speaker 3: and then I just had this moment.
Speaker 2: I was in Crown Street.
Speaker 3: And fuck, I'm a heroin addict. I haven't used. I
Speaker 3: couldn't even remember. I fucking need heroin. I need to
Speaker 3: shot a heroin. And I saw this lady closing up
Speaker 3: her shop. I don't k't even remember what it was,
Speaker 3: and I just thought, I just I'm going to rub her,
Speaker 3: which I did, you know, and I stole her.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what that.
Speaker 3: I had no idea, but it was I think that
Speaker 3: the handbag was worth more than any of the money.
Speaker 3: It was like Louis Vatan or something something. So I
Speaker 3: stole that. And my dealer at the time was at
Speaker 3: the other end of Crown Street, so I thought, fuck,
Speaker 3: I haven't got far to run. I can't make out
Speaker 3: the shop because she was screaming.
Speaker 2: Of course, and got hit by a car. That's only hard.
Speaker 3: So I get hit by a car, and of course,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm on adrenaline, so I just get up
Speaker 3: and go and I'm bowlding down cramps. I've still got
Speaker 3: the bag, and then I hear this, and I thought,
Speaker 3: oh no, I know that that's the Cobs And you know,
Speaker 3: believe it or not, the car that hits me, the
Speaker 3: two behind me are two undercovers, just you know.
Speaker 2: So they chase.
Speaker 3: So I cut down through the back laneways because I
Speaker 3: think I know how to get to this guy's house
Speaker 3: through the back laneway. They pull up and set chase
Speaker 3: to me, and I look back and one of them
Speaker 3: is like this fat sort of copper. I thought, fuck,
Speaker 3: I've got hear me and I got a hope, and
Speaker 3: the other ones like this twenty year old girl out
Speaker 3: of the fucking academy. You're down, she's you know, I
Speaker 3: probably would have got away because she obviously didn't know
Speaker 3: all the lame ways. But I tend down a dead
Speaker 3: a dead end lane way, so I end in the
Speaker 3: lame way. There's me and her, and again the insanity
Speaker 3: al of it, and.
Speaker 2: I thought, fuck or robber.
Speaker 3: I rob her too, you know, and you know she
Speaker 3: I don't know whether I did, but she believed I
Speaker 3: was going for her gun.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, things are starting to get serious.
Speaker 3: It was pure, you know, and all I wanted to
Speaker 3: do was get to this guy's house to have a
Speaker 3: shot of heroin, to fucking fix it all, you know,
Speaker 3: to work it all out. And I'm sitting, you know,
Speaker 3: we have a scaffle and all that, and you know,
Speaker 3: she pulls back and pulls her gun on me, you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm like fuck, you know, and still even then,
Speaker 3: I thought she's not going to fucking shot She really
Speaker 3: not really just fucking run off, still got the bag
Speaker 3: like just insane. And then by this stage, you know,
Speaker 3: fucked her every like they were.
Speaker 2: They came pouring in, so.
Speaker 1: You got locked up and you get sense to six
Speaker 1: years eight months.
Speaker 3: So first off I was unfortunately there was it was full.
Speaker 2: So I spent two weeks in SPC.
Speaker 1: Which is it's like twelve weeks anywhere else.
Speaker 2: It's horror.
Speaker 3: You know, it's underneath the Surreel's police and it there's
Speaker 3: no window, there's one shower if you're lucky to get it.
Speaker 3: You know, they heat the pies so hot that it
Speaker 3: burned your mouth.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a horror show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not the first guest on my Catch Killers
Speaker 1: that has complained about that.
Speaker 3: So then I went from M double RC to Paramatta.
Speaker 3: But I got stabbed at Paramatta.
Speaker 1: What in there? If correct me? If I'm wrong, You've
Speaker 1: been shot once yep, and stabbed twice, SA twice, Yeah,
Speaker 1: tell us about those events.
Speaker 3: Well they're stabbing happened at Paris. I was on ramand
Speaker 3: I was in four wing at Paramatta and in those
Speaker 3: days so it was C and B CLASSO ramand prisoners
Speaker 3: one two and three wing was I think it was
Speaker 3: weekend prisoners and the laundry. So I ended up being
Speaker 3: the become the laundry sweeper with.
Speaker 2: My cell mate.
Speaker 3: So you know, we had all the blankets and all that,
Speaker 3: and they used to come with this white string around them,
Speaker 3: So our job was to give about the blankets and
Speaker 3: all that and keep all the strings so people couldn't
Speaker 3: use it as weapons.
Speaker 2: So we had all this string in our.
Speaker 3: Room, and my cell mate knew the guy who was
Speaker 3: the laundry sweeper, so we would pack it all up
Speaker 3: and he would take it over to one, two and
Speaker 3: three and his mate lived down the road who had drugs.
Speaker 3: So in those days, at three point thirty, when they
Speaker 3: locked you in the guard tower above four wing, he
Speaker 3: would go inside. So this guy would whistle and we
Speaker 3: would tie all the bits of string together with a
Speaker 3: pan and a finger off a glove and make a
Speaker 3: slingshot and shoot the wire of the fence and he'd
Speaker 3: tie the drugs too, would bring him over.
Speaker 2: We got half and the other.
Speaker 3: Half went to the guy whose drugs they were, so
Speaker 3: we did that. But to do that it's not as
Speaker 3: easy as it sounds. And then the dickhead bloody put
Speaker 3: a phone on it. So when sal mate goes to
Speaker 3: pull it back in over the wire, it gets cart
Speaker 3: and falls into what we call the steriles, are in
Speaker 3: between the wall and the building. And fuck but my
Speaker 3: mate at the time was the sweeper for the steroll zone,
Speaker 3: so I had to wait till the morning. So as
Speaker 3: soon as we got let go in the morning, I
Speaker 3: ran to my mate and said, fuck, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know, we'll give you. You've got to get out there.
Speaker 3: And you know, he just bolted. He didn't get.
Speaker 2: Halfway down and wah wah.
Speaker 3: They'd seen it. So there was our cell and below
Speaker 3: us was the Lebanese The guards went straight to the
Speaker 3: Lebanese blakes and you know.
Speaker 2: Blamm and all this sort of thing.
Speaker 3: But I'm in my cell because I because I was
Speaker 3: a sweeper with the laundry, I could stay in my
Speaker 3: cell when you got let out into the yard, I was.
Speaker 2: I was doing something.
Speaker 3: And yeah, the next thing you know, ate Lebanese blake's
Speaker 3: walking to my cell, and you know, this fucking blake's gone.
Speaker 3: You know, you've got to go and tell me what
Speaker 3: you And I'm like, okay, fuck yourself, let it. Not
Speaker 3: telling them fucking anything, you know, and then I just
Speaker 3: felt this in my guts and you know, and they
Speaker 3: started attacking me.
Speaker 1: How many times? What were the ship they.
Speaker 3: Got with a sharpened toothbrush. No, I only let them
Speaker 3: get at me once. Yeah, luckily because it sort of
Speaker 3: got stuck in there, which in hindsight was a good thing.
Speaker 2: And I just, you know, I hit him Australia.
Speaker 3: I thought, I need to just fight fucking for your
Speaker 3: life here. And I didn't know at the time, but
Speaker 3: one of the guards had seen them, so they were
Speaker 3: on their way up. So you know, they the guys
Speaker 3: had a lookout and they yelled and they all ran
Speaker 3: and you know, they came out in these blood everywhere,
Speaker 3: and I just pushed my way past the guard and
Speaker 3: went straight back out into the yard and they're calling
Speaker 3: for me, you know, Robinson, you need to come to
Speaker 3: the office. And I'm like, I'm not going to the office. Well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to trial. Fucking I know, I've got a
Speaker 3: big wacking ahead him. You're like, I'm like, this is
Speaker 3: not good, you know, And you know, the Asian boys
Speaker 3: come out and give me towels and all that, you know,
Speaker 3: and you know, I just didn't go. And in the
Speaker 3: end they sent the squadding and they just extracted me
Speaker 3: and took me up to the sick bay and then
Speaker 3: the deputy governor down. He's usually had a security or intel,
Speaker 3: he said. I said, I slipped on my coffee, he said,
Speaker 3: he said, have you seen yourself?
Speaker 1: When did you get shot?
Speaker 2: That was when I was younger.
Speaker 3: We were going to a house to so the guy
Speaker 3: was dealing drugs. There was three of us. We knew
Speaker 3: he had a twenty two and I, you know, we
Speaker 3: just went, fuck, he can't shoot us all and we
Speaker 3: know he's got money.
Speaker 1: And you know, claud do you look back at some
Speaker 1: of your logic and think maybe drugs are another good thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It's hands why I don't drink or any drugs. I
Speaker 3: haven't for nearly seventeen years. Yeah, like when I sometimes it's.
Speaker 2: Hard to actually like even make sense of the You think.
Speaker 1: How logic?
Speaker 2: How the fuck do you get to that?
Speaker 3: But it seemed so you got's gotten to do a
Speaker 3: drug group off, he's got the gun, but he can't
Speaker 3: shoot all of us.
Speaker 1: You go in there and get shot and.
Speaker 2: We got Yeah I got shot, but we got drugs
Speaker 2: on the money.
Speaker 1: Did you get shot in the lad?
Speaker 2: So it was lucky I turned. It could have been
Speaker 2: much worse. So you know, things like, yeah, it's just insane.
Speaker 1: So so your time in prison, like just you did
Speaker 1: that was your longest stint six years?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did, so.
Speaker 3: I did four and a half, been over four and
Speaker 3: a half years. I got out from Goldburn actually came
Speaker 3: to Rainbow Lodge where I'm now the manager, believe it
Speaker 3: or not. And so when I was in prison, my
Speaker 3: mum died at the start of that prison sends.
Speaker 2: I never got to say goodbye or go to the funeralround.
Speaker 1: How did that make you feel?
Speaker 2: You know, it's on.
Speaker 3: Like I still you know, since I've got clean, I've
Speaker 3: been to their grave site, you know, with my baby
Speaker 3: daughter at the time. And I just think the circumstances
Speaker 3: of because both my parents died when you were in prison,
Speaker 3: I was in prison in that stint that.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's so far locked away, you know, And I don't
Speaker 3: blame anyone else, that's really you know, it's not it
Speaker 3: wasn't the courts or the police or the prison guards.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I've you know, in the process of changing my life,
Speaker 3: I've taken responsibility that I was in jail because I
Speaker 3: used dougs and I did cry. Now I don't agree
Speaker 3: with the system, but that's the system that I lived in,
Speaker 3: so I accept that, you know. And the consequence of
Speaker 3: that was I was in prison and they weren't going
Speaker 3: to let me out to see that, so I never
Speaker 3: got to speak to her. And then at the end
Speaker 3: of that sentence, I was in Golben and I was
Speaker 3: in the the maximum security section.
Speaker 1: You were released from Golben.
Speaker 3: I was released from Golben in two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: How long had you serve there?
Speaker 3: So I've been in Golben nearly three years. So once
Speaker 3: I got sent to Golden, I didn't go anywhere else. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was horrible. I still remember everywhere I went. I
Speaker 3: was handcuffed and two guards everywhere.
Speaker 1: Well, you got your papers marked when you've sold the
Speaker 1: prison office, Yeah, definitely, for the rest of your time
Speaker 1: in prison.
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 3: So I arrived at Goldben and Big Bernie he's dead now,
Speaker 3: died on the muster and the boys cheered.
Speaker 2: But he was a tough.
Speaker 3: He was an asshole, but you know, he was the
Speaker 3: old style, you know, when Goldben was tough.
Speaker 1: And he was sure services.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they brought me in.
Speaker 3: And he said to the two guards, take the handcuffs
Speaker 3: off and piss off.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what's on, what's going on here?
Speaker 3: This guy was big, Apparently the story goes, his chair
Speaker 3: was worth two and a half grand and he's looking
Speaker 3: at my file and.
Speaker 2: A spit it officer assault.
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's not pleasant, and you know, he says, Robert,
Speaker 3: if I could get if I wasn't so fat, I
Speaker 3: could get off this chair, I'll punch.
Speaker 2: You through the fucking wall that was your welcome.
Speaker 3: And he said, you're a Goldman, now I own you.
Speaker 3: This is not like any other jail. And then they went.
Speaker 3: And so when I went to Gold when it was
Speaker 3: segregated on Race, so coury yard was like two yard
Speaker 3: was Lebanese, Ossie Islander, Ossi Asian. Then there was the
Speaker 3: cookhouse protection and then the filthies, you know, fucking the
Speaker 3: Murphy's and fucking right down the end there.
Speaker 2: I went in the.
Speaker 3: Aussi Asian, but I didn't even get there. They put
Speaker 3: me in the Cory wing right up the end. And
Speaker 3: I was on one hundred and fifty mills a methadone
Speaker 3: at the time, so they put me in the end
Speaker 3: of the sound. Didn't give me a methadone for three days.
Speaker 3: I was fucking so yeah, I was horrifying, you know.
Speaker 3: And my mate I just by luck, I knew the
Speaker 3: sweeper and he would put because the bars didn't have
Speaker 3: any windows, he would put the cardboard box in and
Speaker 3: I'd put it up on the window and they'd come
Speaker 3: and take it out. And all they had was two
Speaker 3: gray blankets and a bible and it's pretty cold.
Speaker 2: I was freezing. I was so sick.
Speaker 3: And then they took me out and put me into
Speaker 3: the Assi Visian yard and I remember like it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's half a ten. It's called the sixty five blokes.
Speaker 3: And you know, in those days, it would take ninety
Speaker 3: minutes to empty the wing because they only brought two
Speaker 3: cells out at a time.
Speaker 2: And I was like, fucking is going on here?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And I had nothing like I was, you know, and
Speaker 3: they knew you don't turn up here for nothing. So
Speaker 3: they asked me and I told them what was going on.
Speaker 3: You know, by the time I went in might sell
Speaker 3: that night at radio books, smokes like of all that,
Speaker 3: they looked after you. Yeah, you know, they made sure
Speaker 3: you know, I was all right.
Speaker 1: I had some stuff. Yeah, all right, well look we
Speaker 1: might card just take a break at this time. We've
Speaker 1: left you in the bad spot. We've left you in prison.
Speaker 1: We've seen the chaos that is your life. The chaos
Speaker 1: is your life. When I think when you're saying that,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing here looking at you, are you for real
Speaker 1: like some of the decisions you made? But that's the
Speaker 1: path of go down with that lifestyle and drugs and
Speaker 1: all that. You can laugh at it, but it's sad
Speaker 1: and tragic and it's you know, you look back at
Speaker 1: it and go, well, how did my life become this?
Speaker 1: When we get back in part two, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about how you've turned your life around, because you've
Speaker 1: been clean now for what.
Speaker 2: Seven seventeen years.
Speaker 1: And by the end of this year, you've been out
Speaker 1: of prison for seventeen years, and you're doing some good work,
Speaker 1: and we really want to focus on that, focus on
Speaker 1: that and get your take on that. How the system
Speaker 1: can be you've seen it, how the system could possibly
Speaker 1: be improved. All right, it's got good stuff.