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Speaker 1: The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives

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Speaker 1: see a side of life the average person is never

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Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For

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Speaker 1: 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what

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Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.

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Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking

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Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The

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Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from

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Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,

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Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the

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Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one

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Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join

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Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. When

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Speaker 1: Ashton Klein was just 15, his father murdered his mother, Viola.

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Speaker 2: Dowsing her in petrol... and setting her alight.

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Speaker 1: It was the culmination of years of domestic violence against Ashton,

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Speaker 1: his mum, and his six-year-old brother, Grant. Today, Ashton speaks

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Speaker 1: openly about what happened inside his family home and how

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Speaker 1: he turned this unimaginable trauma into a force for good.

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Speaker 1: This is a truly remarkable story, but I think a

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Speaker 1: content warning is appropriate in the circumstances.

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Speaker 2: Ashton Klein, welcome to I Catch Killers.

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Speaker 3: Thanks, Gary. It's a pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 1: Well, thank you for making the time. And I know

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about is very heavy and will dig

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Speaker 1: up a lot of emotions for you. But I think

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Speaker 1: there's a strong message, as we were saying the other day,

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Speaker 1: there's a strong message that comes out from it too.

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Speaker 1: So hopefully we can explore that. But I have seen

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Speaker 1: time and time again working in homicides where people have

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Speaker 1: experienced unimaginable trauma, how they find their feet afterwards. And

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Speaker 1: it always amazes me, like, how do you process what

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Speaker 1: you've been through in your life and still stand here and,

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Speaker 1: you know, before we started the podcast, we're sitting there

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Speaker 1: having a joke about things. How do you find the

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Speaker 1: happiness when you've experienced such darkness?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it's a question I get asked a lot

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Speaker 3: and something that I sometimes struggle to answer with, but

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Speaker 3: the older I get, the more I kind of begin,

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Speaker 3: I think, to understand what the recipe was for me

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Speaker 3: for success in finding my feet, because I don't prescribe

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Speaker 3: to the notion that there is one-size-fits-all approach to recovery

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Speaker 3: from trauma, but I What I do kind of prescribe

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Speaker 3: to is that at times in life, you can find

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Speaker 3: a recipe that works for you. And that recipe needs

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Speaker 3: sometimes some adjustments and sometimes some fine tuning. And, you know,

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Speaker 3: a little bit of a pinch of salt here and

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Speaker 3: a little bit of sugar here and all the rest

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Speaker 3: of it to make it a little bit sweeter or salty.

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Speaker 3: And it's a constant kind of... Not a battle, but

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Speaker 3: a shift in that recipe and how you kind of

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Speaker 3: balance out the flavors, I guess, of life. So, you know,

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Speaker 3: at certain points in my life, trauma hits me unimaginably

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Speaker 3: without me even knowing. And I'll kind of go... all right,

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Speaker 3: I'm in one of those dark spaces again. What is

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Speaker 3: it that I have in my toolkit that I've built

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Speaker 3: over the last 25 years that I can kind of

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Speaker 3: pull out again and use in this moment? Is it

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Speaker 3: that I need to shut down completely for a day

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Speaker 3: and just clear the books and just have nothing happen?

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Speaker 3: Or is it that I need to tap into, you know,

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Speaker 3: a really good psychologist? You know, I've been working with

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Speaker 3: a psychologist now for a consistent psychologist for the last

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Speaker 3: seven years. And I don't think it's until kind of

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Speaker 3: the last two years that I've actually started to really

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Speaker 3: process some of the trauma that happened from my childhood.

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Speaker 3: I think it's also being, I liked, some people call

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Speaker 3: it obnoxious, but I like to think of it as

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Speaker 3: audaciously authentic. You know, you can't take yourself too seriously,

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Speaker 3: but also, you know, you just have to be you

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Speaker 3: and you have to kind of, acknowledge that you're going

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Speaker 3: to sit with this uncomfortable trauma for the rest of

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Speaker 3: your life. It's never going to go away. It gets

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Speaker 3: a little easier to sit with and hold, but it never,

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Speaker 3: ever goes away. And I think it's only when I've

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Speaker 3: tried to fight that feeling of the emotions and all

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Speaker 3: of the traumatic instances that have kind of occurred over

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Speaker 3: my life, when I've tried to fight that, that's when

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Speaker 3: I've been at my worst. And I think it's only

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Speaker 3: when I've kind of learned that, hey, I've really got

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Speaker 3: to learn how to hold this really difficult mass and

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Speaker 3: this really difficult pain in my life that I've kind

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Speaker 3: of then reached a point where I've gone, okay, I

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Speaker 3: can move forward and at least stand, you know. And

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Speaker 3: I think that's the only thing that works is you've

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Speaker 3: got to take it as it comes, acknowledge that no

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Speaker 3: two days are ever going to be the same and

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Speaker 3: you are continually going to be put back in that

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Speaker 3: place of being a six-year-old child or a 15-year-old child

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Speaker 3: that was traumatised consistently throughout your life. And it's never

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Speaker 3: going to leave you. So, I mean, no one size

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Speaker 3: fits all. There's no magic solution. There's no book. I've

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Speaker 3: tried to read them all. But there is a recipe

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Speaker 3: that works for me. And part of that is Holding

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Speaker 3: myself to account, but also acknowledging what I need and

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Speaker 3: putting my needs first. Not easy for someone who comes

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Speaker 3: from a domestic violence background. So, you know, but the

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Speaker 3: key in learning to put yourself first and your needs

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Speaker 3: first is really important, I think.

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Speaker 1: Well, just in that answer that it shows how much

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Speaker 1: thought has gone into it, how you're dealing with your situation.

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Speaker 1: And I like what you say about a toolbox or

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Speaker 1: a toolkit, that something that works for you. I think

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Speaker 1: that's a good way of describing the thing that might

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Speaker 1: work for you, might not necessarily work for someone else.

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Speaker 1: The other thing, and this is just my observation, looking

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Speaker 1: at people dealing with the trauma is that it gets

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Speaker 1: to a point where they realize they're entitled to enjoy

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Speaker 1: something in life. I've seen people at the worst possible

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Speaker 1: situations in their life when there's a knock on the

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Speaker 1: door and a loved one's been murdered. And I'm sure

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Speaker 1: at that point in time, they can't even envisage ever

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Speaker 1: smiling again or laughing. What I've seen over the years is,

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Speaker 1: and I watch it, I observe it, that people that

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Speaker 1: have been affected by severe trauma, the type of thing

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Speaker 1: that homicide creates, you see gradually it breaking down where

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Speaker 1: they allow themselves the opportunity to find some joy in

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Speaker 1: life and find a little bit of lightness there. I

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Speaker 1: think that's a stepping stone.

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Speaker 3: And I think, look, you're absolutely right. One of the

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Speaker 3: biggest things for me has been rebuilding my self-worth and

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Speaker 3: gaining a sense of self-identity. Because one of the things

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Speaker 3: that I grew up with was, one, you had to

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Speaker 3: tiptoe on eggshells around dad and mum. was always so

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Speaker 3: busy worrying about protecting us that she never had time

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Speaker 3: to give us. She gave us a lot of love,

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Speaker 3: but she never had the time or energy to actually

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Speaker 3: invest in us as well. So I grew up thinking

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Speaker 3: that I wasn't good enough. that I had a lot

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Speaker 3: of shame around the things that I witnessed and wasn't

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Speaker 3: able to protect my mum from. I had a lot

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Speaker 3: of shame around my own kind of actions in those

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Speaker 3: moments and how I responded as a five, six-year-old. And

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Speaker 3: what that did is it degraded over time my sense

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Speaker 3: of worth. Add to that I had a father who

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Speaker 3: continually told me that I wasn't good enough and that

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Speaker 3: I wasn't a man. And that I would never be

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Speaker 3: a man. So when you grow up in an environment

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Speaker 3: like that, that really challenges the fact that you're even

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Speaker 3: worthy of being a human being. It is really hard

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Speaker 3: to grapple with the fact that you're actually entitled to

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Speaker 3: be and live a normal life, you know, and to

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Speaker 3: be a human being in this world. That takes a

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Speaker 3: lot of work to build back and a lot of

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Speaker 3: intentional and deliberate work. And I think that's kind of

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Speaker 3: the key is that when you decide that you want

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Speaker 3: to change or break the cycle, it has to be intentional.

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Speaker 3: It has to be deliberate.

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Speaker 1: I'd like to think, and maybe there wasn't, but was

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Speaker 1: there any good memories from your childhood? And just put

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Speaker 1: it in perspective, you were 15 at the time that

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Speaker 1: your mother was murdered by your father.

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Speaker 2: You had a six-year-old brother.

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Speaker 1: Was there any good memories that you can take away

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Speaker 1: from your childhood?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, look, again, it's taken a long time to bring

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Speaker 3: those through. And I've had to really kind of... siphon

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Speaker 3: through the... Because prominently, when you experience domestic violence and

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Speaker 3: domestic homicide, what happens is those memories take precedence in

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Speaker 3: your mind. So they're at the forefront, right? So you think, well, okay,

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Speaker 3: I can remember my father kind of dragging my mother

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Speaker 3: down or coming home drunk and feeling that someone had

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Speaker 3: been in the house and then spontaneously just erupting into

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Speaker 3: a violent rage and dragging my mother by the throat

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Speaker 3: down a dirt driveway. um and then coming back into

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Speaker 3: the house and holding a knife to my throat um

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Speaker 3: you know at the age of five um I can

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Speaker 3: remember clutching a teenage mutant ninja turtle under the bed

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Speaker 3: wanting protection from my father you know thinking that um

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Speaker 3: some magical way the teenage mutant ninja turtle Donatello was

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Speaker 3: going to protect me but I vividly remember that. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, those memories, they sit at the forefront because

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Speaker 3: they're kind of the biggest things, you know, especially as

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Speaker 3: a child, you're forming all these kind of memories and

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Speaker 3: so forth. But I have some really beautiful memories of,

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Speaker 3: you know, spending time with my mum. I have some

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Speaker 3: beautiful times, even spending time with my dad. You know,

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Speaker 3: I've had to, as I say, sift through the bad

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Speaker 3: to get to some of the good luck. And there's

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Speaker 3: even a separation of the moments. Like one of the

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Speaker 3: things my dad did with me, he used to take

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Speaker 3: me on the, he was a truck driver, used to

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Speaker 3: take me on the trucks with him. I would love

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Speaker 3: being in the truck and being on the road and

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Speaker 3: getting the CB radio and kind of speaking to all

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Speaker 3: the truckies and stuff like that. But then we would

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Speaker 3: pull up into a truck stop and he would sexually

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Speaker 3: assault me. you know, and that, so I've had to separate, well, okay,

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Speaker 3: one minute we're driving along the Hume Highway talking to

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Speaker 3: truckies about, you know, the meat wagons heading south, you know,

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Speaker 3: that's how they refer to ambulances and so forth. And

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Speaker 3: then the next minute I'm being sexually assaulted with pornography

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Speaker 3: in the cab of the truck and so forth, you know,

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Speaker 3: like it, but in order to kind of gain some

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Speaker 3: value from my childhood and some kind of value from

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Speaker 3: my parental, you know, figure of my father, I've had

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Speaker 3: to kind of spray those are saying, well, okay, he

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Speaker 3: was still the dad that took me with him on

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Speaker 3: the truck, you know, he's, he's, you know, and he

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Speaker 3: still let me play with that CB radio and all

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Speaker 3: the rest of it. So just to grapple with something that,

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Speaker 3: to grasp, you know, some kind of tangible relationship and

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Speaker 3: to believe that, inherently he loved me, you know, because

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Speaker 3: ultimately what we're all seeking in life is, is, is love. And, and,

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Speaker 3: you know, um, that's, that's really hard to grapple with

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Speaker 3: when someone treats you like that.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Um, yeah, it's just, uh, the things that you experience

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Speaker 1: and the way that you're processing it just sort of blow, uh, well,

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Speaker 1: it blows me away. Let's, uh, let's talk a bit

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Speaker 1: about your, your mum, uh, the, the type of person

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Speaker 1: your mum was. Cause, uh, she was, uh, killed in

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Speaker 1: the most violent of ways at the hands of your father.

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Speaker 1: But tell us a bit about your mum, because to me,

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Speaker 1: my observation and in the discussions that we've had and

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Speaker 1: the research that I've looked at, she was an exceptional lady.

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Speaker 3: She really was. I mean, not only for just enduring

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Speaker 3: the violence that she did for the sake of us children.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that in itself was for 20 years to

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Speaker 3: endure the violence and tolerate it because she knew that

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Speaker 3: she couldn't financially support us children. That in itself, I think,

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Speaker 3: is a phenomenal thing to recognise, her character, the strength

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Speaker 3: of her character in enduring all of that. But I

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Speaker 3: like to think that, I mean... I kind of curse

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Speaker 3: her because she gave me curls. I straighten my hair

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Speaker 3: every day as a result of the curls that she

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Speaker 3: gave me.

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Speaker 1: Ashton, I respect you, but have a look at my head.

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Speaker 3: We've all got things we've got to deal with. We've

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Speaker 3: all got things, right? So every morning I stand in

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Speaker 3: the mirror and I curse her because she gave me

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Speaker 3: her curls. But some of the best things, the relational

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Speaker 3: aspects that I have with people, the things that she

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Speaker 3: taught me about love, about kindness, about being sincere, about

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Speaker 3: being authentic and genuine, they all come from her. And

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Speaker 3: the strength to continue, I believe, came from her as

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Speaker 3: well because she You know, no matter how many times

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Speaker 3: she got beaten, she was raped so many times in

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Speaker 3: front of me that I lost count. My father used

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Speaker 3: to kind of, he would have this power thing where

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Speaker 3: he would come home in a drunk rage and he

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Speaker 3: would say to me, I'm going to make you a man.

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Speaker 3: And he would make me watch him rape my mother

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Speaker 3: in front of me as a five, six-year-old. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 3: and you know, the amount of times that, that she

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Speaker 3: endured that in itself, just, just gives so much strength

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Speaker 3: to her character and, and speaks volumes. You know, the,

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Speaker 3: the funny thing is we grew up in a really

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Speaker 3: poor situation. Like we live kind of week to week.

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Speaker 3: My mum, she had this beautiful honesty about her where

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Speaker 3: people trusted her inherently, you know, and, um, I remember

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Speaker 3: they separated nine months before her murder and dad took

253
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Speaker 3: all the power tools, you know, the whippersnapper, the lawnmower,

254
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Speaker 3: all the rest of it that was his stuff. And

255
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Speaker 3: I was kind of then responsible for the lawns and

256
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Speaker 3: so forth. To make my job easier, she got a

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Speaker 3: brand new whippersnapper on credit, you know, just walked into

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Speaker 3: the shop and said, look, you know, I can't afford this.

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Speaker 3: We really need it. And the guys just said, yeah, look,

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Speaker 3: give us 20 bucks a week and pay this off.

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Speaker 3: I remember that because when she was murdered, The shop

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Speaker 3: contacted us and said, look, you don't have to– she's

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Speaker 3: only paid $ 120 or something so far, and she was

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Speaker 3: paying it off on a fortnightly basis, but you're welcome

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Speaker 3: to keep it, you know. And I just– What came

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Speaker 3: through for that and what I've kind of learned from

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Speaker 3: that is she had this kind of trustworthiness about her

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Speaker 3: that just kind of shone through without you even knowing.

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Speaker 3: So the fact that, you know, she could walk into

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Speaker 3: a Husqvarna shop and say, look, I need a whippersnapper.

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Speaker 3: And then them to say, look, you know, take the

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Speaker 3: $ 400 whippersnapper and pay it off at $ 20 a week.

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Speaker 3: just really represented her character. And I think the trust

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Speaker 3: that she had in the community, she was friendly with everyone,

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Speaker 3: loved everyone. When that nine months, that nine month period

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Speaker 3: where they separated, she kind of found a real purpose

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Speaker 3: in herself and started to rebuild her own self-worth in

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Speaker 3: a way. She started inviting people around to the house

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Speaker 3: and she had some female friends that she wasn't allowed

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Speaker 3: to hang around with or have around when dad was around.

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Speaker 3: And that was just really beautiful to see. She really

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Speaker 3: blossomed during that period and really flourished. And I think

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Speaker 3: that's ultimately what culminated in her death at the hands

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Speaker 3: of my father.

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Speaker 1: Well, Yeah, there's so many platitudes that you could say

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Speaker 1: about your mum. I think the most remarkable thing is

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Speaker 1: how you've turned out and that you go into the

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Speaker 1: melting pot of you're raised by your mother and father.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that your father taught you a lot

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Speaker 1: of values, but something's come through. And so we attribute

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Speaker 1: that to your mum. And I'm sure she's very proud

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Speaker 1: of you, what you've become, the man that you've become now.

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Speaker 3: And I think, Gary, one of the things for me

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Speaker 3: is I've always tried to, and it's one of the

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Speaker 3: things I had great difficulty in foster care or growing

296
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Speaker 3: up in foster care, because I've always tried to instill

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Speaker 3: in both Grant and I and keep in Grant and

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Speaker 3: I an element of mum alive. And it's why we

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Speaker 3: didn't fit in foster care and why we had so

300
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Speaker 3: many challenges in foster care. is that we weren't moldable

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Speaker 3: really because I was trying to retain some of the

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Speaker 3: values and some of the real kind of grip onto,

303
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Speaker 3: I guess, in a tangible way, some of the attributes

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Speaker 3: of my mum during that foster care. And it made

305
00:17:29,780 --> 00:17:32,060
Speaker 3: it really difficult for foster carers because they just wanted

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Speaker 3: us to fit into their family and kind of just be,

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Speaker 3: you know, and here I am going, no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: that's not what our mum would do. I want to

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Speaker 3: do it this way.

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Speaker 2: I can imagine there would have been some conflict.

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Speaker 1: Your mother and father's upbringing, did that play a part

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Speaker 1: in the people they became?

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Speaker 3: The older I get and the more I understand about

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Speaker 3: my mother and father's history, the more I understand how

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Speaker 3: the dynamics of their relationship, you know, kind of came

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Speaker 3: to be. So my mother and father were both from

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Speaker 3: large families. My mother from a family of 16 children.

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Speaker 3: And so this is the 1951 mum was born. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, the 50s and 60s.

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Speaker 2: Yep.

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Speaker 3: Mum from a family of 16, dad from a family

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Speaker 3: of 15. Both really kind of poor, you know, circumstances,

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Speaker 3: impoverished circumstances. Both ended up losing siblings and at times

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Speaker 3: themselves being put into what I can only describe as

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Speaker 3: kind of homes, I guess, so children's homes and care.

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Speaker 3: And And my father in particular. So my mother, well,

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Speaker 3: my mother experienced domestic violence and rape from her father.

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Speaker 3: So had a sexual assault background with her father. And,

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Speaker 3: you know, my father then went in, or when he

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Speaker 3: was growing up, went into many boys' homes and was

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Speaker 3: sexually assaulted as well and was the victim of uh

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Speaker 3: violence in those homes and i mean you know in

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Speaker 3: the 60s i guess.

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Speaker 1: Yeah just and everyone turned turned a blind eye to

335
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Speaker 1: it and uh yeah.

336
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Speaker 3: Exactly yeah so he kind of grew up a fairly

337
00:19:18,830 --> 00:19:22,210
Speaker 3: rough childhood my mother also um but but she kind

338
00:19:22,250 --> 00:19:24,710
Speaker 3: of pulled her life together i guess that's probably where

339
00:19:24,730 --> 00:19:26,939
Speaker 3: i get my strength to be honest is that she

340
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:28,720
Speaker 3: kind of pulled her life together she got a job

341
00:19:28,760 --> 00:19:32,640
Speaker 3: waitressing uh the age of 15 and started to build

342
00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:35,520
Speaker 3: a life and that's when she met my father um Um,

343
00:19:35,840 --> 00:19:40,330
Speaker 3: she was married at the age of 17, uh, and, uh,

344
00:19:40,570 --> 00:19:42,990
Speaker 3: and they kind of, uh, got married as a result

345
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Speaker 3: of that. And the, the older I get and the

346
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Speaker 3: more reading I do and the more research I do

347
00:19:48,930 --> 00:19:53,260
Speaker 3: into domestic and family violence and sexual assault and rape

348
00:19:53,420 --> 00:19:58,940
Speaker 3: and all of those really big kind of phenomenas and crimes,

349
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Speaker 3: the more I understand that the dynamics of the people

350
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:05,160
Speaker 3: that come together really fuels quite a lot of that.

351
00:20:05,240 --> 00:20:09,290
Speaker 3: Not to say that it's anyone's fault, but the backgrounds

352
00:20:09,369 --> 00:20:12,070
Speaker 3: of the people that come together in those kind of

353
00:20:12,790 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 3: relationships feeds kind of a symbiosis, you know, in a

354
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:20,310
Speaker 3: way that, My father, you know, coming from a really

355
00:20:20,590 --> 00:20:23,180
Speaker 3: angry kind of background of having been abused in a

356
00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:26,800
Speaker 3: boy's home and lost his power and so forth, really fought.

357
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Speaker 3: And I could see it right through my childhood, really

358
00:20:29,619 --> 00:20:32,830
Speaker 3: fought for a sense of power and belonging. And my

359
00:20:32,890 --> 00:20:37,050
Speaker 3: mother felt a sense of control in being a victim,

360
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Speaker 3: you know, in a way that kind of allowed for

361
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Speaker 3: her to... Attempt to control my father's behavior for so long,

362
00:20:47,070 --> 00:20:50,560
Speaker 3: you know, that that her sense of kind of control

363
00:20:51,060 --> 00:20:54,859
Speaker 3: was being in an uncontrollable environment. And I think that's

364
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,060
Speaker 3: true for a lot of victims that that they've kind

365
00:20:58,100 --> 00:21:01,409
Speaker 3: of grown up or they've had experiences with domestic and

366
00:21:01,450 --> 00:21:07,109
Speaker 3: family violence really. You know, kind of chaotic environments that

367
00:21:07,150 --> 00:21:09,390
Speaker 3: you have to walk on eggshells with and their sense

368
00:21:09,430 --> 00:21:12,429
Speaker 3: of control comes from a sense that they may be

369
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Speaker 3: able to change that person or they may be able

370
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Speaker 3: to control the next situation that occurs. And I think

371
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Speaker 3: that's what brings a lot of perpetrators with a lot

372
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Speaker 3: of victims together in this. And, you know, I mean,

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Speaker 3: I'm not an expert. It's just what I've learned, you know,

374
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Speaker 3: and what I've seen.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's very complex what you're talking about. But anecdotally,

376
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Speaker 1: I'd say that you're on the money. Quite often you

377
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Speaker 1: see someone that's grown up in, you know, as a

378
00:21:41,619 --> 00:21:45,240
Speaker 1: child in a domestic violence relationship, end up in that

379
00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:49,420
Speaker 1: same environment as an adult. So I'm sure it plays

380
00:21:49,500 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 1: a part. And that type of trauma, that type of

381
00:21:53,420 --> 00:21:58,869
Speaker 1: environment has an impact. As you described right at the start,

382
00:21:59,170 --> 00:22:01,609
Speaker 1: you carry that with you the whole way through your life.

383
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Speaker 3: I spend a lot of my adult life thinking to myself,

384
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Speaker 3: just whatever you do, don't be your father. you know,

385
00:22:09,050 --> 00:22:13,050
Speaker 3: it's constantly there. The voice is there. And I can't imagine,

386
00:22:13,070 --> 00:22:18,109
Speaker 3: I have constraint, I have understanding, but I have more importantly,

387
00:22:18,130 --> 00:22:22,750
Speaker 3: a curiosity about it. And I'm willing to explore that.

388
00:22:23,530 --> 00:22:27,460
Speaker 3: For someone like my father, who was not in tune

389
00:22:27,500 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 3: with it, was not willing to engage with it, um,

390
00:22:30,180 --> 00:22:32,040
Speaker 3: and not willing to explore it with a curious, I mean,

391
00:22:32,060 --> 00:22:35,810
Speaker 3: words like curiosity were not even around, you know, in the,

392
00:22:35,830 --> 00:22:37,850
Speaker 3: you know, can you imagine someone sitting in the seventies

393
00:22:37,890 --> 00:22:41,490
Speaker 3: and saying, now let's, let's be curious about your childhood here. Uh,

394
00:22:41,590 --> 00:22:44,090
Speaker 3: you know, like it just, it, I wasn't around, but

395
00:22:44,150 --> 00:22:46,650
Speaker 3: it didn't, it didn't exist. I'm sure that the level

396
00:22:46,670 --> 00:22:51,790
Speaker 3: of therapy and psychotherapy that is available now, um, But

397
00:22:52,090 --> 00:22:54,860
Speaker 3: through that lens of curiosity, I've been able to kind

398
00:22:54,880 --> 00:22:56,700
Speaker 3: of go, okay, well, what is it that I'm feeling

399
00:22:56,720 --> 00:22:58,640
Speaker 3: right now? And why is it that I'm feeling like that?

400
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 3: And where does that come from? And I can sit

401
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,050
Speaker 3: with it, you know, uncomfortably sit with it, but still

402
00:23:05,090 --> 00:23:07,090
Speaker 3: sit with it. And I think that's important. You know,

403
00:23:07,130 --> 00:23:09,790
Speaker 3: I don't... I don't kind of break out into anger

404
00:23:09,970 --> 00:23:12,310
Speaker 3: or anything like that. And I think that's really important to,

405
00:23:12,490 --> 00:23:15,629
Speaker 3: to kind of, um, for me to, to kind of

406
00:23:15,869 --> 00:23:18,090
Speaker 3: understand and for me to kind of grow from that

407
00:23:18,109 --> 00:23:21,090
Speaker 3: and go, this is breaking the cycle, you know, being

408
00:23:21,130 --> 00:23:23,890
Speaker 3: curious about it and understanding it and understanding the driving

409
00:23:23,970 --> 00:23:27,040
Speaker 3: points is the, is the breaking the cycle for me.

410
00:23:27,490 --> 00:23:31,060
Speaker 2: Well, it allows that emotional regulation that, uh, yeah, is

411
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 2: so important, uh, in, in dealing with, uh, situations.

412
00:23:35,900 --> 00:23:38,770
Speaker 1: And, uh, I think the fact that two men like

413
00:23:38,850 --> 00:23:42,950
Speaker 1: us are sitting here talking about this now, probably 20

414
00:23:42,950 --> 00:23:45,520
Speaker 1: years ago we wouldn't be having this conversation.

415
00:23:45,580 --> 00:23:48,780
Speaker 2: People would be going, what are these two people talking about?

416
00:23:48,859 --> 00:23:52,820
Speaker 1: But, yeah, the complexities of it and the cycle that continues,

417
00:23:53,300 --> 00:23:59,070
Speaker 1: it is so complex. Your brother, Grant, he came into

418
00:23:59,109 --> 00:24:03,470
Speaker 1: your world. I picked up on something that you're a

419
00:24:03,470 --> 00:24:06,290
Speaker 1: little bit jealous that someone came in and took your–

420
00:24:06,730 --> 00:24:07,550
Speaker 1: Took your attention away?

421
00:24:07,570 --> 00:24:08,770
Speaker 3: Took my top spot, mate, yeah.

422
00:24:08,810 --> 00:24:09,390
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

423
00:24:09,450 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 3: Well, and I think, you know, that kind of comes

424
00:24:11,980 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 3: from the fact that there wasn't much attention to go around,

425
00:24:15,900 --> 00:24:22,460
Speaker 3: you know. So there was dad who was preoccupied with

426
00:24:23,140 --> 00:24:27,810
Speaker 3: sleeping with other women and, you know, violently assaulting my

427
00:24:27,850 --> 00:24:31,989
Speaker 3: mum and me and there wasn't much love around. You know,

428
00:24:32,050 --> 00:24:34,250
Speaker 3: mum was, as I say, tiptoeing on eggshells and then

429
00:24:35,369 --> 00:24:39,520
Speaker 3: The way that they attempted to resolve their conflict was

430
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:45,540
Speaker 3: to have another child. And, you know, I think, yeah,

431
00:24:45,580 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 3: there was definitely some jealousy there. And particularly because Grant

432
00:24:50,980 --> 00:24:54,359
Speaker 3: has end-stage kidney disease. He developed it when he was

433
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:59,550
Speaker 3: 18 months old. So he's... level of attention, uh, the

434
00:24:59,850 --> 00:25:02,170
Speaker 3: required attention when he was a child, there was a

435
00:25:02,270 --> 00:25:05,670
Speaker 3: lot of focus on him and his healthcare needs. Um,

436
00:25:05,770 --> 00:25:07,710
Speaker 3: so then there was, uh, you know, as I've come

437
00:25:07,750 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 3: to understand it, you know, there was, there was Ashton, um, at,

438
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:14,859
Speaker 3: at kind of 15, uh, you know, kind of going, well, where's,

439
00:25:15,140 --> 00:25:17,419
Speaker 3: where am I in this zoo? You know, like, uh,

440
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,020
Speaker 3: where do I sit and where's my attention? So, so

441
00:25:20,060 --> 00:25:28,420
Speaker 3: I did a But I kind of demanded my mum's attention,

442
00:25:28,460 --> 00:25:30,970
Speaker 3: you know, on a few occasions and things like that.

443
00:25:31,869 --> 00:25:35,470
Speaker 3: demanded the most expensive of things that were not affordable

444
00:25:35,530 --> 00:25:36,970
Speaker 3: and all the rest of it. I just did the

445
00:25:37,050 --> 00:25:41,229
Speaker 3: typical kind of teenage, you know, selfishness thing or the,

446
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:43,900
Speaker 3: I think from probably about 12 or so, I can

447
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,419
Speaker 3: kind of remember that kind of behavior. You know, I

448
00:25:47,460 --> 00:25:50,820
Speaker 3: want the best of everything because I don't get any attention.

449
00:25:51,260 --> 00:25:54,399
Speaker 3: Look at, woe is me, you know, and there's Grant,

450
00:25:54,570 --> 00:25:58,890
Speaker 3: there's Grant suffering with kidney disease, you know. But, Lo

451
00:25:58,930 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 3: and behold, Grant's the best thing that's ever happened to

452
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 3: me in terms of my life. And, you know, you

453
00:26:04,780 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 3: asked me earlier what I think the thing is that's

454
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 3: gotten me through. And to be honest, it's our brotherhood.

455
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,530
Speaker 1: That's another layer of this story that I think will

456
00:26:16,570 --> 00:26:20,170
Speaker 1: just blow people away and probably bring tears to people's eyes,

457
00:26:20,510 --> 00:26:23,290
Speaker 1: the love and the bond that you two have got.

458
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:28,370
Speaker 1: When you say the kidney disease, is this severely impacted

459
00:26:28,450 --> 00:26:30,290
Speaker 1: on the way he could live his life? Do you

460
00:26:30,310 --> 00:26:32,470
Speaker 1: want it for people who are not familiar with the disease,

461
00:26:32,730 --> 00:26:33,650
Speaker 1: the type of thing?

462
00:26:33,830 --> 00:26:42,100
Speaker 3: So interestingly, my father's wish to donate a kidney ultimately

463
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:44,780
Speaker 3: resulted in my mother's murder. So they were.

464
00:26:47,720 --> 00:26:52,169
Speaker 3: Grant was five at the time and he developed kidney

465
00:26:52,190 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 3: disease at the age of 18 months old, was born

466
00:26:54,380 --> 00:26:56,540
Speaker 3: with it, but it progressed to end stage kidney disease

467
00:26:56,580 --> 00:26:58,460
Speaker 3: at the age of kind of 18 months old where

468
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:04,550
Speaker 3: he was symptomatic. He was about to commence peritoneal dialysis,

469
00:27:05,350 --> 00:27:09,210
Speaker 3: which is a form of renal replacement therapy. His kidneys

470
00:27:09,230 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 3: were insufficiently functioning. My mother and father were tested as donors,

471
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 3: and my mother was the preferred donor because my father

472
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:23,709
Speaker 3: had a cyst on his kidneys. And he remained adamant

473
00:27:23,770 --> 00:27:27,389
Speaker 3: that he should be the one to donate a kidney

474
00:27:27,490 --> 00:27:32,460
Speaker 3: to Grant as his right as a father and his

475
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 3: duty as a father. And so the fact that my

476
00:27:37,300 --> 00:27:42,180
Speaker 3: mother was the preferred donor, his argument in court was

477
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:46,420
Speaker 3: that he wanted to donate a kidney to Grant and

478
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: she was preventing him from doing that. which is pretty

479
00:27:50,780 --> 00:27:54,710
Speaker 3: bloody hard to hear and pretty hard for Grant to

480
00:27:54,770 --> 00:27:59,369
Speaker 3: grapple with as well. I can't imagine what that's like.

481
00:27:59,570 --> 00:28:05,090
Speaker 3: But ultimately, mum's murder resulted in burns to 99% of

482
00:28:05,130 --> 00:28:09,190
Speaker 3: her body. She died on that day, the 27th of

483
00:28:09,260 --> 00:28:14,220
Speaker 3: September 2000, and that resulted in Grant then enduring a

484
00:28:14,260 --> 00:28:20,220
Speaker 3: life of dialysis. He's had two cadaveric donors, two donations

485
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 3: from cadaveric donors. Both kidneys that he's received have failed,

486
00:28:25,460 --> 00:28:32,060
Speaker 3: and he's now... 33 years old, having lived almost 25

487
00:28:32,060 --> 00:28:37,070
Speaker 3: years on dialysis now and will be for the remainder

488
00:28:37,090 --> 00:28:39,070
Speaker 3: of his life now as a result of that.

489
00:28:40,590 --> 00:28:45,370
Speaker 1: Well, it adds to the complexity of what's gone on

490
00:28:45,670 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: in the family. And when you're talking about the donation

491
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:52,230
Speaker 1: and your father, It's that, I don't know. I don't

492
00:28:52,330 --> 00:28:55,150
Speaker 1: know him, but I know the type and what you've described.

493
00:28:55,210 --> 00:28:56,750
Speaker 1: It's that macho bullshit.

494
00:28:56,790 --> 00:29:00,030
Speaker 2: I'm the man. I'll supply the kidney. Just ridiculous.

495
00:29:00,050 --> 00:29:02,570
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

496
00:29:02,970 --> 00:29:05,580
Speaker 1: There was a happy period in your life, that nine

497
00:29:05,620 --> 00:29:10,340
Speaker 1: months where you moved out from the family home, but

498
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,100
Speaker 1: that was on the back of your father threatening your

499
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: life with a knife. Tell us about that incident and

500
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: then what that resulted in.

501
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:24,980
Speaker 3: The most bizarre of evenings that evening, as I said,

502
00:29:25,020 --> 00:29:27,740
Speaker 3: we didn't have the most luxurious of homes. In fact,

503
00:29:27,820 --> 00:29:30,420
Speaker 3: our home was infested with cockroaches, so I'd often find

504
00:29:30,460 --> 00:29:37,290
Speaker 3: them in my room. My dad had been out that day.

505
00:29:37,330 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 3: He'd had a few drinks, but ultimately, whenever we were

506
00:29:41,420 --> 00:29:43,380
Speaker 3: in the home, we kind of had to keep our

507
00:29:43,420 --> 00:29:46,650
Speaker 3: voice down. He complained of migraines all the time and

508
00:29:46,690 --> 00:29:48,810
Speaker 3: hearing things and all the rest of it. And so

509
00:29:48,890 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 3: we were always told to be quiet. Um, I, I

510
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,010
Speaker 3: was about nine o'clock at night and, uh, I remember

511
00:29:56,030 --> 00:29:58,150
Speaker 3: seeing a cockroach in my room and I thought, all right,

512
00:29:58,170 --> 00:29:59,670
Speaker 3: I'm going to get, I'm going to get this sucker.

513
00:29:59,710 --> 00:30:01,290
Speaker 3: And I, I, as I walked to the cupboard to

514
00:30:01,330 --> 00:30:03,250
Speaker 3: get the fly spray out of my room to the

515
00:30:03,270 --> 00:30:06,670
Speaker 3: kitchen cupboard to get the fly spray, I just muttered, um,

516
00:30:07,130 --> 00:30:11,290
Speaker 3: I'm going to kill you, you bastard. And suddenly I

517
00:30:11,550 --> 00:30:14,470
Speaker 3: was thrown up against a wall without me knowing from behind.

518
00:30:14,530 --> 00:30:18,170
Speaker 3: My father came from behind, grabbed me, spun me around,

519
00:30:18,610 --> 00:30:20,770
Speaker 3: put his hands around my neck, pushed me up against

520
00:30:20,830 --> 00:30:25,250
Speaker 3: a wall and then grabbed a knife out and threatened

521
00:30:25,270 --> 00:30:30,070
Speaker 3: to kill me. And he'd obviously in his mind thought

522
00:30:30,550 --> 00:30:32,850
Speaker 3: that I was saying to him, I'm going to kill you,

523
00:30:32,890 --> 00:30:36,390
Speaker 3: you bastard. I don't really understand what had happened, but

524
00:30:36,510 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 3: in his mind... you know, here's this kind of 15

525
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:43,860
Speaker 3: year old guy who, uh, you know, has taken his

526
00:30:43,900 --> 00:30:46,460
Speaker 3: beatings all his life and suddenly he's going to revolt

527
00:30:46,530 --> 00:30:48,190
Speaker 3: against him. I didn't, you know, I don't know how

528
00:30:48,230 --> 00:30:50,950
Speaker 3: that kind of came up in his mind, but anyway,

529
00:30:50,970 --> 00:30:54,510
Speaker 3: that resulted in probably the bravest act my mum's ever

530
00:30:54,610 --> 00:30:57,270
Speaker 3: kind of committed really. And that, that is that she

531
00:30:57,310 --> 00:31:00,970
Speaker 3: finally made the decision to, um, go through the court system,

532
00:31:01,110 --> 00:31:04,910
Speaker 3: get a restraining order against my father. Um, he, he

533
00:31:05,310 --> 00:31:08,140
Speaker 3: never returned to our home, our rented home. And, um,

534
00:31:09,100 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 3: He moved a few streets away and he had a

535
00:31:12,260 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 3: kind of restraining order of 200 metres or whatever it was.

536
00:31:16,590 --> 00:31:21,070
Speaker 3: But we had a really, I can just remember returning

537
00:31:21,190 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 3: from the police station and and him not being there

538
00:31:25,260 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 3: and just a sense of calm, you know, like, like

539
00:31:29,100 --> 00:31:32,340
Speaker 3: we just experienced this traumatic night and I'd been to

540
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 3: the police station all night and they're taking photographs and

541
00:31:34,660 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 3: all the rest of it, you know, but, um, the calm,

542
00:31:38,370 --> 00:31:41,130
Speaker 3: it was just like, we could talk at a volume

543
00:31:41,190 --> 00:31:44,090
Speaker 3: that wasn't, you know, going to set someone off. Um,

544
00:31:44,210 --> 00:31:47,850
Speaker 3: you know, we could, that whole nine month period that

545
00:31:47,890 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 3: we had from kind of January right through to September

546
00:31:52,340 --> 00:31:56,220
Speaker 3: in 2000, there were no eggshells, you know, I could,

547
00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,959
Speaker 3: I could play, play, you know, cars with Grant and

548
00:32:00,980 --> 00:32:03,630
Speaker 3: the lounge and make as much noise as we wanted.

549
00:32:03,730 --> 00:32:05,990
Speaker 3: And there wasn't a kind of an upheaval of the

550
00:32:06,030 --> 00:32:08,550
Speaker 3: whole house and there wasn't walls being smashed in the

551
00:32:08,590 --> 00:32:10,950
Speaker 3: middle of the night. And, and, all sorts of things.

552
00:32:10,970 --> 00:32:13,250
Speaker 3: You know, we'd kind of wake up some nights at

553
00:32:13,340 --> 00:32:16,060
Speaker 3: 2am and suddenly there was a fist going through the wall,

554
00:32:16,140 --> 00:32:18,220
Speaker 3: you know, like we'd been waking up with that just

555
00:32:18,260 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 3: because he decided he wanted to get some anger out,

556
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 3: you know, or we'd hear mum screaming because she was

557
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 3: being raped, you know, in the middle of the night.

558
00:32:27,530 --> 00:32:29,370
Speaker 3: So all of that, you know, I don't know if

559
00:32:29,410 --> 00:32:31,270
Speaker 3: you can imagine kind of growing up in that environment,

560
00:32:31,290 --> 00:32:34,330
Speaker 3: but you're literally just tiptoeing on eggshells. And then suddenly

561
00:32:34,350 --> 00:32:38,250
Speaker 3: when all that's gone, wow, the pressure valve just releases

562
00:32:38,290 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh my God. This is what calm is.

563
00:32:42,220 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: And I could imagine how intoxicating that was to you,

564
00:32:46,180 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: having peace in a household, because that's how a household works.

565
00:32:50,550 --> 00:32:50,930
Speaker 2: Should be.

566
00:32:50,990 --> 00:32:53,170
Speaker 1: And it was something that was completely foreign to you.

567
00:32:53,210 --> 00:32:55,050
Speaker 1: So I can imagine that it would have been like

568
00:32:55,090 --> 00:32:56,950
Speaker 1: a breath of fresh air coming through. Yeah.

569
00:32:57,230 --> 00:33:01,050
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, for nine months, with that said,

570
00:33:01,450 --> 00:33:03,450
Speaker 3: the house was as calm as it had ever been.

571
00:33:03,490 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 3: We were laughing. We were joking. You know, we even

572
00:33:06,020 --> 00:33:10,820
Speaker 3: got away at a five-day holiday. You know, unknown. Holidays

573
00:33:10,860 --> 00:33:14,500
Speaker 3: were absolutely unknown to us unless they involved us. some

574
00:33:14,580 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 3: kind of weird plot uh around my father you know

575
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,020
Speaker 3: kind of he went up to Queensland one time with

576
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:21,860
Speaker 3: us and said oh yeah I've got everything organized we

577
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 3: arrived and we we slept on the beach because we

578
00:33:23,660 --> 00:33:28,700
Speaker 3: had no no accommodation nothing you know like um so

579
00:33:29,260 --> 00:33:32,300
Speaker 3: family holidays were just totally unknown to us we got

580
00:33:32,340 --> 00:33:35,460
Speaker 3: away on a houseboat for for five nights and I

581
00:33:36,290 --> 00:33:38,570
Speaker 3: remember one of the funniest memories I have of my

582
00:33:38,590 --> 00:33:42,930
Speaker 3: mum is she was absolutely shit scared of the rocking

583
00:33:42,970 --> 00:33:44,570
Speaker 3: of boats. And it was only on the Murray River,

584
00:33:44,610 --> 00:33:46,470
Speaker 3: you know, no kind of ocean. You don't take a

585
00:33:46,490 --> 00:33:49,250
Speaker 3: houseboat in the ocean, obviously. But, you know, a speedboat

586
00:33:49,270 --> 00:33:52,910
Speaker 3: would go past and she'd grab her suitcase, pack it,

587
00:33:53,410 --> 00:33:57,330
Speaker 3: lay down on the floor with her suitcase packed because

588
00:33:57,350 --> 00:34:00,730
Speaker 3: the boat was rocking, you know. And I thought, I'm

589
00:34:00,780 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 3: not sure how that's going to save you. But, geez,

590
00:34:02,660 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 3: it was funny.

591
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

592
00:34:05,180 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 3: So she was she's absolutely but she she pushed herself

593
00:34:09,140 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 3: out of her comfort zone like she was so uncomfortable

594
00:34:11,820 --> 00:34:14,100
Speaker 3: on that on that holiday but because she was in

595
00:34:14,140 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 3: a strange environment um and she just left a man

596
00:34:18,060 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 3: after 20 years of being beaten and raped and all

597
00:34:20,380 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 3: the rest of it but you know she was willing

598
00:34:23,180 --> 00:34:24,799
Speaker 3: to do that for us kids to give us a

599
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,350
Speaker 3: memory that was kind of tangible and i think When

600
00:34:28,390 --> 00:34:31,529
Speaker 3: she passed, one of the things I thought is, thank

601
00:34:31,570 --> 00:34:34,989
Speaker 3: God we got that time. You know, thank God we

602
00:34:35,030 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 3: had that five days away of just blissful. You know,

603
00:34:39,100 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 3: five days in 15 years is, you know, it's not much,

604
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 3: but gosh, it meant the world to us.

605
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:51,890
Speaker 1: As a 15-year-old boy, did you think, okay– happy days

606
00:34:51,930 --> 00:34:55,310
Speaker 1: from here on like did you think that the courts

607
00:34:55,430 --> 00:34:57,650
Speaker 1: now that we've got because you would think the police

608
00:34:57,710 --> 00:35:00,410
Speaker 1: sit up there the courts and okay we've got that

609
00:35:00,469 --> 00:35:03,330
Speaker 1: in everything's going to be fine now we're safe did.

610
00:35:03,190 --> 00:35:06,569
Speaker 3: You did you i thought mum had the support she

611
00:35:06,630 --> 00:35:09,250
Speaker 3: needed yeah i thought she had the support that she

612
00:35:09,330 --> 00:35:13,589
Speaker 3: needed to to turn things around and to really give

613
00:35:13,739 --> 00:35:17,140
Speaker 3: us uh not not give us but but to support

614
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 3: us in um a life moving forward you know and

615
00:35:20,660 --> 00:35:23,819
Speaker 3: i thought I thought, right, it's Grant, mum and I now.

616
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:27,020
Speaker 3: We are a unit and we're a really solid unit.

617
00:35:27,340 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 3: We've got each other's backs and we're going to be safe.

618
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 3: We're going to be safe. We've got this restraining order

619
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 3: that's in place. You know, he can't come around. Mind you,

620
00:35:37,380 --> 00:35:39,919
Speaker 3: we'd wake up and he'd be outside the window, you know,

621
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,750
Speaker 3: at 3am in the morning, you know, kind of, you know,

622
00:35:43,790 --> 00:35:48,280
Speaker 3: looking at us and peering in and just haunting us almost. So,

623
00:35:48,420 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 3: you know, and the police were called a number of

624
00:35:50,219 --> 00:35:54,090
Speaker 3: times and all the rest of it. He constantly called

625
00:35:54,290 --> 00:35:56,410
Speaker 3: the house to make sure that we were home, you know.

626
00:35:57,350 --> 00:36:04,020
Speaker 3: And ultimately, I guess, yeah, I genuinely thought things were

627
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,359
Speaker 3: going to be different. Yeah. You know, I genuinely thought

628
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 3: things were going to be different.

629
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:14,300
Speaker 1: We'll talk about domestic violence in general in part two

630
00:36:14,340 --> 00:36:17,130
Speaker 1: and those red flags that you've just talked about and

631
00:36:17,150 --> 00:36:19,810
Speaker 1: the indicators that something bad was going to happen. I

632
00:36:19,950 --> 00:36:23,850
Speaker 1: think we're becoming more aware to the situations, but we'll

633
00:36:23,969 --> 00:36:28,070
Speaker 1: talk about that later in the podcast. But in regards,

634
00:36:28,610 --> 00:36:30,870
Speaker 1: how did it escalate to the point, and I know

635
00:36:30,890 --> 00:36:34,850
Speaker 1: you've reliving a horror situation, but can you tell us

636
00:36:34,890 --> 00:36:38,190
Speaker 1: about the day that your mum was murdered by your

637
00:36:38,210 --> 00:36:40,219
Speaker 1: dad and what happened on the day?

638
00:36:41,500 --> 00:36:46,960
Speaker 3: Look, I've tried to forget, but unfortunately I cannot. So

639
00:36:47,580 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 3: it's one of those things, you know, I mean, even

640
00:36:49,860 --> 00:36:53,020
Speaker 3: when you said, when I said earlier, it's a pleasure

641
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:54,739
Speaker 3: to be here, I thought, well, actually it's not, you know,

642
00:36:55,340 --> 00:37:00,779
Speaker 3: I've been through this horrible thing. But it's a a

643
00:37:00,860 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 3: very vivid memory for me. I specifically remember we, mum

644
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,339
Speaker 3: had made a new friend, uh, in the community. So this, uh,

645
00:37:08,460 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 3: he was an older guy. I think he was maybe

646
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:14,060
Speaker 3: about 70 or so. And, and mum was, um, 48

647
00:37:14,060 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 3: at the time. Um, but, uh, but this guy she'd met, uh,

648
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,440
Speaker 3: because he was doing some window repairs at our house

649
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:25,730
Speaker 3: on the rental. And, um, And he– I was really excited.

650
00:37:25,770 --> 00:37:30,770
Speaker 3: Mum didn't drive, and so we had no vehicle. We had–

651
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:32,299
Speaker 3: you know, Dad was the only one that kind of

652
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:35,819
Speaker 3: drove and took the car, obviously. So we– all my

653
00:37:35,860 --> 00:37:38,800
Speaker 3: friends are kind of going places, you know, every weekend

654
00:37:38,860 --> 00:37:43,190
Speaker 3: and having a lovely life and– We were kind of

655
00:37:43,210 --> 00:37:48,260
Speaker 3: stuck at home, I guess. So 27th of September 2000,

656
00:37:48,250 --> 00:37:54,060
Speaker 3: we're planning to go to Beechworth, actually, with mum's new friend, Alan, who...

657
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 3: Lovely guy, and we kind of planned this for a

658
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 3: couple of weeks. We planned it around Grant's treatment and

659
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 3: all the rest of it. And I was just really

660
00:38:03,060 --> 00:38:04,780
Speaker 3: looking forward to being in a car and getting out

661
00:38:05,180 --> 00:38:08,230
Speaker 3: of the town, to be honest, Clarebrum. And I thought, oh,

662
00:38:08,250 --> 00:38:10,450
Speaker 3: I've never been to Beechworth. It really just, you know,

663
00:38:10,610 --> 00:38:14,509
Speaker 3: nice to go somewhere else. So we're planning that. A

664
00:38:15,150 --> 00:38:18,370
Speaker 3: few weeks kind of before that, Dad starts kind of calling,

665
00:38:18,390 --> 00:38:21,730
Speaker 3: saying he really needs to see Grant on this particular

666
00:38:21,790 --> 00:38:26,350
Speaker 3: day and that there's– a whole bunch of toys that

667
00:38:27,070 --> 00:38:30,710
Speaker 3: kind of mum needs to come and sort out at

668
00:38:30,750 --> 00:38:38,090
Speaker 3: his caravan. And I remember kind of mum, you know, saying, oh, look,

669
00:38:38,350 --> 00:38:40,129
Speaker 3: I'll just keep the peace and I'll just go around

670
00:38:40,150 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 3: there and do it. You know, I'll do it in

671
00:38:41,780 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 3: the morning. We'll get it done in the morning. I'll

672
00:38:43,700 --> 00:38:46,739
Speaker 3: be quick, come back. Alan will be here about 10

673
00:38:46,739 --> 00:38:51,009
Speaker 3: o'clock and then we'll go. And I remember pleading with her,

674
00:38:51,050 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 3: just don't give in to him. Just, you know, don't

675
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:57,219
Speaker 3: do it. No, no, no. She said, look, it's easier

676
00:38:57,260 --> 00:39:00,790
Speaker 3: if I just keep the peace and make it work.

677
00:39:00,830 --> 00:39:03,130
Speaker 3: And I'll take Grant around and you'll see Grant and

678
00:39:03,150 --> 00:39:06,210
Speaker 3: he'll be happier that way and he'll stop calling. and

679
00:39:06,350 --> 00:39:09,890
Speaker 3: uh so she walked out at 8 a.m and i

680
00:39:10,090 --> 00:39:13,660
Speaker 3: i just remember kind of you know one last beg

681
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,739
Speaker 3: of please don't go you know i really kind of

682
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,140
Speaker 3: don't want you to go and and i remember watching

683
00:39:19,780 --> 00:39:24,470
Speaker 3: her and grant walk down the street um and uh

684
00:39:26,050 --> 00:39:29,070
Speaker 3: the next thing i know about an hour later um

685
00:39:30,420 --> 00:39:32,940
Speaker 3: i had a knock on the door uh from one

686
00:39:32,980 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 3: of the patient services assistants and and grant was with

687
00:39:36,320 --> 00:39:39,399
Speaker 3: her And she looked at me and she said, there's

688
00:39:39,420 --> 00:39:42,740
Speaker 3: been an accident. You've got to come to the hospital.

689
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:45,950
Speaker 3: And Grant looked at me and he said, I tried, Ash.

690
00:39:46,410 --> 00:39:51,110
Speaker 3: I really tried. And I said, you tried what? And

691
00:39:51,150 --> 00:39:53,890
Speaker 3: I just gave him a massive hug. And he said,

692
00:39:53,930 --> 00:39:58,190
Speaker 3: I really tried to save her. And, you know, he's

693
00:39:58,250 --> 00:40:03,630
Speaker 3: only six at this time. And the patient services assistant

694
00:40:03,650 --> 00:40:05,629
Speaker 3: said to me, come down to the hospital, you know,

695
00:40:05,770 --> 00:40:07,730
Speaker 3: just get whatever you need and then come to the hospital.

696
00:40:08,710 --> 00:40:10,930
Speaker 3: And there's been an accident. So we got in the

697
00:40:10,969 --> 00:40:14,940
Speaker 3: car and Grant just kept saying, I tried. I really tried.

698
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 3: And I couldn't work out kind of what it was

699
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:23,020
Speaker 3: and what had happened. And anyway, we We got to

700
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,090
Speaker 3: the hospital and there was a whole lot of commotion

701
00:40:26,110 --> 00:40:30,660
Speaker 3: around the hospital. Kyabrum's a town of 6,000, not many

702
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,540
Speaker 3: people there, a whole lot of ambulances there, the police

703
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:39,379
Speaker 3: were there and I thought, what's going on here? And

704
00:40:40,100 --> 00:40:42,859
Speaker 3: got there and the doctor came out and said, your

705
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:49,470
Speaker 3: mum's been severely burnt and her chances of survival are

706
00:40:49,510 --> 00:40:53,750
Speaker 3: not good and she likely won't make it. And so

707
00:40:53,870 --> 00:41:01,219
Speaker 3: that's really all that I knew at that time. You know, Grant... Grant,

708
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:05,489
Speaker 3: I think, was... Look, he is the strongest human being

709
00:41:05,530 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 3: that I've ever met in my life, to be honest.

710
00:41:08,450 --> 00:41:13,410
Speaker 3: And as a six-year-old, I cannot even begin to imagine

711
00:41:13,469 --> 00:41:15,049
Speaker 3: how he kept it together that day.

712
00:41:15,150 --> 00:41:15,509
Speaker 2: He was.

713
00:41:18,670 --> 00:41:20,710
Speaker 3: more rational than any adult I've ever met in a

714
00:41:20,750 --> 00:41:24,910
Speaker 3: traumatic situation. And in my time as an ICU nurse

715
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 3: and all the rest of it, I've met a lot

716
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 3: of adults who experienced trauma. And he was the most

717
00:41:33,780 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 3: together human being that I've ever met in such a circumstance.

718
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 3: He told me that he was in playing cars. He

719
00:41:43,540 --> 00:41:47,760
Speaker 3: heard a loud bang and then some shouting and some screaming.

720
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:52,770
Speaker 3: And then Dad came in through the back door, grabbed him,

721
00:41:54,010 --> 00:41:58,210
Speaker 3: put him in the car and then tried to drive off.

722
00:41:59,110 --> 00:42:03,890
Speaker 3: He'd forgotten the keys. So Grant saw through the gap

723
00:42:03,969 --> 00:42:07,910
Speaker 3: of a steel fence that Mum was running around the

724
00:42:07,950 --> 00:42:13,540
Speaker 3: backyard in a ball of fire. And so Grant had

725
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 3: the power to open the car door and try to

726
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:23,760
Speaker 3: reach her with a garden hose through the locked steel fence.

727
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:27,779
Speaker 3: And he said to me, I kept calling her to

728
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,969
Speaker 3: come closer because I couldn't get through the gate ash.

729
00:42:31,050 --> 00:42:32,050
Speaker 3: I cried.

730
00:42:33,890 --> 00:42:37,570
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine what you're talking about there. So

731
00:42:37,670 --> 00:42:41,690
Speaker 1: you've got Grant at six years of age, seeing his

732
00:42:41,750 --> 00:42:44,590
Speaker 1: mum crying um, running around in a ball of flame

733
00:42:44,650 --> 00:42:47,750
Speaker 1: and he's trying to hose it down through a small

734
00:42:47,790 --> 00:42:51,450
Speaker 1: hole in a steel fence with a, uh, a garden

735
00:42:51,469 --> 00:42:53,150
Speaker 1: hose and asking her to come closer.

736
00:42:53,290 --> 00:42:55,870
Speaker 2: Like I just, it's horrific.

737
00:42:56,890 --> 00:43:00,410
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, and then, uh, the, the notion that

738
00:43:00,550 --> 00:43:04,550
Speaker 3: he felt he needs to apologize to, to me, to,

739
00:43:04,730 --> 00:43:07,110
Speaker 3: to say, I just couldn't save her, you know? Um,

740
00:43:07,630 --> 00:43:13,230
Speaker 3: and then, and then he recounted for me, um, He said, oh,

741
00:43:14,550 --> 00:43:17,350
Speaker 3: I called the police and I called the ambulance and

742
00:43:17,370 --> 00:43:18,410
Speaker 3: I called the fire brigade.

743
00:43:18,430 --> 00:43:20,150
Speaker 2: What a little hero.

744
00:43:21,090 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 3: I said, mate, I cannot even believe that. The little

745
00:43:25,739 --> 00:43:29,420
Speaker 3: funny side story to this that really kind of represents

746
00:43:30,260 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 3: our brotherhood, I guess, is Grant and I, you know,

747
00:43:34,520 --> 00:43:38,010
Speaker 3: in the nine months that Dad had been gone, Grant

748
00:43:38,030 --> 00:43:41,660
Speaker 3: was really obsessed with security firms and he was really

749
00:43:41,700 --> 00:43:46,399
Speaker 3: interested in setting up a security company at the age

750
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:50,580
Speaker 3: of six. So we created a fictitious security company and

751
00:43:51,100 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 3: he came up with the name Albano Security Company. Um, and, uh,

752
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,879
Speaker 3: and I even had for his April birthday of 2000,

753
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 3: I had him, um, shirts and a cap made. Um,

754
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:04,580
Speaker 3: and I had me one made as well that had

755
00:44:04,660 --> 00:44:07,489
Speaker 3: Albano security and our phone number on it and, uh,

756
00:44:07,570 --> 00:44:09,310
Speaker 3: all the rest of it. So we walked around the house,

757
00:44:09,350 --> 00:44:11,670
Speaker 3: kind of, I was the managing director and he was

758
00:44:11,690 --> 00:44:15,450
Speaker 3: the CEO, um, um and uh it was really cool

759
00:44:15,969 --> 00:44:19,149
Speaker 3: the the funny thing was we had this um so

760
00:44:19,430 --> 00:44:21,630
Speaker 3: so being a 15 year old i wanted the latest

761
00:44:21,670 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 3: technology obviously and um and i the latest technology at

762
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:27,980
Speaker 3: that time was a philips savvy believe it or not

763
00:44:28,020 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 3: a philips savvy mobile phone um they don't even make

764
00:44:31,580 --> 00:44:33,900
Speaker 3: phones anymore i'm sure philips but anyway i don't even

765
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 3: know if the company exists but I had one of

766
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 3: those really bulky leather cases on it, you know, that

767
00:44:38,940 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 3: were cool back in the day. Yeah, you know. Sure,

768
00:44:42,460 --> 00:44:46,610
Speaker 3: you're familiar with those, Gary. Not today. But you used

769
00:44:46,620 --> 00:44:48,220
Speaker 3: to clip it to your belt, add a belt clip

770
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,710
Speaker 3: on it. Anyway, that morning, as they were leaving, I

771
00:44:51,750 --> 00:44:55,190
Speaker 3: said to Grant, here, take the Albano's phone. It was

772
00:44:55,270 --> 00:44:59,210
Speaker 3: our primary kind of phone service. So I said, take

773
00:44:59,230 --> 00:45:03,870
Speaker 3: the Albano's phone, and if you need me, I'm here. Right. So...

774
00:45:04,430 --> 00:45:07,210
Speaker 3: he had this, he proudly kind of strutted down the

775
00:45:07,270 --> 00:45:10,570
Speaker 3: street as he left with this Salbano security, uh, phone

776
00:45:10,610 --> 00:45:13,340
Speaker 3: on his, on his, um, tracky decks that were too,

777
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,060
Speaker 3: too loose and they were falling down the phone, but

778
00:45:16,100 --> 00:45:19,420
Speaker 3: he held it so, so proudly. I still vividly remember

779
00:45:19,460 --> 00:45:23,779
Speaker 3: that memory, but, um, he, um, he managed to call

780
00:45:23,820 --> 00:45:28,490
Speaker 3: triple zero on that phone. Um, and, uh, I listened to,

781
00:45:29,050 --> 00:45:31,819
Speaker 3: during the Supreme Court hearing, I listened to the recording

782
00:45:32,060 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 3: of that triple zero call. That was probably the hardest

783
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:40,060
Speaker 3: thing that I've ever listened to, to be honest. So

784
00:45:40,140 --> 00:45:43,879
Speaker 3: he called the triple zero operator. And at the age

785
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 3: of six, he had to spell out Kyabrum for the

786
00:45:49,260 --> 00:45:54,740
Speaker 3: operator and the street name. And then answer the question,

787
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:58,760
Speaker 3: what service do you require for a six year old,

788
00:45:59,530 --> 00:46:02,550
Speaker 3: for a six year old who then says to the operator,

789
00:46:03,250 --> 00:46:05,350
Speaker 3: all of them, my mother is on fire.

790
00:46:05,370 --> 00:46:06,310
Speaker 2: Wow.

791
00:46:06,730 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 3: And, and that then gets the help that she needs.

792
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 3: So he, he's telling me, I'm really sorry, but, but

793
00:46:15,020 --> 00:46:19,020
Speaker 3: I did manage to get help, you know, and I just,

794
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:25,069
Speaker 3: I just break down at that point. Um, But it's

795
00:46:25,180 --> 00:46:32,380
Speaker 3: just phenomenal, the heroism, the capacity, the strength and the

796
00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 3: courage to fight my father, who's also burnt because when

797
00:46:36,180 --> 00:46:40,250
Speaker 3: he doused my mum in petrol and closed the door

798
00:46:40,350 --> 00:46:44,570
Speaker 3: and then threw a match in, he's got burns that

799
00:46:45,450 --> 00:46:49,450
Speaker 3: he self-inflicted. So Grant talked about in the Supreme Court

800
00:46:49,489 --> 00:46:53,710
Speaker 3: hearing that the smell of burning flesh on my father

801
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 3: as he grabbed him and moved through the house and

802
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:02,140
Speaker 3: threw him in the car. I just can't even fathom

803
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:07,100
Speaker 3: how my brother managed to, my brother, and I say

804
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:11,670
Speaker 3: that so proudly, managed to do all of that in

805
00:47:11,730 --> 00:47:15,549
Speaker 3: that moment. Most adults would not even have the capacity

806
00:47:15,570 --> 00:47:18,280
Speaker 3: in that moment to do that whilst they're being restrained,

807
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:20,280
Speaker 3: you know, by someone.

808
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 2: Well, a little hero.

809
00:47:22,780 --> 00:47:30,050
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Absolutely. He deserves the absolute best life that anyone

810
00:47:30,090 --> 00:47:34,089
Speaker 3: could have. And unfortunately, he's been robbed of that by

811
00:47:34,110 --> 00:47:34,530
Speaker 3: my father.

812
00:47:36,090 --> 00:47:41,450
Speaker 1: You've described the situation there. You go down to the hospital.

813
00:47:41,690 --> 00:47:44,910
Speaker 1: You're trying to process what's going on. I would imagine

814
00:47:44,950 --> 00:47:47,940
Speaker 1: the trauma that you've seen conditions you to a certain degree,

815
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,780
Speaker 1: but this has been taken to another level. What happened

816
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 1: when you got to the hospital? Did you have people

817
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:55,980
Speaker 1: you could rely on?

818
00:47:56,860 --> 00:48:02,070
Speaker 3: So mum's friend, Alan, who was driving us to Beechworth

819
00:48:02,130 --> 00:48:07,100
Speaker 3: that day, Kaibam's a pretty small town. He got wind

820
00:48:07,140 --> 00:48:12,500
Speaker 3: that there was an accident, obviously, and that it involved mum, Viola.

821
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:17,430
Speaker 3: And he comes down to the hospital and the hospital says, look,

822
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:23,890
Speaker 3: it's unlikely that your mum will survive. However, because we

823
00:48:24,190 --> 00:48:27,489
Speaker 3: are a regional hospital, we're going to send her, we're

824
00:48:27,770 --> 00:48:31,089
Speaker 3: going to airlift her to the Alfred, the major centre

825
00:48:31,110 --> 00:48:37,470
Speaker 3: for burns. And they do that. And so Alan says, right,

826
00:48:38,310 --> 00:48:42,130
Speaker 3: do you want to go? And we hightail it to

827
00:48:42,510 --> 00:48:46,750
Speaker 3: Paran from Kyabrum, which is at that time the New

828
00:48:46,770 --> 00:48:49,879
Speaker 3: Hume Highway and Bypass wasn't there, so a three-hour drive

829
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:56,700
Speaker 3: to walk into the Alfred Hospital, a fairly– I can

830
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:00,819
Speaker 3: remember walking in there going– boy from the country. What

831
00:49:01,100 --> 00:49:05,899
Speaker 3: is this place? This city, I have no idea where

832
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,340
Speaker 3: I am and what I'm doing. And I can't even

833
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:11,930
Speaker 3: think of my name right now. And we stop at

834
00:49:11,989 --> 00:49:14,950
Speaker 3: the information desk and we ask about mum. And this

835
00:49:15,090 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 3: this I remember that the vivid look that comes over

836
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,620
Speaker 3: the person's uh face and she says she's in ICU

837
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:28,130
Speaker 3: we get to ICU and uh I'm screaming I just

838
00:49:28,170 --> 00:49:30,790
Speaker 3: want to see mum and Grant's screaming where's where's our

839
00:49:30,810 --> 00:49:34,170
Speaker 3: mum and uh and this nurse and this doctor kind

840
00:49:34,210 --> 00:49:36,569
Speaker 3: of gets us and says coming you've got to come

841
00:49:36,590 --> 00:49:40,210
Speaker 3: into this room We go, no, no, no, we just

842
00:49:40,250 --> 00:49:45,710
Speaker 3: want to see mum. And they say, you can't right now,

843
00:49:45,890 --> 00:49:48,250
Speaker 3: but come into this room. And then they sit us

844
00:49:48,290 --> 00:49:51,009
Speaker 3: down and they say to us, unfortunately, your mum has

845
00:49:51,070 --> 00:49:59,930
Speaker 3: passed away. And I then say to them, I don't

846
00:49:59,969 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 3: believe you. I don't believe you. Let me see her.

847
00:50:06,219 --> 00:50:11,799
Speaker 3: I cannot believe. that I said, see you in an

848
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:17,210
Speaker 3: hour to my mother this morning at 8am. And suddenly

849
00:50:17,250 --> 00:50:20,850
Speaker 3: we're in Paran at the Alfred Hospital and you're telling

850
00:50:20,870 --> 00:50:22,830
Speaker 3: me that my mother is dead. Let me see her.

851
00:50:22,870 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 3: And they said, we wouldn't advise that. And I say

852
00:50:28,340 --> 00:50:30,779
Speaker 3: to them, if you don't let me see my mother,

853
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:34,420
Speaker 3: I'm going to scream and kick and do all of

854
00:50:34,460 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 3: the things that a 15-year-old would do. And they asked me,

855
00:50:37,980 --> 00:50:42,469
Speaker 3: are you sure? and say, I am not going to

856
00:50:42,530 --> 00:50:47,420
Speaker 3: believe that she is dead until you show me her.

857
00:50:47,430 --> 00:50:50,150
Speaker 3: So they have a little discussion outside the room, and

858
00:50:50,170 --> 00:50:52,110
Speaker 3: then they say, only you, not Grant.

859
00:50:53,750 --> 00:50:59,350
Speaker 1: So you're standing there, you've demanded to see your mother's body,

860
00:50:59,790 --> 00:51:03,850
Speaker 1: and they've taken you into a room, and you've pulled

861
00:51:03,870 --> 00:51:04,509
Speaker 1: the curtain back.

862
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:12,990
Speaker 3: Yeah, and... And as I kind of visualize that space

863
00:51:13,050 --> 00:51:18,720
Speaker 3: right now, I can remember the overpowering smell of burnt flesh,

864
00:51:19,020 --> 00:51:24,200
Speaker 3: what I now know as burnt flesh. And I look at,

865
00:51:24,219 --> 00:51:33,489
Speaker 3: I move to the head of the bed. And I

866
00:51:33,590 --> 00:51:37,310
Speaker 3: see my mother who has burns to 99% of her body.

867
00:51:38,570 --> 00:51:45,130
Speaker 3: She's unrecognizable. They're telling me that it's my mother. And

868
00:51:47,510 --> 00:51:53,940
Speaker 3: I can vividly remember at that point acknowledging that my

869
00:51:53,960 --> 00:52:00,040
Speaker 3: mum was gone. Just saying to myself, this is it.

870
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:03,980
Speaker 3: And then I look at her and I say to her,

871
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:12,219
Speaker 3: no matter what, I will always look after Grant. And

872
00:52:12,260 --> 00:52:16,739
Speaker 3: then I try to grab her hand and hold her

873
00:52:16,780 --> 00:52:22,819
Speaker 3: hand and realise that her body's covered in gasoline and

874
00:52:23,460 --> 00:52:25,779
Speaker 3: all sorts of fluids and all the rest of it.

875
00:52:25,910 --> 00:52:29,830
Speaker 3: But I just whisper one more time, no matter what,

876
00:52:29,870 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 3: I'll always look after Grant. And then I'm ushered away

877
00:52:33,450 --> 00:52:39,629
Speaker 3: by nurses and doctors who then close the curtain and

878
00:52:40,790 --> 00:52:45,540
Speaker 3: put us into a little room, Grant and I, and Alan,

879
00:52:45,660 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 3: who was there at the time. And we sit there

880
00:52:50,620 --> 00:52:55,620
Speaker 3: in silence. And I'm just holding Grant at that stage.

881
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,310
Speaker 3: Grant and I are just holding each other and.

882
00:53:01,210 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 3: He turns to me and says, I really tried, Ash.

883
00:53:04,300 --> 00:53:08,739
Speaker 3: I really tried. And, you know, I just, I can't

884
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 3: imagine what's going through his mind at that point. I mean,

885
00:53:12,580 --> 00:53:15,799
Speaker 3: what was going through mine was how are we going

886
00:53:15,820 --> 00:53:19,299
Speaker 3: to get through this? And what I had to do

887
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:20,759
Speaker 3: in that moment or what I felt I had to

888
00:53:20,820 --> 00:53:29,180
Speaker 3: do was swiftly pack my grief away and say, Grant

889
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:34,210
Speaker 3: needs looking after. I've made a promise to mum and

890
00:53:34,850 --> 00:53:37,910
Speaker 3: I'm now in charge of looking after Grant. So that's

891
00:53:37,969 --> 00:53:43,279
Speaker 3: my responsibility now. And I've got that lifelong. So what

892
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:49,210
Speaker 3: happens now is what medications does Grant need? um it's

893
00:53:49,290 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 3: dinner time by now um and he's due he's due

894
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 3: his caltrate tablets is what i say because i know

895
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:58,760
Speaker 3: that every night and with every meal he needs caltrate

896
00:53:58,780 --> 00:54:02,400
Speaker 3: tablets uh to bind his bloody phosphate and that's what

897
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:06,860
Speaker 3: i'm thinking in that room is where are his medications

898
00:54:08,420 --> 00:54:10,580
Speaker 3: did i bring them yes i remember i brought them

899
00:54:11,380 --> 00:54:13,879
Speaker 3: i remember i got them okay we can do this

900
00:54:14,820 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 3: Let's get his medications out. Grant, are these the right medications?

901
00:54:18,660 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 3: Is this what mum normally gives you? And I was

902
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:25,920
Speaker 3: thrown into that practical kind of element of caring almost

903
00:54:25,980 --> 00:54:31,460
Speaker 3: immediately because for me, that's all that I knew. Survival

904
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 3: was moving forward and keeping shit together, you know. I

905
00:54:36,180 --> 00:54:39,299
Speaker 3: had a responsibility and that was the only thing that

906
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:41,339
Speaker 3: got me up off that couch in that tiny little

907
00:54:41,380 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 3: room at the Alfred Hospital was the fact that I

908
00:54:43,700 --> 00:54:44,140
Speaker 3: had Grant.

909
00:54:44,969 --> 00:54:50,009
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you're 15 too. Like it's, you're talking with

910
00:54:50,210 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 1: the wisdom of a person, an adult person that's lived

911
00:54:54,100 --> 00:54:57,339
Speaker 1: their whole life, but you're 15 and you had to,

912
00:54:57,580 --> 00:55:00,520
Speaker 1: all of a sudden your childhood was gone. If you

913
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:03,840
Speaker 1: even had a childhood, but your childhood was gone at

914
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:05,660
Speaker 1: that stage. And all of a sudden you took on

915
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:07,950
Speaker 1: all the responsibilities of an adult.

916
00:55:07,989 --> 00:55:08,750
Speaker 2: So yeah.

917
00:55:09,530 --> 00:55:11,739
Speaker 1: And I've said it once, I think I'll say it

918
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:15,940
Speaker 1: many times, your mum would be so proud of who

919
00:55:15,980 --> 00:55:18,520
Speaker 1: you are and how you dealt.

920
00:55:18,340 --> 00:55:20,500
Speaker 2: With such a horrific situation.

921
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:26,170
Speaker 1: The way you described it, and I apologise for having

922
00:55:26,190 --> 00:55:30,489
Speaker 1: you relive those memories, but for people to understand what

923
00:55:30,810 --> 00:55:34,070
Speaker 1: domestic violence is about and the impact of domestic violence,

924
00:55:34,110 --> 00:55:37,380
Speaker 1: they need to hear the story from people like yourself

925
00:55:38,100 --> 00:55:38,900
Speaker 1: that have seen it.

926
00:55:39,219 --> 00:55:40,029
Speaker 2: And understand it.

927
00:55:40,950 --> 00:55:46,140
Speaker 3: And you know what, Gary? Sharing mum's story and our story,

928
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:53,660
Speaker 3: it gives purpose to mum's murder. Because if someone can

929
00:55:53,780 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 3: learn something from the actions or whatever it might be,

930
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:02,879
Speaker 3: the behaviours, the understanding of the dynamics in their relationship,

931
00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:08,580
Speaker 3: or if I can give something back through mum's murder...

932
00:56:09,350 --> 00:56:12,049
Speaker 3: it means that she wasn't murdered in vain, you know.

933
00:56:12,390 --> 00:56:16,470
Speaker 3: And I think that's the important part. I don't talk

934
00:56:16,510 --> 00:56:20,970
Speaker 3: today to, you know, ask for any pity or anything

935
00:56:21,010 --> 00:56:23,630
Speaker 3: like that. What I do is I share mum's story,

936
00:56:23,730 --> 00:56:27,089
Speaker 3: our journey, so that her memory lives on and that

937
00:56:27,180 --> 00:56:32,339
Speaker 3: she wasn't murdered for nothing. Not that anyone should be,

938
00:56:32,420 --> 00:56:35,359
Speaker 3: but just so that her memory continues to live on

939
00:56:36,200 --> 00:56:37,460
Speaker 3: and that people can grow from that.

940
00:56:38,060 --> 00:56:41,540
Speaker 1: By hearing your story, so many lessons can be learned,

941
00:56:42,140 --> 00:56:48,310
Speaker 1: understanding the impact indicators. We're going to talk heavily about

942
00:56:48,350 --> 00:56:52,370
Speaker 1: that in part two, but we've got to prevent these

943
00:56:52,410 --> 00:56:56,590
Speaker 1: type of things happening. I think we'll take a break

944
00:56:56,690 --> 00:57:00,790
Speaker 1: for part one. We haven't touched on the fact that

945
00:57:01,950 --> 00:57:04,770
Speaker 1: you're dealing with the trauma that you've just described, and

946
00:57:04,790 --> 00:57:08,020
Speaker 1: then the realisation that this wasn't an accident. It was

947
00:57:08,100 --> 00:57:10,700
Speaker 1: in fact a murder and your father was responsible for

948
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:13,590
Speaker 1: the murder. So in terms of a life being turned

949
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:17,590
Speaker 1: upside down, I don't know how it could have become

950
00:57:17,630 --> 00:57:22,670
Speaker 1: more complex or complicated for you. But I'm also going

951
00:57:22,690 --> 00:57:26,990
Speaker 1: to say this, Ashton, you blow me away, the way

952
00:57:27,010 --> 00:57:30,110
Speaker 1: that you articulate what you've been through. And I know

953
00:57:30,170 --> 00:57:34,370
Speaker 1: what you're doing now. And yeah, I've Find inspiration from

954
00:57:34,430 --> 00:57:36,740
Speaker 1: people like you. And I don't say that lightly. We

955
00:57:36,780 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 1: have a lot of people that come through on the podcast.

956
00:57:40,620 --> 00:57:46,250
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're exceptional. And your description of what Grant

957
00:57:46,270 --> 00:57:47,689
Speaker 1: did as a six-year-old too.

958
00:57:48,230 --> 00:57:52,370
Speaker 2: Where's his... citizen of the year medal like it's uh look.

959
00:57:52,190 --> 00:57:56,760
Speaker 3: Yeah absolutely he uh he he was nominated for for

960
00:57:56,820 --> 00:57:59,260
Speaker 3: young young australian of the year and and uh you

961
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:01,120
Speaker 3: know he should have bloody got it to be honest.

962
00:58:01,220 --> 00:58:04,140
Speaker 1: What you and grant have been through is just no

963
00:58:04,220 --> 00:58:07,050
Speaker 1: one should have to go through it but uh the

964
00:58:07,090 --> 00:58:08,810
Speaker 1: way you've both reacted is.

965
00:58:08,710 --> 00:58:11,490
Speaker 2: A testament to your mum so yeah just full

966
00:58:11,530 --> 00:58:14,090
Speaker 1: Credit to you thanks gary anyway let's let's have a

967
00:58:14,130 --> 00:58:17,470
Speaker 1: break and we'll see you back for uh part two

968
00:58:17,490 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 1: shortly Thank you.