Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 2: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 3: It was absolutely shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 3: absolutely really.
Speaker 2: Put his blood on his clothing the day after the
Speaker 2: alleged a toime.
Speaker 1: On a shallow mud bank and it fits through a river.
Speaker 4: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 4: me are good people.
Speaker 1: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 1: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 2: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 2: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 2: Amy Maguire and I'm.
Speaker 1: Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service.
Speaker 1: And a warning this series contains the names of deceased
Speaker 1: peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Speaker 5: You know, one hundred and twenty pounds, so can were.
Speaker 6: And it just builds from there, It builds from there,
Speaker 6: and so they get me to to a point that
Speaker 6: I feel.
Speaker 5: Like I'm so helpless, you know.
Speaker 6: And and for me, that point came because with the
Speaker 6: officers coming in and out the room.
Speaker 5: It happened about three times.
Speaker 6: The third time is when the officer who's actually asking
Speaker 6: me the questions where he just flips tid bangs on
Speaker 6: the table and he reaches for me. And at that point,
Speaker 6: I feel like I'm not gonna make it off the priests.
Speaker 6: I feel like I'm gonna die, right. And at that
Speaker 6: same moment, a detective who comes in the room sitting
Speaker 6: in the back, stops him, you know, starts yelling at him,
Speaker 6: cursing at him, what they're doing, you crazy, get out
Speaker 6: the room, kicks him out the room, and at that moment,
Speaker 6: I feel like he saved my life.
Speaker 5: Right, And he sits there, he goes, may man, you
Speaker 5: a good kid.
Speaker 6: I know you ain't doing this, but she got these
Speaker 6: guys in the other priests and they say you did it.
Speaker 5: I need your help. And I'm like, so, what the hell.
Speaker 6: Am I gonna tell this dude, because I don't know,
Speaker 6: I don't know the facts. I wasn't there, I didn't see.
Speaker 6: But what he does is he gives me a lifeline.
Speaker 6: He pulls out a picture of Kevin Richardson, he lays
Speaker 6: it on the table and he says, you see this kid, right, here.
Speaker 5: Do you know him?
Speaker 6: I say no, And he said, what is this Kevin?
Speaker 6: You see the scratch on his face that came from
Speaker 6: the jag of fighting them.
Speaker 5: Move Now.
Speaker 6: We know he going to jail, but I don't want
Speaker 6: you to go to jail, so I need you to
Speaker 6: help me out, give me something.
Speaker 5: And then he just sits back. He just looks at
Speaker 5: me and just waits. Man. And at that moment, as
Speaker 5: a thought to your kid, what are you doing.
Speaker 6: We're trying to figure out a lot to tell something
Speaker 6: just to stop the pressure from overcoming.
Speaker 3: That was the real Raymond Santana, a member of the
Speaker 3: Central Park Five who were wrongly accused and forced to
Speaker 3: confess to a crime they didn't commit. There you heard
Speaker 3: Raymond talking about part of the interrogation process that resulted
Speaker 3: in his false confession and how the police obtains that,
Speaker 3: and you would have heard, just like Kevin, the police
Speaker 3: went in the room, went out of the room. The
Speaker 3: police used threats of various kinds, and it was different
Speaker 3: for each member of the Central Park Five, and pushed
Speaker 3: and pushed and pushed for hours, including threats of violence
Speaker 3: and actual violence to extract those confessions. The Central Park
Speaker 3: Five story has been made into a popular drama series
Speaker 3: for Netflix that's now been seen by millions around the world.
Speaker 3: In a moment, we're going to discuss that case. But
Speaker 3: what you'll hear as well for the first time ever
Speaker 3: on kurtin the podcast is why we've been away for
Speaker 3: the last few months and why we haven't been able
Speaker 3: to bring updates in Kevin Henry's case. And it's related
Speaker 3: to something that's a very big similarity between the case
Speaker 3: of the Central Park five and Curtin Kevin Henry. But
Speaker 3: first we'll start with Amy. Have you found the reaction
Speaker 3: in Australia to when they see us and the Central
Speaker 3: Park five story in general?
Speaker 2: It's very interesting, Martin, because we've all often said, in
Speaker 2: the case of the Curtain podcast, how similar it is
Speaker 2: to so many cases over in the US, and yet
Speaker 2: Australian audiences still seem to cite cases over seas rather
Speaker 2: than look at their own backyard. And I think we've
Speaker 2: seen that in the reception to this case, because as
Speaker 2: ourisoners are going to hear, there are so many similarities
Speaker 2: in relation to Central Park five and also Kevin Henry's case,
Speaker 2: and in fact we've also mentioned the Central Park five
Speaker 2: case on the podcast before, and yet it seems that
Speaker 2: Australians are less likely to believe particularly Aboriginal witnesses, and
Speaker 2: they're less likely to interrogate the fact that this is
Speaker 2: happening over here and it's a system that they themselves
Speaker 2: are complicit in, and their silence in a sense is
Speaker 2: also you know, quite a violent thing, as was shown
Speaker 2: so brilliantly in the docu series. You know, the impact
Speaker 2: act of not being believed, the impact of being slandered
Speaker 2: as a rapist can have on a person, particularly when
Speaker 2: it's over years and years. So I think it's interesting
Speaker 2: to see how resistant Australia still is to the fact
Speaker 2: this is happening in our own backyard compared to them
Speaker 2: being entertained in relation to drama series like this one.
Speaker 2: But Martin, you know this case in depth. What was
Speaker 2: your sort of taking or response to it when you
Speaker 2: actually saw it.
Speaker 3: I think it was a very important and really good
Speaker 3: portrayal of what happened. There's obviously been a number of
Speaker 3: documentaries that have been run and made, including Ken and
Speaker 3: Sarah Burns is very good documentary. I think what this
Speaker 3: series shows though, was the very human side of a
Speaker 3: case like these the suffering not only of the wrongly
Speaker 3: accused and the young boys, but their families, their friends,
Speaker 3: their communities, and what it does and the way it
Speaker 3: tears people apart. I also think the fact that you
Speaker 3: see the way they're not believed and the way they
Speaker 3: battle with the fact that they're accused of something they
Speaker 3: clearly didn't do. And part of the reaction in Australia,
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, is so often, as we see now,
Speaker 3: that the person isn't believed, and that Aboriginal witnesses and
Speaker 3: Aboriginal people in particular aren't believed. And that's not only
Speaker 3: by the police but by the broader community and as
Speaker 3: we've seen by the media who refuse to make the
Speaker 3: links between this huge, high profile case that's become a
Speaker 3: Netflix series and the cases like Kevins that are occurring
Speaker 3: right now. And it's part of the damage that that
Speaker 3: causes the not believing people, the refusal to see the truth.
Speaker 3: And we see that with the Central Park five, that
Speaker 3: two of the men end up leaving New York, the
Speaker 3: struggles they go through when they're released and being accepted
Speaker 3: back into the community, that even once your innocence is proven,
Speaker 3: that you're still not fully believed by people and that
Speaker 3: that continues to tarnish who you are. But obviously one
Speaker 3: of the most interesting things is the links to Curtain
Speaker 3: and the similarities, and that's something that we're going to
Speaker 3: explore today. I mean, what was the first I guess
Speaker 3: similarity to Kevin's case that jumped out to you.
Speaker 2: The first was definitely the timeline. So the miniseries shows
Speaker 2: the internal sort of discussions that were happening between the
Speaker 2: police and even the prosecutor at the time around the timeline,
Speaker 2: and there were so many inconsistencies in the timeline around
Speaker 2: Central Park and this really horrendous rape that had just occurred,
Speaker 2: and it showed that these five boys who had been
Speaker 2: picked up were nowhere near in the vicinity, and so
Speaker 2: what had to happen was they had to move around
Speaker 2: events and they had to play with the timeline to
Speaker 2: even make it made it fit. And as I watched that,
Speaker 2: I immediately thought of Curdin, because we've shown again that
Speaker 2: there is a real problem with the timeline of the
Speaker 2: night that Curdin was alleged to have committed this crime.
Speaker 2: In fact, we've shown that he had an alibi at
Speaker 2: the time, he had a very small window of opportunity
Speaker 2: in which he could have done this, and in fact,
Speaker 2: there was no witnesses at all to it. And we've
Speaker 2: shown also the problems with the tides and the positions
Speaker 2: of the body. So to me, that was really amazing
Speaker 2: to look at it, particularly looking at the police and
Speaker 2: how quickly they made up their minds, or at least
Speaker 2: in the miniseries, how determined they were once they'd got
Speaker 2: the kids they wanted to tire this with. It was
Speaker 2: never about the truth.
Speaker 5: It was about.
Speaker 2: Finding people they were going to blame this crime on
Speaker 2: in order to get a conviction. So it automatically became
Speaker 2: these are the five ones we've got, and so we're
Speaker 2: going to just build a case against them rather than
Speaker 2: actually look at the truth. And I think we've shown
Speaker 2: that with Kevin's case that once they extracted a confession,
Speaker 2: which is another similarity that we'll go into, they just
Speaker 2: closed all other avenues. So there was never you know,
Speaker 2: the really sad thing is, you know, the actual perpetrator
Speaker 2: went on to commit other really horrendous crimes and so
Speaker 2: that actually affected the safety of women in New York anyway.
Speaker 2: So it really showed just how I guess damaging those
Speaker 2: assumptions were, and they were obviously based on race as well.
Speaker 2: So I think that was the first similarity that sort
Speaker 2: of got me up and thinking, God almighty, you know
Speaker 2: this happened around a similar time as well to Kevin,
Speaker 2: only a couple of years before, and it was happening
Speaker 2: over in Australia. And yet you know, no one's ever
Speaker 2: looked at this case in depth until we were actually
Speaker 2: able to do this podcast. Martin, what did you think
Speaker 2: of that or what were your first I know you've
Speaker 2: known this case before, but when you were watching it,
Speaker 2: what sort of jumped out to you in relation to
Speaker 2: Curtain's case.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the thing that I always look at
Speaker 3: is the police behavior, because the police are the ones
Speaker 3: that are going to determine very quickly whether the case
Speaker 3: is solved or in a case like Kevin or the
Speaker 3: Central Park five, whether they not only get the wrong people,
Speaker 3: but force confession and tain evidence to his timelines and
Speaker 3: not only result in accusing and getting a conviction of
Speaker 3: the wrong person, but ensure that the real perpetrator goes free.
Speaker 3: And so I think what was most interesting for me
Speaker 3: watching this was how quick the police make those deliberate
Speaker 3: errors and deliberate tactics to accuse the wrong people. And
Speaker 3: we know that in Kevin's case they did that immediately,
Speaker 3: and they did that the same with the Central Park five.
Speaker 3: The targeting of young boys, just grabbing anyone a willingness
Speaker 3: to Just as the police targeted anybody who was at
Speaker 3: Tanuba House that night, the police targeted anybody who was
Speaker 3: in Central Park that night who fit the description they
Speaker 3: were after, which was someone who was black. That's all
Speaker 3: they were interested in. And as we know, a lawyer
Speaker 3: approached the police in Kevin's case and told them they
Speaker 3: had not only the wrong person, but told them they
Speaker 3: knew who'd done it. And the police response was, we've
Speaker 3: got a black for a plaque. And to me, that
Speaker 3: is the similarity in the Central Park five. Obviously the
Speaker 3: victim wasn't black, but the target of their investigation, before
Speaker 3: they knew anything about the crime, was to arrest young
Speaker 3: black men, and that happened with Kevin, and it happened
Speaker 3: with the Central Park five, and from there everything else
Speaker 3: spirals out of control.
Speaker 2: And Martin, when you talk about that about another potential suspect,
Speaker 2: there was also talk of white vigilantes who would often
Speaker 2: turn up to Tanuba House, and the detectives on trial
Speaker 2: in Kevin's case actually were questioned about that under cross examination,
Speaker 2: and they admitted that they'd never gone down that line
Speaker 2: of investigation or even thought thought to do it. They
Speaker 2: just brushed it off as if it was nothing. So
Speaker 2: it shows just how narrow their focus was, and their
Speaker 2: focus was in relation to the aboriginality of the alleged perpetrator.
Speaker 2: They never sought to look at whether there were non
Speaker 2: Indigenous people around that night who would actually been shown
Speaker 2: to be preying on young Aboriginal girls at the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, and I think not only had these
Speaker 3: white men been around, they'd made very specific threats that
Speaker 3: they were going to rape Aboriginal women, and they'd used
Speaker 3: racist and derogatory language towards Aboriginal women. They'd come many
Speaker 3: times to the camp and threatened violence. They'd had to
Speaker 3: be chased away at certain points, and this was put
Speaker 3: not only to the police on the stand, but it
Speaker 3: had been raised in a number of the witness statements
Speaker 3: by Aboriginal people telling the police that this had gone
Speaker 3: on and that these white vigilantes had actually been there
Speaker 3: at Tanuba House making threats of rape the night before
Speaker 3: Linda was killed, and yet on the stand, the lead
Speaker 3: investigator admitted he made not a single effort to follow
Speaker 3: up on that, didn't even attempt to find out the
Speaker 3: names of these people, made no effort whatsoever. And we
Speaker 3: also know that there was other perpetrators or potential perpetrators'
Speaker 3: names raised in witness statements, and the same lead investigator
Speaker 3: admitted on the stand that he made no attempt to
Speaker 3: even question these individuals. He knew their names directly and
Speaker 3: did not even approach them. Now, I think that's clear
Speaker 3: in both Kevin's case and the Central Park five that
Speaker 3: immediately they'd made up their mind and it didn't matter
Speaker 3: what evidence came forward, they weren't to change it.
Speaker 2: Martin, what else did you see when you were watching
Speaker 2: the miniseries, as in similarities to Kevin's.
Speaker 3: Case, very key issues that you see in the Central
Speaker 3: Park five drama series is the way that the boys
Speaker 3: are isolated. We see that some of them had their
Speaker 3: parents there, some didn't. In Raymond's case, he had his
Speaker 3: grandmother there who was then nushed out of the room. So,
Speaker 3: like all of the witnesses in Kevin's case, they didn't
Speaker 3: have legal help they didn't have anyone there to support them,
Speaker 3: and they're under a huge amount of stress because they're
Speaker 3: being alleged to commit a crime that they know nothing about.
Speaker 3: This is one of the most stressful situations someone can
Speaker 3: be put in, that they are being accused of a
Speaker 3: violent and serious crime that carries a very long prison sentence,
Speaker 3: and yet they have no information to give the police,
Speaker 3: and this puts people in a very difficult situation. Now,
Speaker 3: the police can either choose to believe that or they
Speaker 3: can force the issue. And this is where the Reed
Speaker 3: technique that we've discussed before comes into play. Now, whether
Speaker 3: the individual officers know what the Reed technique is or not,
Speaker 3: and we see in the Central Park five drama series
Speaker 3: that one of the officers denies knowing what it is.
Speaker 3: Offices around them have been trained in the technique and
Speaker 3: this is what they're taught and how they learn to interrogate.
Speaker 3: And so rather than see that they have a witness
Speaker 3: in front of them that cannot answer for any of
Speaker 3: their questions, they start to force the issue and they
Speaker 3: start to ramp up the pressure and make accusations, and
Speaker 3: when that doesn't work, they go to one of the
Speaker 3: techniques that's used in reed, which is to claim that
Speaker 3: other individuals who were there, so other members of the
Speaker 3: Central Park five have made claims against the person they're interviewing,
Speaker 3: and we saw that exactly the same in Kevin's case,
Speaker 3: that when they couldn't get answers out of people, when
Speaker 3: no one would confess because the people they were interviewing,
Speaker 3: including Kevin, had not committed the crime, they started to
Speaker 3: allege that other people had said they had. And we
Speaker 3: saw in particular the effect that that had, particularly on
Speaker 3: the youngest member, Tron, but also Cory Wise, because he'd
Speaker 3: only been asked to come down to be with his
Speaker 3: friend Yusef, and so his level of understanding of this
Speaker 3: was less than anyone else's. We also know the other
Speaker 3: issues that Corey was dealing with that will get into
Speaker 3: and so then it just becomes a matter of grinding
Speaker 3: the person down, and whether it's through threats of violence
Speaker 3: has occurred in Kevin's case, or both the violence that
Speaker 3: was used against Corey, but also the sheer amount of
Speaker 3: time the young boys were interrogated for it becomes quite
Speaker 3: easy to break a person down with these threats over
Speaker 3: hours and hours on end.
Speaker 2: One of the things that really stood out to me Martin,
Speaker 2: particularly with Corey, but in all of the boys' cases,
Speaker 2: they were obviously so confused, in a state of confusion.
Speaker 2: I mean, I thought it was really interesting how she
Speaker 2: started it with from really from their perspectives, they had
Speaker 2: no idea that a crime had even really taken place,
Speaker 2: and so just this confusion about what was happening. But
Speaker 2: particularly in relation to Corey wise, it was interesting how
Speaker 2: it was similar to Brendan Ducie and that he just
Speaker 2: thought he could say whatever and he'd go home. And
Speaker 2: he thought, oh, well, if I give them what they want,
Speaker 2: we can go home now. I'll be able to go
Speaker 2: home understanding or no comprehension that this is actually going
Speaker 2: to affect his life. And I think that was very
Speaker 2: similar to Kevin, because I think Kevin just went in
Speaker 2: there thinking he was going to give a statement the
Speaker 2: day that he gave his alleged confession, and he didn't
Speaker 2: seem to realize at the time what he was going
Speaker 2: to be charged with, what the police were angling for.
Speaker 2: Did you get that sense as well, or did you
Speaker 2: have any feeling or thoughts around that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I think that's absolutely right that in all
Speaker 3: these situations and It's something that studies have shown across
Speaker 3: thousands of cases that young people, people who have experienced
Speaker 3: trauma in their lives, people with learning difficulties, people from
Speaker 3: black communities who have been victimized so often by the police,
Speaker 3: do often give statements believing that if they just cooperate,
Speaker 3: if they just say what the policemen say they need
Speaker 3: to say. It's basically the yes model that if they
Speaker 3: be polite and do what they're told, they'll get to
Speaker 3: go home. And I think in Brendan's case, in Corey's case,
Speaker 3: in Cavin's case, all three knew nothing of what they
Speaker 3: were being accused of, because, as we know, all three
Speaker 3: are innocent, and they all cooperated under the false assumption
Speaker 3: that they would be able to go home. And what
Speaker 3: all three also have in the common is that none
Speaker 3: of them were afforded a lawyer. Now there's different reasons
Speaker 3: as to why there was no lawyer present in each case,
Speaker 3: but any time someone is being accused of murder, there
Speaker 3: should be a lawyer present. Now we know that in
Speaker 3: all three cases, basically the similarity is that all three
Speaker 3: were tricked into not having a lawyer there or threatened
Speaker 3: that a lawyer shouldn't be present, and the lawyer plays
Speaker 3: the role of not only the legal advocate understanding what
Speaker 3: will happen if you confess to something you know nothing about,
Speaker 3: that you clearly didn't do. But that lawyer is not
Speaker 3: under the stress that that person like Kevan or Brendan
Speaker 3: or Cory is under. They can be the calming influence.
Speaker 3: They can also stand up to the police and tell
Speaker 3: them to stop and speak to their client and explain
Speaker 3: very clearly that not only do you not have to
Speaker 3: say anything, but that what you are saying because you're
Speaker 3: being forced to say it by the police, knowing yourself
Speaker 3: that it's not true, but that you're just trying to
Speaker 3: get home, that you won't go home, you'll go to
Speaker 3: jail and potentially for the rest of your life. That
Speaker 3: is absolutely why the police made sure lawyers weren't present.
Speaker 3: If the police knew very confidently that all three had
Speaker 3: committed these crimes, they would have no problem with having
Speaker 3: a lawyer present as his standard practice and as he's required.
Speaker 3: If they had the evidence that all three had committed
Speaker 3: these crimes, they wouldn't have needed a statement from them
Speaker 3: in the first place. All three could have maintained their silence,
Speaker 3: and the police would have had enough evidence to convict
Speaker 3: them if they'd actually done the crime. But as we know,
Speaker 3: all three didn't commit these crimes, and all the police
Speaker 3: could do to get a conviction was to force a
Speaker 3: false confession. And I think that's the most disturbing and
Speaker 3: disgusting in part, is that in all three cases we
Speaker 3: have a female victim. In all three cases, that female
Speaker 3: victim and her family deserve justice, and yet from the
Speaker 3: very start, the police in all three cases in Manitouac
Speaker 3: County in New York and in Rockhampton and Queensland had
Speaker 3: no concern about getting justice for the victim and their family.
Speaker 3: They knew they had the wrong people, and yet they
Speaker 3: were determined to get a conviction otherwise. And this is
Speaker 3: something that people are going to have to grapple with.
Speaker 3: This is the issue I think that goes to the
Speaker 3: heart of why the Australian media don't cover these cases,
Speaker 3: probably is a refusal to believe the police will act
Speaker 3: in this manner.
Speaker 2: Now madin the very I mean, the most hurrowing episode
Speaker 2: really for me was the last one where it actually
Speaker 2: showed what had happened to Corey Wise, who was placed
Speaker 2: in the adult jail and was just subjected to torture
Speaker 2: and abuse continually. And I guess the reason it's about
Speaker 2: to me he was particularly when he came up for parole,
Speaker 2: because I had so many similarities to Kevin's case and
Speaker 2: where we currently stand now, we're just going to play
Speaker 2: a quick clip of the actor who plays Corey Wise.
Speaker 5: Thank you for seeing me.
Speaker 6: I've never been in trouble in my whole life ever,
Speaker 6: and when I get out, I don't plan on starting
Speaker 6: no trouble.
Speaker 3: Good.
Speaker 6: I'm a good person and I know our feelings for
Speaker 6: anybody or the situation.
Speaker 5: I just won't go home.
Speaker 4: Are you prepared to take full responsibility and admit to
Speaker 4: the crimes in which you've been found guilty? Mister Wise.
Speaker 4: Until you are ready to take the responsibility for the
Speaker 4: crimes in which you've been convicted, this process cannot go further.
Speaker 2: So, Martin, when you saw that, did it draw similarities
Speaker 2: with Kevin's case and where we currently are now with
Speaker 2: parole for Kevin?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think for people who have seen the
Speaker 3: Central Park five series or have watched the documentaries in
Speaker 3: the past, they understand that the reason that Corey spent
Speaker 3: more time in prison than anyone else. Was that he
Speaker 3: refused to admit his guilt in front of the parole board.
Speaker 3: And I think there's two very clear reasons Corey refused
Speaker 3: to do it. A is the most obvious, he did
Speaker 3: not commit the crime. And the second is the abuse
Speaker 3: that he suffered in prison, both at the hands of
Speaker 3: other inmates and guards and the system in general. And
Speaker 3: that once he had found the ability to empower himself
Speaker 3: in some way that he felt remain and survive, he
Speaker 3: wasn't simply going to admit to something he never did
Speaker 3: to get out of there. He was going to hold
Speaker 3: that single truce until the day he died, because all
Speaker 3: that he had left of who he was was the
Speaker 3: fact he did not commit that crime. He was innocent.
Speaker 3: And what we can reveal for the first time in
Speaker 3: curtin the podcast is that Kevin Henry's situation is identical.
Speaker 3: Kevin has been up for parole a number of times,
Speaker 3: but a constant issue is the desire in both the
Speaker 3: Central Park five in Corey's case in particular to admit
Speaker 3: guil and the requirement in Queensland for a person in
Speaker 3: Kevin's situation to admit gil. And now, while Kevin is
Speaker 3: willing to cooperate on all other issues and has done so,
Speaker 3: while Kevin has volunteered to go through all the programs
Speaker 3: that are necessary to do the work that he's required
Speaker 3: to be released, to appear willingly before the parole board
Speaker 3: to answer any and all questions. The one thing Kevin
Speaker 3: shares absolutely with Corey is he will not admit to
Speaker 3: a crime he did not do. And I think it's
Speaker 3: unconscionable to ask a person who has served so long
Speaker 3: in prison for something they did not do, where all
Speaker 3: the evidence shows they did not do it, and where
Speaker 3: that has become increasingly obvious to all involved. To simply
Speaker 3: require someone admit to something they didn't do says that
Speaker 3: we would rather you lie to us than tell us
Speaker 3: the truth. We would rather you add a fabrication on
Speaker 3: this totally fabricated case to set you free, rather than
Speaker 3: tell the truth. And I think what Corey and Kevin
Speaker 3: also share is an absolute integrity, an absolute commitment to
Speaker 3: honesty and the truth that there is a willingness to
Speaker 3: suffer further rather than ever admit to something they didn't do.
Speaker 3: And I think it comes out very clearly in the
Speaker 3: series about the Central Park five and very well portrayed
Speaker 3: by the young man who played Corey Wise, that there
Speaker 3: is a steely determination that both men share that they
Speaker 3: just will not buckle and ever confess again to something
Speaker 3: they didn't do. And for me, that's the most emotional part.
Speaker 3: So how was that aiming to see played out for you?
Speaker 3: You knowing that this is the same situation Kevin finds
Speaker 3: himself in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really amazing. I mean even to watch
Speaker 2: the sort of as Corey Wise starts to learn more
Speaker 2: about the system and see him suddenly use that as
Speaker 2: an act of resistance against the system and take control
Speaker 2: of that. And it was really interesting to me because
Speaker 2: it marries so much of Kevin's own story, and Kevin
Speaker 2: is very culturally strong. I think this may be a
Speaker 2: point of difference in that Kevin grew up with culture,
Speaker 2: he grew up on country, he grew up learning from
Speaker 2: several strong, original people in his hometown of Worabinda, And
Speaker 2: I think that strength is that core strength is really
Speaker 2: what keeps him going, and it's what gives him that
Speaker 2: drive and that resistance and that ability to keep surviving
Speaker 2: in the face of everything that's been thrown at him.
Speaker 2: And yet you know, it's very interesting to know that
Speaker 2: you know this. It's very interesting to note that you know,
Speaker 2: the Central Park five are now being their stories have
Speaker 2: finally been told, and Kevin's story is still there waiting
Speaker 2: to be told in its entirety. So I think that's
Speaker 2: what was sad for me as well, to think that
Speaker 2: all up, Corey spent served the longest sentence, which was
Speaker 2: twelve years, which is way too long. One day in
Speaker 2: prison for an innocent person is too long anyway, But
Speaker 2: Kevin's been in there for twenty eight years, and he's
Speaker 2: been serving time over his sentence for the past ten years.
Speaker 2: So it really stood out to me the fact that
Speaker 2: something needs to happen soon, I think.
Speaker 3: And so as we've both explained that this is the
Speaker 3: situation Kevin finds himself in, is that we're currently going
Speaker 3: through the parole process. We absolutely hoped that Kevin will
Speaker 3: be released very soon. We're doing all we can to
Speaker 3: work with the parole board to provide the information they
Speaker 3: require to be satisfied in releasing Kevin. But the number
Speaker 3: one issue remains that Kevin, like Corey, will not admit
Speaker 3: to a crime he did not commit. And as Amy
Speaker 3: has explained very clearly that Kevin has a strength in
Speaker 3: who he is and his culture that allows him to
Speaker 3: maintain his resistance absolutely after nearly three decades in prison
Speaker 3: for a crime he didn't commit. And I think this
Speaker 3: is something the Australian media should be exploring, should be investigating,
Speaker 3: and should be highlighting because, as we've also discussed in
Speaker 3: kurtin the podcast, how many other Aboriginal prisoners are in
Speaker 3: the exact same situation and not receiving the attention they deserve.
Speaker 3: And these are all issues will continue to explore as
Speaker 3: we go forward. But I hope that explains why we
Speaker 3: haven't been able to provide much information over the last
Speaker 3: few months. And now you understand, as you will have
Speaker 3: seen Corey in a dramatized series refuse to admit his guilt.
Speaker 3: That's what's happening inside a prison in Queensland for Kevin
Speaker 3: Henry